On the evening of Thursday, February 16, LWV-PA’s Natural Resources Committee (NRC) presented a webinar on President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its impact on cities’ actions to mitigate climate change.

The webinar targeted not only League members but also a particular audience beyond the League: the 230 governing officials of the thirteen San Gabriel Valley cities that LWV-PA serves. The focus was on the $369 billion that the IRA will dispense over the next several years to facilitate fossil fuel reduction and the switch to clean electrification of apartments, buildings, and vehicles.

In an effort to make sure all of our city mayors, city councilmembers, planning and environmental commissions, and finance personnel have access to information on how to obtain their fair share of this funding, the NRC mailed personal letters to all 230 recipients, with the following enclosures: the invitation, the flyer about the webinar, and an attractive card listing the National League’s Ten Actions That Cities Can Take to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Many members of Pasadena 100 (a group devoted to speeding up fossil fuel reduction) attended, as well as representatives from half our thirteen service-area city governments.

Our speaker, Meghan Pazik, is Policy Director of Climate Mayors, a network of over 500 U.S. mayors committed to climate leadership. Climate Mayors joined with C40 Cities, an international climate leadership group, to produce an 80-page guidebook, Climate Action and the Inflation Reduction Act. Pazik’s slide presentation went through page upon page of highly detailed graphs from the guidebook showing how the money is to be allocated, as well as the methods necessary to obtain the funding. In many cases, grant proposals will be required. In other cases, tax credits, loans, and rebates will be the vehicles for obtaining help to abandon fossil fuels.

Chapter 4, “Inflation Reduction Act Provisions Related to Local Government Climate Action,” contains a multi-page table that lists the law’s sections (titles) representing each of the IRA provisions that relate to local government climate priorities. The table details how much funding is available, who can access it, the mechanism (e.g., grants) whereby funds will be accessed, the focus area (e.g., electric vehicles), the agency through which applications will be made, and a timeline for “next steps.” (See the image for an example.)

Our moderator, NRC member William Kelly, did a superb job presenting specific questions, including the following examples:

• How can poorer cities ensure they will receive the 40 percent of the funding set aside for them?
• Will cities that collaborate stand a better chance at receiving grants than individual cities?
• Will only certain makes of EV cars be eligible?

Some of the questions were too specific to be answered at this time. Pazik pointed out that her team is open to cities staying in touch with Climate Mayors as application deadlines become clearer. It became obvious during the presentation that cities will need to be highly aware of this guidebook, as well as news releases and information on the IRA as it is revealed to cities, in order to obtain a share of the funding. The fixed amounts of dollars will require competitive grant proposals. City planners and councils will need to pursue aggressive actions to avoid missing out on funding sources if they hope to obtain financial assistance to accelerate their switch to electrification.

If you missed the webinar, we save you a copy: You can view the video by clicking here!

—Julie Parker, Natural Resources Committee