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
