The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded $160 million in grants to spur the production of environmental product declarations (EPDs). As a critical element of the Biden-Harris administration’s Federal Buy Clean Initiative and the Inflation Reduction Act, EPDs help provide transparency around the embodied emissions associated with the production of infrastructure materials such as steel, concrete, asphalt, and flat glass. 

During an event in Lansing, MI, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced the award of $500 million under the Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grant Program to fund the retooling of General Motors’s (GM) Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant.

The U.S. Department of Energy today announced the first ever award recipients of its Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grant Program. The Inflation Reduction Act-funded program is a first-of-its-kind effort to provide direct grants to recently closed or at-risk facilities and funds the retooling efforts needed to transform production lines that were building internal combustion engine vehicles and parts into production lines building electric vehicles (EVs) and parts.

Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a state budget that includes several key funding proposals impacting labor unions and the environment. A topline win secured in the budget is maintaining funding for the California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Training Partnerships program.

New analysis commissioned by National Skills Coalition (NSC) and the BlueGreen Alliance (BGA), shows that combined historic investments in clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure from three new federal laws—the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act—will create more than 190,000 jobs per year combined in Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, and Oregon over the next decade.

Companies and economic development agencies around the country today tuned into a webinar series from the BlueGreen Alliance (BGA), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Evergreen Action, and the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) designed to help companies create competitive applications for the final round of funding from the 48C Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit. 

A promising strategy to achieve these dual goals of reducing emissions while investing in U.S. clean manufacturing is the implementation of a carbon border fee. This fee would be applied to imported industrial products that have a higher carbon intensity than their domestic equivalents, effectively rewarding domestic production manufactured under stronger environmental and labor regulations.

The BlueGreen Alliance responded to a request for information to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on how to best support mid-scale commercial direct air capture (MSC DAC) demonstration facilities.

The U.S. Departments of Treasury and Energy today announced a second round of project applications for the Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit (48C).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today unveiled a new rule to reduce carbon pollution from existing and future fossil fuel power plants.
BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director Jason Walsh spoke at the event unveiling the rule at Howard University and released a statement following the event.

The first Earth Day was observed in 1970. Even then, early environmental activists understood the value of labor in their endeavors for a cleaner earth. Former United Autoworkers President Walter Reuther was an integral part to this important holiday. President Biden and Congressional Democrats continued this legacy by passing the most pro-labor pro-environmental laws in U.S. history.

Too many of our Earth Days have been marred by steep industrial emissions and a decline in domestic manufacturing. That decline has equated to importing emissions through foreign goods made with lower environmental and labor standards. Thanks to the Biden administration, the tide is changing for our industrial sector.