Inflation Reduction Action from a Human Rights Perspective

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law in August 2022, is the largest investment in addressing climate change in U.S. history. Funding for projects is distributed as competitive grants, loans, bonds, and tax credits for eligible entities. This Capstone team collaborated with the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), a national advocacy organization that works to create equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy through partnerships with community based organizations, who they refer to as affiliates. The first objective was to help affiliates working with CPD more readily access funding. The team worked with CPD to identify funding opportunities most relevant to their affiliates’ areas of engagement and created a toolkit and compendium presentation that synthesized the application process, available funding, eligible entities, key dates and other relevant information. While these resources are being actively used by affiliates in their application process, the toolkit is also designed to be a framework that CPD, affiliates, and future Capstone teams can update as additional information becomes available. In the next stage of the consultancy, the Capstone team were required to analyze relevant grants to support CPD in advocating for improvements to IRA funding distribution processes. The team developed an advocacy report informed by human rights and social justice lenses that evaluated the IRA and related funding applications based on issues of accessibility, accountability, eligibility, and transparency. This report is intended to support CPD and their affiliates in their engagements with federal and state agencies to ensure that funds reach low-income and disadvantaged communities and are distributed using a rights-based approach.