What’s Wrong with Investing Your Environmental Values?

How’s this for irony the lion’s share of funded projects under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have gone to states whose Republican senators and representatives voted against it? A POLITICO analysis concluded that of the first 33 projects that received IRA funding, 21 were in Republican-held congressional districts, while 12 were in Democratic districts”.

Is this a good thing? Overall, I would say yes. But, like most things in the world, it’s what you make of it.

The IRA, for those unfamiliar with it, is the $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations bill that included $369 billion to fight climate change. The IRA is important for two reasons

First, it’s the most integrated federal approach to combatting climate change in US history. Second, the IRA is an appropriations bill. An appropriations bill means the money is there. All that’s left is how to spend it, and that’s the work of an authorizing bill.

The IRA’s appropriation is vital because it provides a lot of protection from any future efforts to claw the money back by a future Congress and White House opposed to climate and clean energy policies. Appropriations, in general, are difficult to undo.

In the case of the IRA, much of the money goes to the states to implement and administer. No state — red…