EPISODE · Sep 17, 2025 · 42 MIN
A Federal Freeze Won’t Stop Green Progress
from Next City · host Straw Hut Media
Even as billions in federal clean energy funding sit trapped in legal limbo, community lenders are determined to keep the green transition alive.This episode of Next City explores how to press forward with the clean-energy transition despite a federal freeze on the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.Next City’s senior economic justice correspondent Oscar Perry Abello speaks with Neda Arabshahi, executive vice president of the Inclusiv Center for Resiliency and Clean Energy; Amir Kirkwood, CEO of the Justice Climate Fund; and Beth Bafford, CEO of Climate United. Together, they explain how local institutions like credit unions and CDFIs are funding solar projects, energy-efficiency upgrades, and resilience hubs even without federal dollars. According to these leaders, the clean energy movement isn’t waiting on Washington.“The clean energy transition is happening. But who is benefiting from that transition is unequal,” says Bafford. She argues it’s now the responsibility of changemakers to ensure resources still flow to “people, places, and communities across the country that otherwise were going to be kind of in the back of the line in terms of clean energy adoption and really should be at the front.”This episode is based on a Next City webinar, a recording of which can be viewed in our library.
What this episode covers
Even as billions in federal clean energy funding sit trapped in legal limbo, community lenders are determined to keep the green transition alive.This episode of Next City explores how to press forward with the clean-energy transition despite a federal freeze on the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.Next City’s senior economic justice correspondent Oscar Perry Abello speaks with Neda Arabshahi, executive vice president of the Inclusiv Center for Resiliency and Clean Energy; Amir Kirkwood, CEO of the Justice Climate Fund; and Beth Bafford, CEO of Climate United. Together, they explain how local institutions like credit unions and CDFIs are funding solar projects, energy-efficiency upgrades, and resilience hubs even without federal dollars. According to these leaders, the clean energy movement isn’t waiting on Washington.“The clean energy transition is happening. But who is benefiting from that transition is unequal,” says Bafford. She argues it’s now the responsibility of changemakers to ensure resources still flow to “people, places, and communities across the country that otherwise were going to be kind of in the back of the line in terms of clean energy adoption and really should be at the front.”This episode is based on a Next City webinar, a recording of which can be viewed in our library.
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A Federal Freeze Won’t Stop Green Progress
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