Colorado agencies were awarded $328 million in grants by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to launch a host of programs to cut greenhouse gas emissions from homes, commercial buildings, landfills, mines and the transportation sector.
The Denver Regional Council of Governments will receive $199.7 million and the Colorado Energy Office was granted $129 million.
“Our guiding mission is ensuring all people in Colorado have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to live healthy lives. These grants — unprecedented in their funding — bring us and Coloradans closer to achieving these goals,” EPA Regional Administrator KC Becker said in a statement.
Colorado has a statutory goal and a roadmap to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in 2030 and 90% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.
Becker, who served as speaker of the state House of Representatives, was the prime sponsor of the 2019 legislation mandating the greenhouse gas reductions.
The Colorado Energy Office programs will seek to reduce emissions from landfills, coal mines, and large commercial buildings and transportation.
One key element will be to deploy advanced methane monitoring to improve emission regulations for coal mines and landfills. Some of the money will be used for a competitive grant program to help large commercial buildings cut emissions and some will go to local government initiatives.
“Local and Tribal government actions are crucial to this effort, and this funding will ensure that they can adopt and implement key policies to help us achieve net-zero emissions by 2050,” Will Toor, executive director of the Colora Energy Office, said in a statement.
“This money will also help large building owners reduce their energy usage and associated emissions,” Toor said.
Between 2025 and 2030 the state energy office programs are projected to cut the equivalent of 4.2 metric tons of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas and a total reduction of 25 tons by 2050.
DRCOG’s “Zero Emission Building Initiative” will focus on, according to the council’s grant application, “residential and commercial building sectors and increase energy and resource efficiency, with an emphasis on low-income and disadvantaged communities. “
The program will provide free home retrofits and upgrade services for low-income and disadvantaged populations and free energy advising to residential, multifamily and commercial building owners.
It will also offer rebates and incentives to accelerate the adoption of energy efficiency and electrification measures, and create a building policy collaborative to advance ambitious building policies at the local level.
Among the initiative’s goals are electrifying weatherproofing more than Front Range 60,000 buildings and addressing workforce gaps by providing job training for 3,800 new workers and upgrading skills for 1,000 existing workers.
The program is projected to cut the equivalent of 6.9 million tons of carbon dioxide between 2025 and 2030 and a total of 148.2 million metric tons by 2050,
“This federal grant will enable us to take bold, visionary steps to reduce climate pollution and protect the health and well-being of our residents,” Jeff Baker, an Arapahoe County commissioner and DRCOG board chairman, said in a statement.
The Colorado awards were among 25 awards totaling $4.3 billion the EPA made through its Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, which was created under the Inflation Reduction Act.
The largest single grant — $450 million — was made to a coalition of five New England states for a “heat pump accelerator” to put heat pumps in 500,000 single- and multi-family residences in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine.