Today, I joined Member Scholar and University of San Francisco School of Law professor Alice Kaswan in releasing an in-depth analysis of California’s climate and clean energy funding programs for the state’s historically marginalized and underserved communities.
The set of reports and fact sheets, Funding a Clean and Equitable Energy Transition: Lessons from California, follows the recent publication of the Center’s California Climate Justice Index, which details the laws, executive orders, agencies, funding processes, and funding programs that shape climate policy for the nation’s most populous state.
The new seven-part report first identifies the many sources — including federal dollars, cap-and-trade revenue, state tax revenue, and utility ratepayers — that fund climate justice programs in California. We then dissect how state agencies determine funding priorities, how they plan and design programs, and the various funding mechanisms agencies ultimately use to disburse these funds across various sectors, agencies, individuals, businesses, local governments, regional planning entities, and community groups.
Informed by extensive interviews with community leaders, advocates, and policymakers, and by agency reports, we highlight the systemic barriers that can impair efforts to extend the benefits of the clean energy transition to those in need. We also discuss the critical role community-based organizations and advocates play in program design and implementation.
Professor Kaswan and I offer numerous recommendations to improve existing systems. They include:
We close by proposing a “radical alternative” for policymakers and community leaders in the state and beyond. To avoid the roadblocks and extensive resources associated with competitive grants, a process that often leaves out the most under-resourced communities, the state should identify these communities and provide block grants to help them plan and implement a holistic clean energy transition. Resources devoted to the grant application and review process could instead be devoted to providing communities with more direct access to resources to plan and implement community-driven climate solutions that respond to cross-cutting needs and help the state more equitably and effectively achieve its climate goals.
Here's a roadmap to the series:
Check out our report page or use the links above to access each part of the series.
Banner image courtesy of Míocar.
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Catalina Gonzalez | November 15, 2023
On November 15, I joined Member Scholar and University of San Francisco School of Law professor Alice Kaswan in releasing an in-depth analysis of California’s climate and clean energy funding programs for the state’s historically marginalized and underserved communities. The set of reports and fact sheets, "Funding a Clean and Equitable Energy Transition: Lessons from California," follows the recent publication of the Center’s California Climate Justice Index, which details the laws, executive orders, agencies, funding processes, and funding programs that shape climate policy for the nation’s most populous state.
Uma Outka | November 13, 2023
In his first month in office, President Biden signed an executive order, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” recommitting the federal government to climate action and environmental justice. In April 2023, an additional executive order, “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All,” reinforced the administration’s commitment to a “whole-of-government approach to environmental justice.” The renewed commitment to environmental justice is gratifying for all who care about these issues — and the challenge of accomplishing whole-of-government implementation is real. Among numerous complicating aspects of this shift, one key challenge is state resistance — even outright hostility — to federal environmental justice priorities.
Shelley Welton | November 8, 2023
This summer, we marked the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States’ most significant climate change law. Many advocates for environmental justice, myself included, were disappointed by several features of the Act, including the greenlighting of certain fossil fuel infrastructure projects. Nevertheless, the law unlocked unprecedented streams of investment into clean energy via tax credits and direct spending mechanisms.
Lemir Teron | November 6, 2023
Energy justice mandates that renewable energy transitions center marginalized and historically overburdened households, including fenceline and extraction communities, that have faced heightened burdens from the prevalent fossil fuel-based energy system, and further have been mostly overlooked by the burgeoning renewable energy sector.
Carmen Gonzalez, Rebecca Bratspies | November 1, 2023
Member Scholar John Knox's article, Environmental Justice as Environmental Human Rights, recognizes the many accomplishments of U.S. environmental law while pointedly acknowledging its greatest shortcoming: the failure to address environmental racism. As a solution, the article proposes stronger linkages between environmental justice movements and international human rights law. As the article explains, international human rights law provides an important tool for understanding how environmental racism undermines U.S. environmental law.
Daniel Farber | October 30, 2023
A forthcoming article by John Knox and Nicole Tronolone brings international human rights law to bear on the issue of environmental justice. They argue that international human rights law provides a basis for treating some types of environmental inequities as human rights violations. In particular, they argue that the government has a duty to redress racial disparities in exposure to pollution and toxic chemicals. In their view, the government has conspicuously failed in this duty. In a recent article of my own, I tried to work through questions about how regulations could address economic and racial inequality.
Sidney A. Shapiro | October 25, 2023
According to conventional expectations, the idea of incorporating stories in rulemaking will seem radical, but it is conventional expectations that have led to the country’s failure to effectively promote environmental justice. International norms highlight this failure. There cannot be a “right to participate” if the best method of participating — storytelling — is devalued or ignored. Now is the time — past time, really — to build the procedures we need to listen to the environmental justice stories no one hears.
John Knox | October 23, 2023
The quest for environmental justice is also a quest for environmental human rights. The fight is the same fight, and the lessons learned in one arena can help in the other.
Alexandra Klass | October 11, 2023
Under the Federal Power Act, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has an obligation to maintain national grid reliability and to ensure “just and reasonable” rates for wholesale electricity sales and transmission. Notably, Congress has not granted FERC authority over the siting and permitting of most interstate transmission lines, as it has with interstate natural gas pipelines, leaving that authority over power lines primarily with the states. Even in the absence of congressional action, however, FERC has powerful tools using its existing statutory authority over rates and reliability to incentivize regulated transmission owners and grid planners to build the large-scale regional “macro-grid” the country needs.