Federal government gives Illinois $430 million to fight climate change - WBEZ Chicago
Feds fund climate change in Illinois - WBEZ Chicago
Residents in neighborhoods like Chicago’s Little Village complain about trucks. New federal money to Illinois will go toward electrifying state vehicles.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Federal government gives Illinois $430 million to fight climate change
U.S. EPA is doling out money under the Biden Administration pollution reduction plan.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is awarding $430 million to Illinois to curb greenhouse gas emissions by electrifying vehicles, accelerating clean energy workforce training and retrofitting buildings.
“This was a big win for the climate and for Illinois,” said JC Kibbey, the state climate advisor for Illinois. “It’s going to get cleaner air, lower bills, grow our clean energy economy and create jobs here in our state.”
Kibbey adds that the money will allow the state to drastically cut planet warming emissions by an estimated 57 million tons between now and 2050 — the equivalent of taking more than 13.5 million gas powered vehicles off the road for good, according to the EPA.
The money comes from the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, which awarded $4.3 billion federal funds to a mix of 25 state, local and tribal entities. It’s funded through President Joe Biden’s climate legislation. Illinois was awarded the full amount requested, which it will receive over the next five years.
Illinois has already made progress on some of the goals in part through the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA). The sweeping statewide legislation effectively tied Illinois’ clean energy targets to the Paris Climate Agreement — which means Illinois will be fully powered by clean energy by 2050.
“The state is well on its way to a carbon-free future,” Amanda Pankau, director of energy and community resilience at Prairie Rivers Networks, said in a statement. “The new funding will help us double down on those successes and speed up our transition to renewable energy while also reducing pollution.”
The bulk of the federal climate dollars, approximately $172 million, is going toward the state’s building sector. In Chicago, buildings account for about 70 percent of the city’s carbon footprint. To reduce the energy used to heat and cool buildings, the state plans to retrofit 12,000 homes and more than 2 million square feet of commercial space. The money will also go toward making it more affordable for Illinois homeowners to switch to electric appliances like heat pumps and induction stoves, according to Kibbey.
The second big bucket, $115 million, will be spent on electrifying the state’s transportation sector to expand charging infrastructure and accelerating the adoption of electric freight vehicles.
In terms of pollution reduction, Kibbey said transportation can deliver the “biggest bang for the buck.” Replacing heavy duty trucks represents not only an opportunity to reduce climate emissions, but also an opportunity for environmental justice as freight transportation and its harmful pollutants are concentrated in and around Black and latino communities.
More than $3 million will go toward creating a freight hub data collection and analysis program.
“This is based on things that we’ve already seen some community organizations doing in the Chicagoland area, tracking the pollution and the impacts of heavy duty vehicles in their communities,” Kibbey said.
The last major pot of climate funds is reserved for the state’s agricultural sector, an investment totaling more than $111 million. The goal is to incentivize farmers and producers to switch to sustainable practices like planting cover crops and minimizing soil disturbance. The other bulk of this grant will go toward funding programs to capture and repurpose methane.
As part of the grant, the state will have to submit a comprehensive climate action plan to the federal government in two years.
Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco covers climate change and the environment for WBEZ and Grist. Follow him on X at @__juanpab.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”