The Biden administration has tapped a coalition of environmental organizations and former Obama White House advisers to promote green energy tax rebates, Axios reported Tuesday.
The coalition, led by nonprofit Civic Nation, plans to lead a grassroots “Save on Clean Energy” campaign, educating Americans about home energy rebates in an attempt to increase consumer renewable energy adoption. However, only one state has a home energy rebate program currently distributing Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds, and the majority of the $8.8 billion in IRA funding earmarked for the initiative has not even been applied for, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).
“These rebate programs, because they were new and because they were based in the states, they were sort of complicated to get them up and running,” John Podesta, President Joe Biden’s senior adviser for international climate policy, told Axios.
New York is the only state with an operational home energy rebate program that uses IRA funds, which were added to a pre-existing energy rebate program. As of Tuesday, 21 states, excluding New York, had applied for full funding to launch their home energy rebate programs, and only six have had their applications approved, according to the DOE.
Moreover, the total amount of funding the 21 states and territories have applied for or received is $2.7 billion, meaning even if all of the funding requested today was approved and the roughly $160 million provided to New York is counted, the federal government would still have over 65% of the $8.8 billion earmarked in the IRA left to distribute, according to the Department of Energy’s home energy rebate tracker.
As a result, the billions in rebate funding is unlikely to be allocated before the November election, according to an analysis E&E performed in June, and would likely be awarded differently under a Trump White House.
“If the money isn’t disbursed before a Trump administration, the new administration would surely review the criteria for how the money is awarded,” Dan Simmons, former assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during the Trump administration, said in an email to E&E News. “For many awards, the Biden administration has included extra-statutory requirements and all of those will be reviewed for alignment with administration policy.”
The “Save on Clean Energy” campaign, which plans to hold events and share resources promoting Biden’s home energy rebates to the American public, involves more than 40 businesses and non-governmental organizations, Axios reported.
Civic Nation’s CEO Kyle Lierman and board chair Valerie Jarrett were both members of former President Barack Obama’s administration.
One of the campaign’s backers is green shareholder activism organization Ceres, according to the Civic Nation website. Ceres came under fire in November, after the nonprofit appeared to make an attempt to coordinate with a Democratic financial official to publish an op-ed on climate investment regulations in the official’s name.
Another member of the coalition, foreign-billionaire-funded nonprofit Climate Power, pressured broadcasters to drop advertisements criticizing President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle agenda in February.
Meanwhile, the League of Conservation Voters, which is also involved in the campaign, opposes offshore oil and gas projects due to their ecological impacts, yet supports offshore wind developments despite the large number of mysterious whale deaths tied to their construction.
The White House and Civic Nation did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Featured Image Credit: The White House
