In the past year, the United States has secured historic investments in the Clean Power Plan from the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the CHIPS and Science Act. This funding—nearly $550 billion in climate investments—can position our country to drive transformative progress on pollution, energy security, and jobs in clean energy and manufacturing. Moving these laws through Congress to President Biden’s desk was no easy feat — it took decades to craft — and the next chapter could be just as challenging: implementing clean energy investments quickly and fairly across the country.
We have an unprecedented opportunity to redesign our energy system. These historic government investments give us the tools we need to replace our dirty and unsustainable fossil fuel economy with a clean energy future that will reduce harmful pollution, improve our health, make us energy safer and heal the planet. But that doesn’t stop fuel companies and their allies from trying to undermine progress in protection Record profits on our account.
Health justice
Our health depends on a healthy planet. The Clean Energy Plan invests in air monitoring, Cleaner ports and community initiatives To counteract the worst effects of air pollution and improve health.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that there are nine million lead pipes currently delivering drinking water to homes and businesses across the United States—putting millions at risk of devastating damage, including permanent nerve damage and coronary heart disease. Replacing these tubes is a basic public health need.
By 2026, more than $15 billion (about $46 per capita in the US) will flow to states and local water utilities—providing safer drinking water for millions of Americans and jobs for workers in affected communities. This is the result of funding for lead pipe replacements available through the IIJA, which President Biden signed into law in November 2024.
In addition to air monitoring, clean ports and community-led solutions, a suite of robust enforcement actions for common pollutants such as bloat, Exhaust emissions and industrial resources will help us close the gap in the cumulative impact of climate change on Black and Latino communities, the communities most affected by our continued dependence on fossil fuels.
Family support jobs for 21street a century
Development and production of clean energy and Transportation in the United States creates family-supporting jobs in large cities and small towns—Jobs for geologists, engineers, scientists, construction workers, and more. These new clean energy and infrastructure jobs are American jobs that solve American challenges.
Meanwhile, jobs in oil, gas and coal have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Fossil fuel companies have spent decades creating barriers to entry for renewables: tax policy that favors dirty energy, special rules for oil, gas and coal, and intimate deals that shield them from real financial competition with clean energy. Our communities do not have to be “sacrificial areas”, we can reduce this pollution through the legal and regulatory process.
The manufacturing and manufacturing sector itself is also responsible for a quarter of US emissions. This includes investments to manufacture clean energy technology that will help maximize jobs building electric cars, solar power, wind power and more, while minimizing supply chain disruptions and reducing pollution from the industrial sector that disproportionately affects black and Latino Americans.
environmental justice
The Clean Power Plan gives us the opportunity to build the infrastructure of the future while installing safeguards to protect the places and communities most affected by this development.
Black, Latino, Indigenous, and low-income communities face an enormous and unfair burden of pollution because the fossil fuel industries are likely to be located near them. They also face the greatest risks from climate change while contributing the least, and have the fewest resources to recover from its harm.
We must ensure that federal and state governments implement Clean Power Plan investments in in a fair and just manner With opposition to any effort that adds pollution to overburdened communities.
all work
We can and must heal our world for all of us and for generations to come. Every action our leaders take should move us toward clean, abundant energy. By developing innovative technologies, modernizing our electric grid, making ourselves less dependent on the global market for fossil fuels and lowering the cost of clean energy sources, everyone will benefit.