It's up to states to implement IRA. Are they ready?

States don’t (yet) have the administrative capacity to smoothly implement the ambitious policies in the IRA; in this episode, policy strategist Sam Ricketts of Evergreen Action discusses how federal programs can help them get there.

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Text transcript:

David Roberts

States are central to climate and energy policy. After the failure of the Waxman-Markey climate bill in 2010, states carried the torch of climate policy during the long decade that Democrats were locked out of majority power in Washington, DC. Now that Dems have actually passed some federal policy — and they are unlikely to pass any more anytime soon — states are once again in the spotlight, tasked with implementing that legislation to maximize its effect.

This raises the obvious question of whether states have the administrative capacity — the people, institutions, time, and money — necessary to implement ambitious federal legislation competently.

They do not, says Sam Ricketts, but they could, and there are federal programs that can help them get there.

Nobody is better positioned than Ricketts to address the issue of state readiness. He played a key role in Jay Inslee's pathbreaking presidential campaign, which was built off of successful policies in Washington and other states. Then, as senior strategist for Evergreen Action, a nonprofit he founded with other Inslee veterans, he helped shape the ambitious trio of bills the Democrats have passed in the last year and a half: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (or as advocates fondly refer to them, Uncles Bill, Chip, and Ira). Now he’s working with Evergreen and the Center for American Progress to educate and prepare state and local lawmakers for the post-IRA world.

I've known Ricketts for years, and there's nobody who better balances detailed knowledge of policy with a practical head for advocacy and activism. I'm excited to talk to him about the crucial role states will play in coming years, the kind of administrative capacity they will need, and the types of federal programs that can fund their capacity building.

So, enough of that. With no further ado, Sam Ricketts, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.

Sam Ricketts

Thanks for having me, David. Pleasure to be with you.

David Roberts

I'm so excited to talk about administrative capacity, the sexiest of all podcast topics loyal listeners know this is an ongoing obsession of mine.

Sam Ricketts

They've come for the good stuff.

David Roberts

Yes, exactly. So get ready to jump in. So I want to talk about state and local governments and whether they're up for this. But first, let's just briefly talk a little bit about just how central states and local governments have already been in climate policy in the US. So after you and I, well remember all too well the humiliating defeat of the Waxman-Markey Bill back in 2009, 2010. And after that, the sort of national scene was dead for ten years and everyone was off in the wilderness. And the only thing that was going on was states passing good legislation.

So maybe let's start by just talking about those states being kind of the laboratories for democracy as it were and how the states sort of pioneered stuff and learned stuff that then went into informing the federal legislation that was just passed.

Sam Ricketts

Indeed. So the first thing to your point, you mentioned that states and local governments have long been sort of the nation's leaders in developing and implementing climate and clean energy policy. And we're going to talk about what they need to do next in terms of implementation. But an important point, as you allude to here, is the progress that's just been given to us from Washington DC. The passage of Uncle Bill, Uncle Ira, Uncle Chip, the three climate uncles, so to speak. And the other initiatives that the Biden administration is advancing are really drawn from, inspired by, informed by the progress that states and local governments have made throughout the country.

And this progress, as you mentioned, really jump started over the course of the last decade and sort of in the interregnum period between the last attempt at climate legislation and this ultimately very successful one. But it goes back further, right. States began passing clean energy laws decades ago. Years ago. I mean, the first renewable portfolio standard to require utilities to start utilizing clean renewable electricity was actually passed in Iowa 40 years ago. That activity last went through states red, blue and purple alike through the 1990s. In the early 2000s, you really saw an uptick in states beginning to target greenhouse gas climate pollution directly with laws that like Massachusetts' Global Warming Solutions Act, notably, of course, the AB 32 law passed in California in 2006, sort of set economy-wide programs and sectoral programs advancing climate action.

And then in the 2000s, after the last failed attempt at federal climate legislation, you really saw this uptick. And states really carried the ball in a number of different ways and in ways that directly inspired the breakthroughs here. I mean, just a few of the items. In 2015, Hawaii became the first state in the country to pass a 100% clean electricity standard requiring utilities to get to all carbon-free electricity on their grid. And now over 20 states have that commitment in some form. About 15 have passed that requirement into law. And I would argue that that underlies President Biden's most important climate commitment that he's made and is trying to advance through both legislative and executive means towards 100% clean electricity by 2035.

A couple of the other things that were passed by states and indirectly informed things in IRA in particular were tax credits tied to labor standards. So to ensure that we're building not just clean energy and not just jobs, but clean energy supporting good family wage, high quality jobs. And notably that was inspired by things like the Clean Energy Transformation Act passed in Washington state and signed by my former boss, Governor Jay Inslee in 2019. You also see in IRA and throughout the Biden administration's initiatives a prioritized investment in disadvantaged communities to advance environmental and economic justice and things like President Biden's Justice40 initiative, which was itself directly inspired by the New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act that had that Justice40 commitment for New York that was also passed in 2019.

So there's this rush of legislative and policy making in the second half of the last decade in particular, but really throughout the course of it just one more item because it's a favorite that really directly informs what we're seeing implemented now. And IRA is connecticut in 2011 was the first state in the country to establish a green bank. It's now been created in 23 state and local governments, I believe. And that directly, of course, inspired the creation of a greenhouse gas reduction fund, a $27 billion program in IRA that again is going to be now a critical tool for states and local governments to leverage to build the clean energy economy flowing out of IRA implementation.

So the first thing here is this progress that we now have