Over $1.7 billion has been invested in Colorado
Inflation Reduction Act invests $373 billion in climate & clean energy transition
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper celebrated the two year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) he helped negotiate and pass.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed Colorado’s clean energy potential,” said Hickenlooper. “We’re creating thousands of good-paying jobs in manufacturing from Brighton to Pueblo and cutting pollution for the communities that experience the worst of it. Families are saving hundreds on their electricity bills and seniors are paying less for prescription drugs. And we’re just getting started.”
The Inflation Reduction Act is considered the largest investment to combat climate change in history. The IRA invested an estimated $373 billion to jumpstart our transition to clean energy, accelerate advanced energy technologies, reduce pollution, and upskill our workforce in the process. The legislation also lowered health care costs and is helping address our deficit by making wealthy corporations pay their fair share and taxing stock buybacks.
Hickenlooper played a critical role moving the negotiations along at a time when many had given up on an ambitious bill. CNN also reported that Hickenlooper helped break the logjam and win final support for the bill.
For a map of all the IRA investments, click HERE.
JUMPSTARTING THE GREAT TRANSITION
Thanks to the IRA, Colorado has already welcomed over $1.7 billion in IRA investments to boost our thriving clean energy manufacturing, including wind turbine and solar cells manufacturing, and address environmental health disparities. These HUGE investments in Colorado’s economy have already delivered over 4,914 new good-paying jobs and are reducing pollution in traditionally marginalized communities.
Key Colorado investments include:
- COLORADO ENERGY OFFICE (CEO) and DENVER REGIONAL COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS (DRCOG): $328 million investment to help monitor and reduce methane emissions and increase energy efficiency and decarbonization efforts
- CS WIND (Pueblo): $200 million investment to expand manufacturing facilities and hire over 800 new local employees. Last November, Hickenlooper joined President Biden in Pueblo to celebrate the investment
- VSK ENERGY (Brighton): $250 million investment to build a solar manufacturing plant, creating over 900 good paying jobs
- MEYER BURGER (Colorado Springs): $400 million investment for a solar cell manufacturing facility, creating over 350 jobs
- COLORADO ENERGY OFFICE’s (CEO) SOLAR FOR ALL AWARD: $156 million investment to accelerate rooftop solar installations and community solar programs for single-family and multifamily housing in low- and moderate-income Colorado communities
- GOLDEN ALUMINUM INC (Fort Lupton): $22 million investment to boost efficiency, to increase production of clean energy technologies, and to enhance workforce training
- LONGPATH TECHNOLOGIES (Boulder): $189 million loan guarantee to monitor methane emissions in real time in oil and gas production basins across Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Texas
- ALAMOSA COUNTY: $1.7 million grant to identify the optimal route to increase electric transmission capacity to the Upper Rio Grande Valley in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico
- COMMUNITY FORESTRY GRANTS: $29.5 million in investments to grow and maintain urban trees, forests, and green spaces for communities across Colorado
- PUBLIC LANDS RESTORATION: $11.1 million for conserving wildlife habitat and enhancing recreational opportunities on public lands in Colorado’s San Luis Valley and North Park landscapes
The IRA also invested over $100 billion in tax credits for clean energy generation, $10 billion home efficiency and electrification upgrades, and millions for electric vehicle tax credits. And Coloradans are also seeing the savings hit their wallets. Over 66,000 Colorado households directly benefited from the tax credits to increase energy efficiency and install solar panels.
In addition, the legislation also followed Colorado’s lead on methane regulations, which Hickenlooper helped establish when he was Governor, and set the first-ever methane fee of $1,500 per ton of leaked methane from oil and gas operations.
IRA included $4 billion to help Colorado and the Colorado River Basin address ongoing drought. The Bureau of Reclamation has already deployed $50 million for the System Conservation Pilot Program in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Hickenlooper secured reauthorization for the program and is working to continue it through 2026. Recently, the Bureau of Reclamation announced a funding opportunity for as much as $450 million for ecosystem restoration projects in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
The IRA delivered over $5 million through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) Grants and Loans to 27 Colorado businesses to reduce their emissions and increase sustainability. Funding comes from the almost $20 billion for climate-smart agricultural tools and practices to reduce emissions and increase sustainability.
LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS
Thousands of Coloradans are experiencing financial relief thanks to IRA’s provisions that expanded benefits, lowered drug costs, and strengthened Medicare for the future.
The IRA’s policies limiting out-of-pocket costs for seniors with Medicare are expected to save over $48 million for the 177,000 Coloradans enrolled in Medicare’s Part D program, which helps cover the cost of prescription drugs.
It also saved over 16,000 Coloradans an average of $515 a year bycapping out-of-pocket costs for insulin via Medicare at $35 per month.
Over 100,000 Medicare enrollees in Colorado rely on the drugs that Medicare now negotiates prices on and will directly benefit as a result. The Medicare program and seniors are predicted to save $7.5 billion in the first year thanks to Medicare’s negotiations. These negotiated prices range from 38-79% in reductions off of list prices.
MAKING BIG CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE
In addition to the historic investments addressing climate change and reducing health care costs, the IRA helped reduce the federal deficit by holding the largest corporations accountable. The IRA’s investment in the Internal Revenue Service to go after millionaires and billionaires who are illegally evading taxes has already paid dividends. This year the IRS announced that they collected over $1 billion from high-wealth taxpayers with overdue taxes.
The federal government is also able to pay down its deficit thanks to the IRA provision that imposes a 15 percent minimum tax for approximately 200 of the largest corporations with more than $1 billion in profits and a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks, which corporations use to inflate their stock price and pay CEOs. In 2020, 55 of the largest corporations paid $0 in federal tax, receiving over $3 billion back from the government in refunds. The provision is expected to deliver $222 billion over the next ten years.
If teachers and firefighters pay taxes, so should multi-billion dollar corporations.
The IRA also included the Hickenlooper-proposed 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks, which corporations use to inflate their stock price and pay CEOs, to help reduce the federal deficit and fight inflation.
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