EPA plans to announce the recipients of $4.6 billion in climate pollution reduction grants next month, a senior air official told a panel of agency advisers Tuesday afternoon.
“I never thought I would say it, but I wish we had more,” Jennifer Macedonia said at the meeting of the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee. The agency has received more than $30 billion worth of requests for the program, which was created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to help spur decarbonization around the country.
Almost all states, as well as various cities and American Indian tribes, have put in requests for projects like a multistate heavy-duty vehicle charging corridor in the Upper Midwest and cutting emissions from public schools and municipal buildings in Maine. The program also included another $250 million in planning grants.
“We’re looking, really, for a race to the top” to lift up “the best ideas in the plans,” said Macedonia, who earlier this year became the Office of Air and Radiation’s deputy assistant administrator for implementation of the act.