About The Tour Stop

Together, America Is All In and The Bullard Center for Environmental & Climate Justice are hosting an in-person event on delivering meaningful benefits for disadvantaged communities through climate action. Participants will learn to leverage the federal community benefits framework tied to IRA investments and incentives to highlight the climate and environmental justice perspective on delivering meaningful benefits for disadvantaged communities within renewable energy development. Through this series of discussions, we will help community groups approach the co-creation of community benefits plans and agreements, promote best practices that produce strong community benefits plans as part of federal climate investments and incentives, and explore ways to strengthen climate and environmental justice objectives as part of the national community benefits ecosystem.

Featured Speakers

Dr. Robert Bullard, Executive Director of The Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice

Dr. Denae King, Associate Director of The Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice

Devashree Saha, Director of U.S. Clean Energy Economy, WRI

Jay Mehta, Community Benefits Resource Center Manager, Jobs to Move America

Jeremiah Rivera, Regional Engagement Specialist, DOE Office of Community Engagement

Jerome Shabazz, Executive Director, Overbrook Environmental Education Center

Hadia Sheerazi, Community Engagement Manager, RMI

Mark Haggerty, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Romany M. Webb, Deputy Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School

Yinka Bode-George, Founder, Sustain Our Future Foundation

How are community benefit agreements important to climate action?

A major component in advancing an equitable renewable energy transition through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) implementation is delivering social, economic, and environmental benefits for disadvantaged communities. The Biden-Harris Administration has developed a federal community benefits framework aligning federal climate investments and incentives coming from both the IRA and BIL with key policies like Justice40, Investing in America’s Workforce, Engaging Communities and Labor, and Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. Entities seeking to access IRA incentives to advance decarbonization efforts as part of their broad climate and sustainability plans must produce community benefits plans and meaningfully engage the workforce and community stakeholders, prioritizing disadvantaged communities.