Twenty-two years ago, Chelsea Sexton was laid off from one of her first jobs: General Motors had tasked her and a small group of 20-somethings to help bring the first modern electric vehicle, the EV1, to market.
The DOE’s loan office is remembered for money issued to automakers including Ford, Nissan and Tesla during the Obama administration. The amounts involved then were chump change compared to the $370 billion in investments the US will make in energy and climate programs over the next decade under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Of course, the work DOE is doing is just one corner of what will be a broad and immensely challenging effort to actually execute what the IRA set out to do: confront what is an existential climate crisis in a way that creates US jobs and economic opportunities.