Join the BlueGreen Alliance
Help us identify ways to turn today’s environmental challenges into job-creating and economic opportunities!Prioritizing and targeting federal resources to workers and communities in places impacted by the shift to a new, cleaner economy needs to be a deliberate choice.
The Challenge
Working people have too often felt the pain of shifts in technology. We can’t leave workers or communities behind as we make the changes necessary to meet our nation’s emissions reduction goals. Prioritizing and targeting federal resources to workers and communities in places impacted by the shift to a new, cleaner economy needs to be a deliberate choice.
The last few years have seen increased federal funding for efforts to support these workers and their communities. However, greater investment is needed, including funding for dislocated workers. More must be done to provide meaningful support for workers who have borne—and will continue to bear—the brunt of job loss in this energy transition: workers dislocated from coal mines, coal power plants, and oil refineries. Making the jobs in the clean economy good-paying, union jobs and ensuring they are located where jobs are being lost and in systematically marginalized and frontline communities is pivotal. If we fail to do so, economic pain will increase and the political will to tackle climate change will be lost.
The Opportunity
Through tax credits and investments, the Inflation Reduction Act took a huge step forward, particularly by driving clean energy investments into communities impacted by energy transition. In addition to driving clean energy and manufacturing investments into these communities, the Inflation Reduction Act permanently extends the Black Lung Excise Tax to maintain the funding that provides critical benefits to miners and families.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also provided important funding to lift up impacted workers and communities through environmental remediation and funding for clean energy deployment, manufacturing, and economic support for communities impacted by energy transition.
To fully support coal communities and workers, investments should be paired with smart policies and investments at the national, state, and local levels. This means ensuring guaranteed pensions and a bridge of wage support, healthcare, and retirement security for affected workers while they try to find new employment or approach retirement. It also means committing to massive economic investment in deindustrialized areas, including addressing any loss of tax base for affected communities. Additionally, it means ensuring that new jobs and industries created in these communities are high-quality, family-sustaining jobs and that workers have a seat at the table.
That’s why the BlueGreen Alliance released our National Energy Transition Framework—a roadmap to ensure the transition is fair for workers and communities. The BlueGreen Alliance believes that many of the policies and investments needed to secure a just and equitable transition will require both executive and legislative actions.
Key Facts
45% A study by the World Resource Institute found that 45% of the population living in energy communities are also living in communities identified by the U.S. government as "disadvantaged". (Source)
$4 Billion The Inflation Reduction Act sets aside $4 billion on the 48C tax credit for energy transition communities. This investment will help establish, expand, or retool clean and advanced energy, vehicle, and technology factories in states and regions that have faced job loss and economic devastation due to plant or mine closures.. (Source)
$1.10 The Black Lung Excise Tax was permanently extended under the Inflation Reduction Act to pay for medical benefits and provides a small monthly living stipend to coal miners who are disabled by black lung disease and to their surviving dependents. Coal companies are taxed $1.10 for every ton of coal mined underground and $0.55 for surface-mined coal to pay these expenses. (Source)