The Biden administration celebrated Earth Week by announcing several sustainability initiatives.

Elizabeth Wimbush, director of sustainability and responsibility at PPAI, is particularly excited about the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar For All program, which will provide $7 billion in funding to bring residential solar power to more than 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

  • The program aims to save these households more than $350 million in electricity costs annually – approximately $400 per household – and avoid more than 30 million metric tons of carbon pollution over the next 25 years.

“Addressing climate change while simultaneously empowering disadvantaged communities is a potent two-fold strategy,” Wimbush says. “Clean water, clean energy and reducing emissions from non-renewable power sources are all essential components in the collective effort to mitigate environmental degradation and promote sustainable development for future generations.”

Cleaner Water

During the White House Water Summit on Tuesday, the Biden administration announced “The America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge,” a national goal to protect, restore and reconnect eight million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of the nation’s river and streams.

Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Indian Health Services (IHS) pledged $700 million and the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) pledged $320 million to accelerate the delivery of drinking water and community sanitation infrastructure projects in Indian Country.


Cleaner Transportation

On Wednesday, the Biden administration vowed to transition to a zero-emissions freight sector for truck, rail, aviation and marine, along with a commitment to develop a national zero-emissions freight strategy. 

  • This new commitment aligns with Biden’s existing goals for a carbon pollution-free energy sector by 2035 and for achieving net-zero emissions from the transportation sector by 2050.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also announced a nearly $1 billion funding opportunity for cities, states and tribes through the Inflation Reduction Act to replace Class 6 and Class 7 heavy duty vehicles, which include school buses, trash trucks and delivery trucks, with zero-emissions vehicles.

Cleaner Energy

On Thursday, the EPA introduced a suite of standards to cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as toxic air pollution, water pollution and land contamination from fossil fuel power plants.

  • The EPA’s greenhouse gas emission standards will avoid 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon pollution through 2047, equivalent to the annual emissions of 328 million gas cars.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has pledged up to $331 million for a new transmission line to strengthen America’s electric grid infrastructure. A capacity contract from the Transmission Facilitation Program (TFP) will support a new 285-mile transmission line from Idaho to Nevada, bringing more than 2,000 Megawatts of needed transmission capacity to the region.

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Additionally, the DOE is releasing a final rule to make federal permitting of new transmission lines more efficient. The rule establishes the Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorization and Permits (CITAP) program, which aims to improve coordination across agencies, create efficiencies and establish a standard two-year timeline for federal transmission authorizations and permits.
 
The DOE is also issuing a final rule to create a faster track for completing environmental reviews of upgrades to existing transmission lines. The rule creates a categorical exclusion – the simplest form of review under the National Environmental Policy Act – for projects that use existing transmission rights of way, such as reconductoring projects, as well as for solar and energy storage projects on already disturbed lands.