Factsheet: Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund

On April 4, the Environmental Protection Agency announced recipients of the National Clean Investment Fund and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator grants that make up the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. President Biden kicked off this Earth Month with a $20 billion investment that will provide Americans with cheaper, cleaner energy choices and ensure that working families and lower-income Latino, Black, and brown families aren’t left out of Biden’s clean energy boom.

What is the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF)?

• The GGRF is a $27 billion investment from President Biden’s climate plan to mobilize private capital in projects to fight the climate crisis. 
• On April 4, the administration announced recipients of the National Clean Investment Fund and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator grants.
  • National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) ($14 billion)
    • The winning institutions will partner with the private sector to provide accessible, affordable financing for tens of thousands of clean energy projects nationwide.
    • This fund is designed to lessen lower-income people’s energy burden while lowering greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants and making our air and water cleaner. That is why at least 40 percent of the $20 billion is set aside for marginalized communities.
  • Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA) ($6 billion)
    • The winning nonprofits will provide funding and assistance to build the clean financing capacity of local community lenders working in low-income and disadvantaged communities—so that underinvested communities have the capital they need to deploy clean technology projects. 
• At least 70 percent ($14 billion) of today’s total announced funds will be invested in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
•  This is the Inflation Reduction Act’s largest non-tax investment to build a clean energy economy.

Who are the winners?

• NCIF
  • Climate United
  • Power Forward Communities
  • Coalition for Green Capital
• CCIA
  • Justice Climate Fund
  • Opportunity Finance Network
  • Inclusiv
  • Native CDFI Network
  • Appalachian Community Capital

Why this matters for Latinos

• Low-income households tend to face financial obstacles to setting up solar power and other clean energies and they spend three times as much of their income on energy compared to the national 3 percent average. African-American and Hispanic populations are disproportionately impacted by high energy burdens.
• Latinos continuously report that the climate crisis is an issue they care about and want the government to address, with 71% of Hispanic adults saying they believe the climate crisis impacts their communities.
  • In 2021, Pew found that 56% of U.S. Latinos live in areas that have experienced extreme weather events within the last year. And that number is only likely to go up. Nearly 2 million Latinos also live within a half-mile radius of oil and gas facilities and that number is increasing. 
  • Latinos are 43% more likely than non-Hispanic whites to live in areas where extreme temperatures are expected to cause future reductions in labor hours.
• Solar energy is not reaching communities of color equally, as majority-Black and -Hispanic neighborhoods see significantly fewer rooftop solar installed compared to majority-white neighborhoods.

How will this affect Latino communities? 

• The three program objectives of the GGRF are to invest in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants; to deliver the benefits of those projects to local communities—particularly underserved communities; and to mobilize financing and attract private capital to these projects.
  • These funds have the explicit goal of ensuring that communities that have in the past been overlooked for these kinds of investments will now have easy and supportive access to them, ensuring that benefits of President Biden’s climate plan reach those closest to the effects of pollution and environmental harm.
  • Oil and methane gas pollution have long disproportionately harmed Black and Hispanic residents, as shown by a study from the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Paying higher prices for energy that makes us even sicker is a cruel irony.
• The CCIA aims to help communities that have historically faced underinvestment. That is why it provided these funds to nonprofit lenders that already operate in Black, Brown, Latino, and lower-income communities. 

More resources:

• Climate Power statement
• White House press release