Feds gave Georgia $3M to plan climate pollution reduction. What role will Columbus play?
What if Georgia was given $3 million from the EPA to draft a plan to reduce pollution and combat climate change in a meaningful and equitable way over the next several months?
Since July, environmental planners, state representatives, environmental consultants, climate solutions nonprofits and community organizers across Georgia — mainly based in Atlanta — have engaged with the Georgia EPD to begin building a climate pollution reduction plan due by early next year. Georgia is competing for a slice of the $4.6 billion federal pie that will be distributed in the spring of 2024.
The better the plan, the more likely Georgia will earn more funding to implement the historic Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) aimed at reducing emissions and combating climate change across Georgia, especially in communities deemed disadvantaged and low-income.
“We have to come up with a competitive application,” Anna Aponte, the Georgia EPD grant program manager said. “The EPA has to say, ‘We want to pick them’. They are to map out what the plan is going to be so we can have a competitive grant package to put together and hopefully (successfully) get millions of dollars for the state of Georgia.”
As of now, Columbus does not appear to have any representation or stakeholders present during this Priority Climate Action Plan phase of the grant. It is seemingly not on the radar of university groups, city council members, and other stakeholders in Columbus.
‘Meaningful engagement’ required
There are several requirements within the multi-phased grant over the next four years. But for the next three months, the grant’s Priority Climate Action plan needs:
A Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory
Quantified GHG reduction measures
Quality Assurance Project Plan
Low-Income/Disadvantaged Communities (LIDAC) Benefit Analysis
Review of Authority to Implement
This grant requires meaningful engagement with communities who are low-income and disadvantaged. Because this grant is at the helm of the Air Protection Branch, Aponte and other grant managers want to learn what is needed at the community-level.
“We’re looking for people to help teach us what communities need,” Aponte said.
The White House Environmental Council created a Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool – which is essentially a map that highlights where LIDACs are and what sort of issues they are most vulnerable to.
The map was released last month to help identify communities that would most benefit from plans that incorporate electricity generation, transportation, building restoration, industry, waste management and agriculture solutions centered around pollution reduction.
Additionally, the EPA has an Environmental Justice screening tool that will be used to help analyze LIDAC. Both of these are critical parts of the competitive grant.
Columbus has a considerable amount of area with communities that are burdened by at least one environmental justice issue.
Each census tract look at burdens from climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, water and wastewater, and workforce development. If the census tract meets one or more of these burdens it is considered disadvantaged.
“The CPRG program will advance President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which aims to ensure 40% of the overall benefits of certain climate, clean energy, and other Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that have been marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution,” an EPA statement read.
Georgia EPD understands that there are likely already existing climate plans from different groups in Georgia. The department want to avoid reinventing the wheel for climate action. Georgia Tech has a climate action plan that Aponte says could be incorporated into this competitive plan draft.
“We’re interested in existing climate action plans that are implementation-ready,” Aponte said.
Searching for stakeholders, solutions
Drawdown Georgia, the climate solutions hub has agreed to help tackle the GHG inventory requirement.
“We’re going to be training [Georgia EPD] on how to use our greenhouse gas tracker,” Marilyn Brown, Regents’ and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy, said.
The GHG Tracker provides gas emissions data at the state and county level to show where emissions originate.
Another stakeholder, Georgia Climate Project director, Tish Yager is excited about this opportunity as well.
“I think it’s very exciting for Georgia,” Yager said. “The EPD team is thankfully very open to input. That’s incredible. I think we all need to figure out how we can chip in to help with this process. The Georgia Climate Project is willing to help in whatever way we can.”
Columbus City Council Member, Tyson Begly was unaware of the meeting and will consider joining “if it makes sense after reviewing the agenda.” None of the other nine city council members responded for comment when the L-E asked about their interest in being a stakeholder.
Columbus State University does not currently have a climate action plan, but several people aid in the campus sustainability efforts. Professor Stacey Blersch is one of the several professors involved with campus decarbonizing and is an academic partner and representative with Georgia Climate Project.
“I did not attend the stakeholder meeting, but that doesn’t mean I’m not involved,” Blersch said. “We’re trying to work with clean initiatives so that Columbus can write a climate change plan.”
One of the clean initiatives Blersch is referring to is the resolution proposed by Clean Energy Columbus (CEC) back in August which proposes Columbus commit to being run 100% clean energy by 2040. The vote on this has been postponed with no indication of when it will be sponsored by the council.
Troy Keller, CSU environmental department chair and co-founder of CEC, said he was unaware of this grant and has since signed up to attend stakeholder meetings.
Brown encourages community organizers to take advantage of this planning time.
“If I were a community organizer I would be trying to reach out and try to assemble information about what my constituents would most welcome as solutions,” she said. “I would be grounded in the community’s desires to then be ready when it’s time to put forward the plan.”
Funding and Next Steps
The ‘once-in-a-generation’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is funding both this current planning phase ($250 million for all states) as well as the competitive second phase of the CPRG ($4.6 billion).
The PCAP is officially due March 2024 to EPA, we have an internal deadline to have a draft of the plan by January so that we have time to get the proper approvals.
The Atlanta Regional Commission is leading the Atlanta metro area with its own separate $1 million grant.
“The grant is to benefit all of Georgia,” Aponte said.
Columbus will by definition be included in planning and not excluded if no stakeholders are present. However, as an example, Aponte adds, “If you have a nonprofit concerned about charging stations in your area and identified as low income, then you absolutely have a stake in this.”
A date is not set for the next stakeholder meeting, but Aponte said “likely sometime in October.”
“We would like to build our citizen involvement and industry and consultants. We look forward to expanding this list of stakeholders,” she said.
