Showalter Quoted on IRA as One of the Biggest Environmental Policy Developments of 2022

Mike said that the legislation put a lot of funding into energy and the environment very quickly and relied on some relatively untried concepts.

"The way they designed the IRA to support equitable spending and to use those principles, which flow from the environmental justice commitments that the Biden administration has made, and to shift them using IRA funds, is pretty novel, pretty interesting and pretty untested," he said.

The IRA appropriated $3 billion in climate and environmental justice grants to be distributed the Environmental Protection Agency’s brand new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. The bill appropriated an additional $3 billion to reconnect communities divided by existing infrastructure barriers and mitigate other impacts of transportation projects, and $3 billion more to reduce air pollution at ports, where nearby communities suffer disproportionate pollution burdens.

Mike questioned how the money will be allocated.

"It may be that you have people with better access to lawyers and bankers gobbling up all the money, or it may not," he said. "The Biden administration is trying to use databases and analytics in ways to target this money that are different."

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