Briefing Series: Congressional Climate Camp 2023

Key Takeaways

• The appropriations process is the distribution of all non-mandatory (i.e., discretionary) funding by Congress. The annual process begins when the president submits the budget to Congress.

• Federal agencies are each assigned to one of 12 Appropriations subcommittees.

• When members of Congress submit requests to the Appropriations committees, they can make a funding request, a report language request, or a bill language request. Members of Congress can make individual requests or sign on to multi-member letters.

• Earmarks on the House side are called “Community Project Funding,” and, on the Senate side, they are called “Congressionally Directed Spending.” Earmarks allow members of Congress to support specific projects within their state or district. Earmarking was reinstated during the 117th Congress, following a 10-year moratorium.

• Fights over discretionary spending may get linked to a fight over the debt limit, as seen in 2011 and 2013, but the debt limit is fundamentally about past spending choices, not future choices. There are times when appropriations and the debt limit have been linked politically and by the calendar, but conceptually they are not linked.

Our second session in EESI’s Congressional Climate Camp series explores the public’s interest in seeing continued federal attention on climate change. Forty-six percent of people in the United States say they have personally experienced the impacts of climate change and 55 percent of people say that climate change should be a high or very high priority for Congress and the administration, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Panelists explored the latest analyses of public opinion on climate change across sectors and geography and explain why it matters for the 118th Congress.

Key Takeaways

• Americans are increasingly convinced that global warming is happening, human-caused, and a serious problem. Americans also increasingly understand that climate impacts are here and now and would like to see more government action.

• There is strong bipartisan consensus around putting a price on carbon (especially as a revenue-neutral tax), planting trees, and investing in a clean energy transition.

• Black, Hispanic and Latino, and lower-income Americans are among the groups most concerned about climate change, yet people often perceive these groups as among the least concerned.

• Among Americans, there is low recognition of the unequal impacts of climate change across the United States even though race and class are some of the strongest risk factors when it comes to exposure to environmental hazards.

• Americans who have experienced the impacts of severe weather events are significantly more likely to support policies for grid resilience, disaster preparedness, and greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Although carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most commonly discussed greenhouse gas, there are many other gases that also contribute to global warming, including methane, nitrous oxides, and fluorinated gases. Our third session in EESI’s Congressional Climate Camp series discussed how these gases play a part in climate change, as well as solutions for limiting their effects. Presenters highlighted federal and international policy actions, including the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, that address the warming potential of non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

Key Takeaways

• Non-carbon dioxide (non-CO2) greenhouse gases are overlooked contributors to climate change. Reducing these emissions can deliver fast climate, economic, and health benefits.

• Half of all warming contributions today come from non-CO2 greenhouse gases. Cutting short-lived climate pollutants, including methane, hydrofluorocarbons, ozone, and black carbon, can avoid four times more warming by 2050 than decarbonization policies alone.

• RMI’s Oil and Gas Solutions Initiative, Climate TRACE, and Carbon Mapper are global mapping efforts that track methane, CO2, and other greenhouse gas emissions using satellite and country data. Measuring, monitoring, and quantifying emissions begins the process of tracking, accounting, and attributing them to certify and regulate emissions.

• For more information on this topic, read EESI’s article series on non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

Our fourth session in EESI’s Congressional Climate Camp series is on implementing the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. These laws provide billions of dollars to confront the climate crisis and strengthen critical infrastructure. Panelists provided an update on the status of their implementation, described how state and local governments and organizations are accessing funds, and explained the oversight role Congress must play to maximize these investments.

• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (P.L. 117-58), also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provides $1.2 trillion for infrastructure across a variety of sectors, including transportation, energy, broadband, and water. More than half of IIJA funding—$660 billion—flows by formula, meaning that the law itself specifies who is going to get the funds and how much they will receive. In addition to formula funds, there are over 100 competitive grant programs in IIJA. 

• The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) (P.L. 117-169) provides a market environment that strongly favors the deployment of new clean electricity generation. 

• The IRA focuses on bringing funds down to the community level. Community-based organizations, such as green banks, community development financial institutions, and credit unions, will have a role in facilitating the flow of these funds from state and federal agencies to communities. 

• The IRA contains numerous consumer rebate provisions and tax credits for residential energy efficiency and electrification. All consumers are eligible for these rebates and low-to-moderate income households may receive enhanced benefits. 

• As implementation gets underway, it is important to consider what measures should be tracked to understand the outcomes of investments made through the IIJA and IRA.