
President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law today, making it official that the US will spend a historic $370 billion to tackle climate change over the next decade. The extra cash for clean energy, electric vehicles, efficient manufacturing, and pollution cleanup will go a long way to nudging the US closer to sustainable climate targets.
Most of the focus has been on the new law’s billions in clean energy tax credits and electric vehicles, a mix of which will go to consumers, utilities, and manufacturers. In terms of emissions cuts, boosting zero-carbon energy from its current 20 percent of the grid will pack the biggest punch of the IRA’s emissions reductions. Other investments in electrified transportation and industrial energy efficiency stand to pay off in the longer term.
But the law also covers a lot of ground, including some policies and programs that are fascinating in their own right but are usually lumped together under the law’s broad “climate” category. Here are four that shouldn’t be missed.
1) $3 billion for highway removal and community cleanup
One of the most damaging legacies of the intersection between racism and fossil fuels is how highways were built to cut through Latino and Black communities. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 alone displaced more than 1 million people, according to the Department of Transportation. People who remained near these roads, overwhelmingly communities of color, were exposed to more fine particulate matter from the tailpipes of cars and trucks.