By Geof Koss, E&E News reporter
Published: Wednesday, July 22, 2020
An assortment of interests are stepping up pressure on Capitol Hill to include assistance for struggling clean energy sectors in the upcoming COVID-19 relief package that lawmakers are hoping to enact in the coming weeks.
The new push — which includes industry groups, environmentalists, governors and major corporations — comes as the Trump administration and House and Senate lawmakers kicked off formal negotiations yesterday on a new phase of pandemic assistance that — like past talks — is focused more broadly on immediate economic and public health challenges (E&E Daily, July 21).
But advocates are pointing to the roughly 600,000 clean energy jobs lost since the pandemic hit in March to argue for assistance in the next phase.
A coalition that includes dozens of environmental and industry trade groups as well as state and local government officials today will send a letter to Senate leaders calling for the inclusion of $20 billion in the next pandemic bill for a nonprofit Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator that was passed by the House earlier this month as part of Democrats’ $1.5 trillion infrastructure package, H.R. 2.
“The opportunity to build the infrastructure to generate, move, store and use clean and efficient energy is nearly boundless,” said the letter, led by the Coalition for Green Capital.