"New York and Wisconsin are the first to launch their long-awaited Inflation Reduction Act programs meant to deploy everything from heat pumps to insulation."
"Two years ago this week, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the major climate legislation brimming with clean energy subsidies — including a marquee $8.8 billion in home energy rebates to help hundreds of thousands of households decarbonize their homes.
But the rebates, which can add up to $14,000 per qualifying household and be used on upgrades from heat pumps to insulation, aren’t yet available to the majority of Americans. The rebate money will be doled out at the state level, and most states are still in the midst of waiting for DOE approval of their program designs — or have yet to even apply for their portion of the climate law’s funding.
So far, only New York and Wisconsin have officially started offering home energy rebates to residents. Though exact timelines for other state program launches are hazy, they are taking shape.
Fifty out of 56 states and territories have signaled to the agency that they intend to set up rebate programs. Twenty-three of those have actually applied — for a combined $3.1 billion in funding — to set up rebate initiatives. And DOE has approved applications for 10 of those states; besides New York and Wisconsin, these are Arizona, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Six states — all in which Republicans control the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature — have not applied to the DOE for administrative funds to pursue rebate program applications: Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming."
Alison F. Takemura reports for Canary Media August 14, 2024.
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