Our Policy Advisor, Ben Davis, responded to questions on Direct Air Capture and on the use of CCUS for industrial facilities, calling for the inclusion of high-road labor standards and strong protections for land, air, and water to be included as the IRS implements the 45Q tax credit.

BlueGreen Alliance Washington held their Apprenticeships 101 workshop where members of several prominent environmental and climate advocacy groups, along with representatives of key trade unions, learned about the role of apprenticeships in building Washington’s skilled, clean energy workforce.

As the U.S. Department of Energy develops its implementation strategy, it should view DPA funding as part of a holistic industrial strategy.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today released new guidance for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements included in the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August, includes—for the first time—high-road labor standards that go hand-in-hand with clean energy deployment. Specifically, to receive the full value of the tax credit, developers will have to pay a prevailing wage and utilize a certain percentage of registered apprentices in the projects. The guidance released today provides further details of how those requirements will work.

We are at a groundbreaking moment for this legislation as the Department of Treasury begins work to implement the centerpiece of this law: the new and strengthened clean energy tax credits. These tax credits have the potential to create good jobs for workers and transform communities and the clean economy.

One of our organizational priorities highlighted in BGA’s Solidarity for Racial Equity is to “Make Drinking Water Safe and Affordable Starting with Lead Service Lines in Disenfranchised and Marginalized Communities.” LSLR represents a significant and scalable opportunity to create good, union jobs, improve the health of entire communities, and address environmental injustice by prioritizing those communities that have been disproportionately impacted by toxic legacy chemicals like lead. 

President Biden today announced the release of a draft supplemental U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule to curb methane emissions at oil and gas facilities. In response to the release of the rule, the BlueGreen Alliance released a statement from Executive Director Jason Walsh.

These incentives are the keystone of the climate, justice, and jobs strategy that motivated this legislation, and efficient implementation of them will be critical to meeting our climate goals.

The updated 30D Clean Vehicle Tax Credit represents an opportunity to lower the upfront cost of electric vehicles (EVs) for consumers, to accelerate the deployment of EVs, and to reshape the global automotive supply chain to support auto manufacturing workers and communities here.

We applaud the U.S. Treasury Department for initiating a robust set of requests for comments regarding their implementation.

These tax credits present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to drastically reduce emissions while providing good union jobs in the clean economy and driving growth in U.S. manufacturing. At the same time, they will increase equity in the transition to a clean economy by maximizing the benefits of this job growth in communities disproportionately impacted by energy transition.

These tax credits present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions, as well as toxic air, water, and land pollution, while providing good union jobs in the clean economy and driving growth in U.S. manufacturing.