Free Republic

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday announced the terms for doling out $20 billion through “climate banks” authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, part of the massive green spending authorized by the law meant specifically to boost poorer towns and people harmed by pollution. The EPA said it was setting up two programs, one with $14 billion in funding and the other with $6 billion, that would in turn each set up a handful of institutions that would partner with private-sector entities to finance green projects, which could include heat pumps, electric vehicle charging stations, building upgrades, and other similar...

The Biden administration will announce Friday it is ready to distribute $20 billion in taxpayer dollars for “clean energy projects” across the nation. These include – but are not limited to – building more electric vehicle charging stations, residential heat pumps, and community cooling centers, all as the Biden administration continues its drive to push Americans away from relying on fossil fuels. Two programs from a federal “green bank” worth more than $14 billion and $6 billion between them will offer competitive grants to states, tribes and nonprofits to invest in clean energy projects, with a focus on disadvantaged communities,...

In a bid to make buildings more energy-efficient and resilient to extreme weather, the administration on Wednesday will award $90 million in grants to help cities, states, tribes and organizations implement stronger codes for new and renovated construction, according to details shared first with The Washington Post. The announcement Tuesday reflects the policy limitations that Biden faces. Building codes are adopted at the state and local levels, so the federal government is limited in what it can require. And with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, Congress is unlikely to impose any new national requirements. These constraints have...

OceanGate Expeditions, the company behind the Titan submersible disaster, was forgiven of its $450,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan, according to the ProPublica PPP Loan Database. OceanGate builds submersibles for tourism and research, but its inherently risky business model raises questions, and led to the tragic deaths of five people in the ocean in June. Its liability waiver for sub tourism mentioned the possibility of death three times on the first page alone. Now, some are accusing the company of cutting corners. James Cameron, the renowned Titanic explorer and director of the 1997 movie, said, "I was very suspect of the...

. Due to the agreed upon rules of the House Rules Committee- one Republican can stop the entire Deal with a simple Vote - Thomas Massie. The other votes are already there to stop it in the Rules Committee. One Man - says he a Fiscal Hawk - a Conservative Republican can easily stop it before it starts. They told us this is why we needed to vote Republicans in to Win the House.

The trash burning industry was eager to show it is not a polluting relic but a pioneering clean tech sector worthy of millions of dollars in new federal subsidies. As the Biden administration allocates billions of dollars in new climate subsidies, environmentally challenged industries are sharpening their green pitches. The companies argue they are just as entitled to lucrative federal incentives as solar farms or electric carmakers, and are working to frame their businesses as global warming solutions. The money up for grabs from the Inflation Reduction Act and other programs are in amounts large enough to guide whether they...

In 2008, California voted yes on a $9 billion bond authorization to build the nation’s first high-speed railway. The plan is to build an electric train that will connect Los Angeles with the Central Valley and then San Francisco in two hours and forty minutes. But 15 years later, there is not a single mile of track laid, and executives involved say there isn’t enough money to finish the project. The latest estimates from the California High-Speed Rail Authority suggest it will cost between $88 billion and $128 billion to complete the entire system from LA to San Francisco. Inflation...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden will announce plans to increase U.S. funding to help developing countries fight climate change and curb deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest during a meeting on Thursday with leaders from the world's largest economies. The president will announce a U.S. contribution of $1 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which finances projects on clean energy and climate change resilience in developing countries, doubling the overall U.S. contribution, the White House said. He will also announce plans to request $500 million over five years to contribute to the Amazon Fund, which works to combat deforestation in...

The federal government is giving Pennsylvania a down payment to plan how to best adapt to and mitigate climate change locally. In Harrisburg on Friday, state and federal officials said Pennsylvania will get about $6 million to create priority climate action plans. The commonwealth will receive up to a $3 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant through the program set up by the Inflation Reduction Act. The resulting plans can include things like installing air quality monitoring systems, plugging old oil and gas wells, or converting school bus fleets to electric vehicles. The plans will make the state eligible for grants...

(Reuters) - The world is failing to cut carbon emissions fast enough to avoid disastrous climate change, a dawning truth that is giving life to a technology that for years has been marginal – pulling carbon dioxide from the air. Leading the charge, the U.S. government has offered $3.5 billion in grants to build the factories that will capture and permanently store the gas - the largest such effort globally to help halt climate change through Direct Air Capture (DAC) and expanded a tax credit to $180/tonne to bolster the burgeoning technology. The sums involved dwarf funding available in other...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67% of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032, according to two people familiar with the matter. That would represent a quantum leap for the United States — where just 5.8% of vehicles sold last year were all-electric — and would exceed President Joe Biden’s earlier ambitions to have all-electric cars account for half of those sold here by 2030. It would be the federal government’s most aggressive climate...

KEY POINTS: * Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday plans to announce a commitment between South Korean solar cell manufacturer Qcells and Virginia-based Summit Ridge Energy to deploy 1.2 gigawatts of community solar power. * Harris will make the announcement during a trip to the Qcells facility in Dalton, Georgia as part of the White House’s “Invest in America” tour. * The deal would be the largest community solar order in U.S. history and require the manufacturing of 2.5 million solar panels, Biden administration officials said.

At a hearing before a House committee on Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog warned lawmakers that the agency's recent surge in funding — part of President Biden's climate policy spending — comes with "a high risk for fraud, waste and abuse." The EPA — whose annual budget for 2023 is just $10 billion — has received roughly $100 billion in new, supplemental funding through two high-dollar pieces of legislation, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. The two new laws represent the largest investment in the agency's history. Sean O'Donnell, the EPA inspector general,...

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday the government is ready to provide further guarantees of deposits if the banking crisis worsens. In remarks prepared for a speech to the American Bankers Association, the former Federal Reserve chair said authorities believe they have taken appropriate actions to stem liquidity problems in the sector, but will do more if needed. “The steps we took were not focused on aiding specific banks or classes of banks. Our intervention was necessary to protect the broader U.S. banking system,” Yellen said. “And similar actions could be warranted if smaller institutions suffer deposit runs that pose...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Transportation Department will announce on Tuesday it is awarding $94.8 million to 59 projects on advanced technology projects to boost road safety, improve transit reliability and use drones and sensors for transportation projects. The $1 trillion November 2021 infrastructure law dedicates $500 million over five years for "Smart" mobility projects. New Jersey has won $2 million for sensors to address wrong-way driving events while New York is receiving $2 million for an app to allow visually impaired New York subway and bus customers to safely navigate their transit trips. Los Angeles is receiving $2 million...

President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for 2024 includes billions of dollars spread across federal agencies to combat climate change, with a bulk of the investment going toward boosting conservation and disaster resilience, cutting pollution and advancing clean energy technologies. Some of Biden’s spending areas on climate include: $24 billion for climate resilience and conservation $16.5 billion for climate science and clean energy innovation $6.5 billion for energy storage and transmission projects $4.5 billion for jobs building clean energy infrastructure $3 billion for advancing adaptation finance $1.8 billion for environmental justice initiatives $1.2 billion for the Energy Department’s industrial decarbonization activities...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A high-speed bullet train from Southern California to Las Vegas is a step closer to reality. Brightline, the company that will build the system, has announced a landmark labor agreement with the High-Speed Rail Labor Coalition, which is "compromised of 13 rail unions representing more than 160,000 freight, regional, commuter, and passenger railroad workers in the United States." The $10 billion investment is expected to create nearly 35,000 jobs during construction and over 1,000 permanent jobs once operational, according to a press release from Brightline. The fully-electric train will be able to travel 200 miles an...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - A federal appeals court has ruled against backers of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, which would have become the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had it been ratified before a Congressionally-mandated deadline ran out in the 1970s. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall hailed Tuesday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as “a significant victory for the rule of law” after Alabama and four other states sued to prevent the U.S. Archivist from certifying the ERA as a constitutional amendment. Tuesday’s ruling is decades in the making. Congress submitted the proposed...

US Postal Service to purchase charging stations from Blink Charging Co., Siemens Industry Inc., and Rexel USA Energy Solutions in contracts totaling $260 million. The U.S. Postal Service is buying 9,250 Ford Motor Co. electric vans and 14,000 charging stations, taking the first step towards the promised electrification of its mail truck fleet. To meet an "urgent need for vehicles," the Postal Service will also purchase 9,250 gas-powered vans from Fiat Chrysler in North America, which is now part of Amsterdam-based Stellantis. The contracts awarded to Fiat Chrysler and Ford together will total just over $1 billion. The purchase comes...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is forming an interagency group to address the recent spate of objects in the skies above North America, the White House announced Monday. "The president, through his national security adviser, has today directed an interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a White House briefing. "Every element of the government will redouble their efforts to understand and mitigate these events," he said. Kirby said the national security team's task is...