The Coalition for Green Capital, Power Forward Communities and Climate United are three of the five consortiums that are reportedly the most serious contenders to receive billions in National Clean Investment Fund grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion EPA program established by the Inflation Reduction Act, according to E&E News.
A "Green bank" is an institution that provides financing options specifically for climate-related investments; they can be public, "Quasi-public" or nonprofit companies, leveraging public and private money to back projects that are principally focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA. In addition to Coalition for Green Capital, Power Forward Communities and Climate United, the reported shortlist also includes Ecority and the Justice Climate Fund, according to E&E News.
"All applications submitted to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund competitions are being put through a rigorous evaluation and selection process in line with the high standards of EPA's Competition Policy, which ensures that the competitive process for EPA funds remains fair, impartial and free of undue influence," an EPA spokesperson told the DCNF. Under the IRA, the agency is required to deploy all of the program's $27 billion out to grantees by the end of September 2024, a timeline which Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have suggested poses increased risks of inadequate oversight.
CGC board members include David Hayes, a senior fellow for the Natural Resources Defense Council; Cecilia Martinez, the Bezos Earth Fund's chief of environmental and climate justice; and Julie Greene Collier, chief of staff for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The CGC has partnered with several existing "Green banks" known to have political connections to Biden and the Democratic apparatus, including the Connecticut Green Bank, the New York Green Bank and the Montgomery County Green Bank in Maryland.
The coalition has applied for $9.5 billion of funds from the GGRF, according to the coalition's website.
The coalition has applied for up to the full $14 billion made available by the NCIF. The organization is focused on expanding residential solar power and battery storage, decarbonizing buildings and to reducing emissions generated by travel, and it would support each of these aims with funds the EPA may award.
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