Heatmap: “This Climate Justice Policy Has Gotten Weird”
RFF Fellow Daniel Raimi offers his thoughts in a story written by former RFF collaborator Daniel Propp on the Inflation Reduction Act's “energy communities” definition.
But the issues don’t stop there, according to Daniel Raimi. Raimi directs the Equity in the Energy Transition Initiative at Resources for the Future, a DC-based think tank. He’s been warning about the flaws in the energy communities framework since 2022. He told me there are two main problems with how the government defines an energy community...
Still, Raimi worries that the current approach will prevent government support from reaching the communities that need it most. “Because they’re not carefully targeted, they are unlikely to receive lots of new investment from this tax credit,” Raimi told me.
And it could get expensive. With roughly half of the country qualifying for the bonus, said Raimi, “I think we’re going to be spending tens of billions of dollars in places where we don’t need to spend that money.”
