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December 19, 2022
It’s the final episode of season 4! To wrap things up, Dan and Anna are joined by Alejandro Moreno, the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Together, they recap the federal climate action that took place during the past two years of the 117th Congress, from the climate legislation that passed to new programs launched by federal agencies. Dan, Anna, and Alejandro also discuss where the federal government, and specifically the Department of Energy, will go from here as they work towards meeting national climate goals in a holistic and equitable way.
Show notes:
Inflation Reduction Act articles
Energy Efficiency for Nonprofits article series
Federal Agencies in Action briefing series
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About this Podcast:
With all the depressing climate news out there, it’s sometimes hard to see progress. The Climate Conversation cuts through the noise and presents you with relevant climate change solutions happening on the Hill and in communities around the United States.
Twice a month, join Environmental and Energy Study Institute staff members as they interview environmental, energy, and policy experts on practical, on-the-ground work that communities, companies, and governments are doing to address climate change.
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Episode Transcript:
Dan Bresette: Hello and welcome to The Climate Conversation. I'm Dan Bresette, executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. And here we are, it's the final episode of season four. And it's been a packed few months with episodes about food waste, climate tech, energy efficiency, coastal resilience, motherhood and climate action, and the Farm Bill. And to round things out for this final episode of the year, I'm joined by our policy manager at EESI, Anna McGinn, who you might remember from an episode last season about the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. And you might also recognize her name on the bylines for lots of our articles and other coverage for our COP27 Congressional education. So, Anna, it's great to have you back on the podcast.
Anna McGinn: Hi, Dan. Happy to be on the podcast again to help wrap up this season of The Climate Conversation. For this episode, we'll be looking back at something else that's wrapping up, the 117th Congress. On each odd number year, a new Congress begins, aligned with the midterm and general elections. The 117th Congress began on January 3, 2021, and the 118th Congress will start on January 3, 2023.
Dan: And the 117th Congress was especially eventful. It passed major pieces of legislation over those two years. In November 2021, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes provisions for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, passenger rail, wildfire, risk reduction, and even more. And then more recently, in August 2022, the President signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, which includes the $369 billion in climate investments, including investments in home electrification, environmental justice, and even a national climate bank. And while those two happen to be the most talked about climate related laws are not the only ones. The CHIPS and Science Act became law as well, which will provide billions of dollars for technology research and development that will help spur the energy transition.
Anna: Beyond the halls of Congress. There have also been a number of exciting executive orders and federal agency programs that have been announced during this time. One executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, re-emphasizes the United States commitment to international climate action and set in motion a government-wide approach to the climate crisis, so that all federal agencies are contributing to addressing climate change. Another executive order focused on deploying clean energy, including meeting the goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. Since then, the Administration has approved the first large-scale wind projects off the west coast and accelerated the permitting process to get this new energy source up and running.
Dan: And within federal agencies, there are many new climate initiatives and directives. I'll just highlight one that I'm really excited about. And that's a pilot program within the Department of Energy funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This pilot program will award grants to help nonprofits improve the energy efficiency of their facilities. And if you want to learn more about the enormous positive impact this work can have, I would encourage everyone to go back and listen to episode three in this season, which is all about energy efficiency for houses of faith in Delaware. And also, check out all of the great articles by our colleague Miguel Yañez-Barnuevo has been writing about energy efficiency and nonprofits. It's a lot of great resources that are available on our website.
Anna: And what's pretty exciting is that we've only scratched the surface of the climate work that's happened in Congress, the White House, and across federal agencies over the past two years. And while there is a lot that's been done, there's also so much more left to do. So we are happy to have someone on the podcast today who will be able to talk about the current and future impacts of all these different laws and initiatives.
Dan: I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Alejandro Moreno, who is the acting assistant secretary for the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, also known as EERE. Alejandro directs EERE’s renewable energy applied research, development, and demonstration activities for the geothermal, solar energy, and wind and water power technology offices. He also oversees EERE’s energy system integration efforts. And we've been lucky to work with Alejandro before. Longtime fans of EESI’s educational resources might remember that he was a speaker during our 2021 Congressional Policy Forum. We're extremely grateful that he'll join us for our episode today. Alejandro, welcome to the show.
Alejandro Moreno: Thanks, Dan. It's good to be here with you.
Anna: So Alejandro, we're going to just jump right in with our first question. So as we've already talked about in this episode, over the last two years, the Biden-Harris Administration has signed some key bills into law to advance climate action, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. The Department of Energy, or as we call it, DOE, will be in charge of distributing a large portion of these investments. So we're curious if you can talk about the work that EERE has done so far to implement these pieces of energy and climate legislation.
Alejandro: Absolutely. These three pieces of legislation the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act are really monumental pieces of legislation. And they're critical for their role in reducing U.S. emissions and really driving the transition to a clean energy system that all of us are working towards. The Inflation Reduction Act, the most recent one that was passed a few months ago provides $369 billion for investment in the modernization of the American energy system, which will ultimately significantly lower costs for consumers and at the same time reduce energy related emissions. The CHIPS and Science Act will revitalize domestic manufacturing, that's really what it's squarely focused on, strengthening the U.S. supply chain and supporting American workers. This legislation, for example, invests over $50 billion in the domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and microchips, which are critical components, not only of our computers and smartphones, but really of many of the clean energy technologies that we increasingly rely on, for example, battery storage, which is critical component of the power system of the future. And the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $62 billion to the Department of Energy alone for clean energy infrastructure. This is the biggest investment in DOE since our founding. And this investment is so big that it's resulted in a realignment of the department to create a number of new organizations specifically focused on infrastructure, the development of that infrastructure, and the construction and development of that infrastructure, specifically in a way that benefits all Americans and communities.
So this is a lot of money. But what does it really mean for the average American, like, what are we going to be able to deliver this. Of course, a big objective of this funding is to reduce emissions. And we think we can reduce emissions by approximately 1,000 million metric tons by 2030, are about a gigaton of CO2 equivalent by 2030. And the CHIPS and Science Act will make sure those gains are possible by ensuring that we have supply chain materials, manufacturing in the workforce to accomplish those targets. And to ensure that that results in good jobs here in the U.S. What I think really makes this legislation unique, this package of legislation, is the funding isn't just going into early stage R&D, or just going into technologies themselves, but there's a huge component of the investment that's focused on workforce development, on demonstration, and on implementation, particularly with a focus on ensuring that the projects that come out of this funding benefit communities and provide good paying jobs, good careers, and that Americans across the country are trained for those positions so that the clean energy transition isn't just one of the infrastructure, but it's also one of jobs, revenue, and benefit that benefits the entire country as a whole. In order to be able to ensure that we succeed in implementing this funding, we're talking to communities that ultimately need to benefit from that itself. And so you know, we've held many, many, many listening sessions with state local energy officials, community groups. I think of the 60 new DOE programs that are established by the bill, that half of them have already released requests for information, which is the formal way that DOE goes out and solicits input from people across the country and how we should design the programs in a way that benefits the most. And we take that feedback very, very seriously. It directly influences how we spend our money and how we design the programs that ultimately will get that money out the door and to the American people.
Just as some examples of the programs that have been developed by DOE since the passage of this legislation, we've launched a historic joint office with the Department of Transportation to build a nationwide charging network for electric vehicles. We've established a new office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which will put tens of billions of dollars on the streets to improve the resilience and to modernize our power grid. We've kicked off our Building a Better Grid Initiative, which is aimed at engaging stakeholders around the build out of new transmission lines. And we've made over $13 billion in bill funding available and already selected over $4 billion in funding opportunities for that. Some examples of the $13 billion that have been made available include 5 billion for the national EV charging network that I mentioned, $2.3 billion are already out for a funding opportunity announcement to modernize the grid, and $7 billion of course for a range of regional hydrogen hubs that will focus on building out the infrastructure for hydrogen delivery for a wide range of different energy uses across the country.
Anna: It is so exciting to hear you talk about all these different programs, sources of funding, different initiatives. And so our next question is kind of, as you think about this implementation work that's already underway as well as the work to come, what opportunities do you see for workforce development and growth in renewable energy and energy efficiency, both within DOE and outside of DOE? What programs and initiatives are helping to grow the workforce?
Alejandro: We know that we can't accomplish our climate goals without providing meaningful opportunities for workers and benefits to people and the communities where they live. That involves both ensuring that the energy system of the future provides opportunities for good jobs, and jobs that lead to a career that are stable that are well paying, and that people are trained to be able to fill those jobs and that people that really are representative of all Americans. We know the energy sector hasn't always been representative of all Americans across gender and race. And it's critical that we provide workforce development programs that reach everyone. We have huge reservoirs of skills and capabilities and drive in this country. It's what makes America great. And as I said before, one of the really striking features of both the big legislation that's been passed recently, but also the way DOE is approaching the clean energy transition, is recognizing that it's not just about the technologies, but it's about the jobs, and it's about fundamentally the people that need to live with those technologies and benefit from those technologies. And so DOE takes that very seriously. We've stood up our first ever Office of Energy Jobs, to ensure that we never lose sight of that central focus that the clean energy transition is as much about creating economic opportunity as anything else, and particularly for workers and communities that have been neglected. And part of what that Office of Energy Jobs is helping drive is the recognition that not all jobs are created equal. And that jobs with good wages, good benefits, worker protections, provide significant value for the people that ultimately hold them and are a real incentive for developing the skills and the training that are needed to produce the highest quality work that you can, the highest quality products. And we really have this tremendous opportunity to leverage that to put Americans to work.
Within EERE, within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, we do a lot of workforce training and support. This includes everything starting from collegiate programming, things like college competitions, or programs that directly support STEM programs at a wide range of universities, including minority serving institutions, and HBCUs, through collegiate competitions, and then support to transitioning from school into the workforce. So for fellowship programs within DOE, in DOE national labs, and out in the private sector as well. One example, I was really lucky, I got to go see our eco-car competition, which is a competition that challenges 15 North American universities to engineer the next generation battery electric vehicle. And I got to visit with a team from a partnership between Ohio State University and Wilberforce University, which is an HBCU about an hour north of Columbus, Ohio, designing a new car to provide greater efficiency and actually getting a five-year program where you experience hands-on, real-world auto design and build program. And many participants in that program go on to work for big auto manufacturers and designers, and it's about as close as I told them to a true job experience as you can get while you're at university. And DOE has a long history of supporting this type of work. You know, I think the big change over the last couple of years is really working closely then with private employers and others to ensure that the jobs are available and to ensure that people have the support that they need to take the jobs and to be able to raise a family and be able to support themselves in the long run with careers based on these jobs.
Dan: Alejandro, I want to ask a question about DOE’s Energy Earthshots Initiative, which sets ambitious goals for lynchpin technologies that are critical for the U.S. to hit the Administration's carbon reduction goals. Could you offer a few examples of how EERE will work towards some of these Earthshots over the next few years?
Alejandro: Absolutely. The Energy Earthshots Initiative, this initiative you're talking about, it's really focused on accelerating R&D breakthroughs, recognizing that a big part of achieving the clean energy transition, of course, as we've talked about, is getting the technologies that we have already widely adopted. And that's what a big part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the IRA are focused on. But there's a recognition as well that in order to truly get to a fully decarbonized energy system, a lot of new technologies need to be developed and improved on and that's where the Energy Earthshots come in. They are the big thorny R&D problems that are left to us. And there are a number of them. This includes long duration storage, for example, that is storage that can operate and discharge continuously for 10 hours or more, we have a long duration storage shot that has a goal of reducing the cost of grid scale energy storage by 90% by 2013. Similarly, we have hydrogen shot, as we've talked about in the hydrogen hubs, hydrogen has the potential to be a key carrier both for the power system, fully decarbonized power system, but also obviously for certain types of transportation and for industrial use as well. And we have a goal to reduce the cost of hydrogen by 80% to $1 per kilogram in a decade. That's a very ambitious target we recognize, but it's one that the analysis we have done says is feasible. On the power side, where I've spent a lot of my time, we have two different Earthshots, one focused on reducing the cost of floating offshore wind, one focused on reducing the cost and demonstrating the viability of a range of enhanced geothermal techniques. If these are successful, what they allow is a far greater range of options for large-scale power generation. Floating offshore wind, of course, is only feasible where there's deep water in the ocean, but fully half of the U.S. coastline if not a little bit more, the entire west coast, in order for offshore winds to be viable, there would have to be floating. Same thing is true for the extreme northeast New England and the Gulf of Maine. And floating offshore wind holds the potential to have really large-scale, multi-gigawatt sized wind farms out of sight of land and out of sight of people. Enhanced geothermal offers the potential to expand geothermal development out of the nexus in the southwest, where it currently exists through big parts of the of the southern part of the U.S. by allowing much more control over reservoir temperature and also faster drilling techniques as well. And lastly, and for me, one of the most critical Earthshots is the industrial shot. And I think we all recognize that there's certain types of industrial manufacturing that is potentially the most challenging to decarbonize. And we recognize there's need for extreme heat temperatures on demand and the Earthshots, looking at ways of both using new fuels to provide that same amount of heat, of electrifying that heat where it's possible, and also looking at ways to achieve the same outcome without needing heat in the first place. All of these, each of these individually is a really critical R&D challenge. Taken together, they have the potential to be truly transformative.
The last thing I would say about the Earth shots, the Earthshots provide a mechanism for the multiple different offices in DOE to work together. And this is critical when you think about something like industrial heat, or you think about something like long duration storage, which it doesn't specify a particular technology that will provide the solution. It offers a challenge that we as Americans need to meet. And we as DOE have many different offices and many different technologies that are a major part of that solution. And it provides us a way to work together across different divisions within the department, to leverage our relative expertise, to have friendly competition across different technologies, and to ensure that we are seamlessly transitioning innovation from earliest stages at our Office of Science through our applied offices, like EERE into the demonstration and deployment offices, like our Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations or our Grid Modernization Office.
Anna: through initiatives like Justice40, the Biden-Harris Administration has emphasized the need for environmental justice, specifically Justice40 made it a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities. How is EERE implementing Justice40 and equity more broadly? And how are you ensuring that federal investments benefit communities that are on the frontlines of the climate crisis?
Alejandro: Thanks, Anna. This is a critical question. Justice40, of course, is a priority across the federal government, and nowhere more so than within DOE. The director of DOE’s Office of Energy Justice Shalanda Baker leads the inter-agency Justice40 efforts. Across DOE and in particular, within EERE, we're deeply committed to the Justice40 initiative, we're taking steps across the organization to implement these principles. For us, this really means a two-pronged approach. The first is designing specific targeted programs that are focused on ensuring an equitable transition. The second, equally important, is making sure that equity considerations are incorporated throughout our entire portfolio, throughout all of the work that we normally do. One example of that is shoring in funding opportunity announcements, for example, that recipients have clearly developed DEI plans and that we at DOE are well equipped to evaluate those plans and to evaluate their implementation as part of the project management cycle that we always undertake. When we manage projects, when we give our funding out, it's usually in cooperative agreements, rather than grants. And that offers within EERE, a really strong level of oversight and management of the funding that we have. And that goes just as much for Justice40-related outcomes as for the technical metrics that historically we have evaluated projects on.
One example on the first prong of specific programs is the DOE communities LEAP program, which provides support for low-income communities specifically, are those traditionally reliant on fossil fuels, and provides access to a range of different resources, both funding and technical assistance resources, from DOE and from our national labs, to help either holistically develop a plan or a clean energy future or to address specific questions or specific challenges that a community may have. One other example that I really would like to highlight since we recently announced our inclusive energy innovation prize. And this was a product of about a year of discussions in many forums with communities that traditionally haven't had access or haven't had easy access to DOE funding, including an inclusive energy innovation request for information that provided a number of specific internal recommendations on how we can make it easier for communities and for organizations that historically haven't been able to access our funding to do so. And to do so, of course, without in any way, sacrificing the quality of the work that we support, but if anything, increasing the ideas, the innovation, and the quality of work that we have by being able to reach a much greater pool of innovators. And one major element of this included substantially reducing barriers to entry for low-income and rural communities in accessing our funding and finance. And recognizing that DOE, like many organizations, it can be challenging to access our funding opportunities, simply because the process is designed in a way that those with more experience with the process can navigate it much more easily, which is understandable. But what it does is it inadvertently creates a bias towards those organizations that have a long history of working with DOE, or frankly, can afford to hire people who have had that long history. And so being able to take a step back, look at what we require of recipients for different types of work, really make sure that that's right-sized to the type of work that we're talking about, and designed in a way that really focuses on the results that we want to get and doesn't throw additional barriers or additional steps in the way that really only serve as effectively a test of how well you know the process or how good a writer you've been able to hire in your solicitation process or your grant application process. And so we've both been able to incorporate the results from those conversations into all of our work. And we've come out with a specific prize that's focused on reaching a lot of the innovators that traditionally haven't been part of the DOE family.
I think we recognize that the greater diversity we have in people that we fund in organizations that are doing the research that we support, the greater likelihood that they're going to develop products and have ideas that specifically support the communities they come from, which often are the most disadvantaged communities in the country. And so there can be a cycle where by only supporting innovation for certain types of communities, we tend to default towards solutions that disproportionately benefit those communities. And we're trying to stop that cycle in the middle by ensuring that we get ideas and we support innovators from communities and from organizations that truly represent the full diversity that America has to offer, both because it's critical that the Department of Energy support the broad range of Americans, and because we think that we are more likely to get ideas and products that support the full range of Americans by focusing on including innovators and organizations that are based in those communities to start with.
Dan: It was super generous of you to spend so much time with us today talking about everything EERE has going on, which is a ton. You have a ton on your plate. And DOE generally has a ton as plate. And we're extremely happy that you were willing to take out some time again to speak with us. And I'm sure our audience will benefit a great deal from the discussion and all of the great examples that you provided. And I'd be totally remiss if I didn't say thanks also to your great team at EERE, who helped pull the podcast episode together. So thanks very much to them.
Alejandro: We have a great team here, so do you. Dan, Anna, thanks very much. It's as always, a pleasure to be here with you.
Dan: Well, since it's the last episode of the season, it's only fitting that my usual cohost, Emma Johnson, is here to wrap everything up. Hey, Emma, how are you doing today?
Emma Johnson: Hey, Dan, hey Anna, it's great to be here with both of you to wrap up season four. And what a great interview with Alejandro, it was really exciting to hear from him the big-picture policy perspective of what's going on with climate legislation, what's going on with the Department of Energy, what's going on with EERE, to look at both where we've been and where we can go from here and what that agency has in store.
Anna: I agree, it was really exciting to hear from Alejandro about all the work that EERE and the Department of Energy is working on, especially exciting to hear about all those Energy Earthshots and the work that they're putting in to kind of get those newer technologies through the development stage and deployed and to help us really drive down emissions from what he was talking about with industry to offshore winds, etc. And also really exciting to hear about kind of those cross-cutting, really important topics of workforce and environmental justice and hearing about the really specific ways that DOE as a whole and EERE specifically, are looking to rethink and redesign how they are integrating those really important areas of work into everything that they're doing to address the climate crisis. Really excited to see what DOE has in store these next couple of years. And as I think ahead to the 118th Congress and what the federal agencies and Congress and the White House will be up to, really excited that we'll be turning our attention to things like the Farm Bill. EESI, as always has a keen interest in agriculture and rural communities. And we're really gearing up for a lot more work on that. There'll be lots ahead, I'm sure in the podcast world, but elsewhere EESI on the Farm Bill, also really excited to continue our work on adaptation and resilience. And while Dan mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that there was definitely funding to support adaptation and resilience in the legislation that passed over the last two years, we're excited about a lot of possibilities to kind of scale that up and see what can happen in the 118th Congress on that topic. And of course, as Alejandro mentioned, there's still a lot of work to be done to close the gap in what we've committed to in terms of emissions reductions, and what we've actually done so far, excited to continue to see that work develop and to continue to provide Congress with educational resources to keep driving down emissions. Lots that’s been done, really excited to recap that, but also really looking forward to opportunities in the next Congress as well.
Dan: And there's going to be a lot of great opportunities in the next Congress, you've already gone through them. I think, looking back on the 117th Congress, obviously, the bills we've talked about, all enormous pieces of legislation. You know, Congress's job isn't going to be done either. It's going to be up to Congress to be providing oversight of how the agencies are implementing. We talked with Alejandro about Justice40, how are the agencies really going to be held accountable for ensuring that those investments reach those communities and do so in a timely way. Lot of work that needs to be done keeping an eye on the laws and the programs that have already been set in motion and then also looking ahead to future things, Farm Bill is probably being the biggest of those. I think one thing that I hope will kind of get clear in the next Congress is how much people will really like the investments provided for in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. These are good things, these are, these are programs that will help people improve their daily lives, whether it's related to electric vehicle adoption and charging, or improving the energy efficiency of their homes, or helping more types of organizations harness the power of renewable energy, like rooftop solar, by making tax incentives newly available, all of those things are really, really good things. And I think by making so much of the Inflation Reduction Act kind of incentive based, I think it's going to go really a long way in helping people understand that when we're talking about climate solutions, we're talking about trade-ups, not trade-offs. And I think that will be really important to lay a good foundation for all of the other stuff that has to happen. As Anna said before, 118th Congress kicks off in 2023, and by the time that is over, we'll be 40% through this really, really critical decade. So we need to keep up at EESI all of our hard work providing nonpartisan science based congressional education resources so that policymakers have all the information they need.
Emma: The podcast will be back with season five in February, you won't want to miss it, so be sure to stay tuned. Until then, if you want to catch up on past episodes during our couple month break, you should check out our archives on our website, which is eesi.org/podcast, or you can look wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have an idea of what we should cover next, feel free to email us at [email protected]. To learn more about EESI 's work on engaging with Congress, head to our website at eesi.org. Also follow us on social media at @eesionline for all of our recent updates. The Climate Conversation is published as a supplement to our bi-weekly newsletter Climate Change Solutions. Go to eesi.org/signup to subscribe. Thanks for joining us and see you in the new year.
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