By Katherine Rapin for Next City.
Broadcast version by Trimmel Gomes for Florida News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

For two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Lucy's Pizza was the only restaurant open in the central mountain town of Adjuntas. The town's 18,000 residents, like those on the rest of the island, were entirely without electricity.

"No one has power, you can't get gas, it's difficult to make food, so everyone came here to eat," says owner Gustavo Irizarry. "The line," he gestured down the block along the town's central plaza, "endless."

Using a diesel generator, Lucy's was running at about 75% capacity. The generator was loud, emitted dangerous fumes and wasn't always reliable. Irizarry was often up in the middle of the night to restart the generator because of the risk of losing power to the refrigerators. He didn't want ingredients to spoil.

Now, nearly six years later, Irizarry is poised to generate his own energy from the sun. He's one of 14 merchants in downtown Adjuntas who invested in the island's first community-owned solar microgrids - expected to go live before the height of hurricane season this summer.

"After Maria, we saw the vulnerability and the necessity to have an electric system that truly works," Irizarry says. "To have better, alternative power, to be able to live."

The microgrid project is the latest effort in a two decades-long grassroots movement to build energy security in Puerto Rico in the form of solar power.

Irizarry had spent $15,000 on diesel in the six months he was without power after Maria. When the grid finally came back on, the cost of energy kept rising - electric bills were sucking up 30% of Lucy's operating expenses. Meanwhile, a longstanding energy independence initiative was paying dividends while providing reliable power in his own backyard.

A few blocks from the pizza shop, dozens of Adjunteños gathered at another community refuge - this one powered by renewable energy. Environmental nonprofit Casa Pueblo installed their first solar panels in 1999 and retrofitted the system to be completely off-grid just months before the hurricane. Locals came to charge phones, run dialysis machines, and store medications in the center's refrigerators. One neighbor came daily to administer her son's asthma treatment.

Founded in 1980, Casa Pueblo is well known across the island and among the diaspora, who were sending aid, trying, in part, to make up for the inadequate federal response after the hurricane. Across the island, groups like the Casa Pueblo have relied on deep roots in the community to create local buy-in and lead an equitable transition to energy security.

"We told people, we don't want money - send us solar lamps," says Arturo Massol Deyá, who along with his father leads Casa Pueblo's efforts in Adjuntas. For practical reasons, yes, and because he saw an opportunity to educate the community about solar energy.

And it worked. Locals started looking to Casa Pueblo for solutions, including business owners like Irizarry.

A community-owned solution

Spread across the roofs of seven buildings in town, the island's first community-owned solar microgrid will be able to power businesses that provide essential services for the community: a pharmacy, a hardware store, a bakery and Irizarry's pizza shop, among others.

The microgrids - comprising two half-megawatt battery storage systems connected to 700 solar panels - will be connected to the central grid. In the case of an outage, they can "island," relying on their own generation and storage.

The systems will enable businesses to be energy oases during prolonged outages and pay - to the nonprofit the owners formed - a lower rate for energy year-round. Proceeds will be invested in solar projects for the community, starting with the homes of the most vulnerable residents.

The aim: building resilience in the face of increasing climate impacts, while generating wealth across Adjuntas.

The $2 million project was led by Casa Pueblo in partnership with the solar-energy focused Honnold Foundation and local business owners, and with the support of University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, among others.

It's the latest effort in Casa Pueblo's "Energy Insurrection," a movement to become an entirely solar-powered town and model energy resilience for communities across Puerto Rico.

"The microgrid is a major step in taking Puerto Rico from the vulnerability of the centralized fossil fuel system to the aspiration that I think we share in Puerto Rico," says Arturo Massol Deyá. "To use local fuels and generate power at the point of consumption, where it's needed."

As storm-induced outages become more frequent, local generation and storage have become more critical, and not only on islands. The United States' 700 microgrids, more than half of which were built since 2015, already provide reliable power for places like hospitals, schools and airports. By 2035, the Department of Energy expects microgrids will be "essential building blocks of the future electricity delivery system to support resilience, decarbonization, and affordability."

With 350 residential and essential service buildings already running on solar and the town center set to be powered by two microgrids, Adjuntas has become a model for how a community can transition to solar power. Members of Congress like Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have endorsed the solar movement in Adjuntas; in March, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm met with leaders at Casa Pueblo to discuss strategies for Puerto Rico to completely transition to renewable energy by 2050.

"They're leading by example, showing that 100% solar power is possible for Puerto Rico," Granholm commented after her visit.

Leaders attribute their success to an approach that starts with bolstering solar education and access, relies on deep knowledge of the specific local needs, and builds wealth and resilience through community ownership of clean energy generation.

Born out of necessity

Despite $12 billion of federal funding allocated for rebuilding energy infrastructure since Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico's central grid is still in disrepair.

Outages after Fiona in 2022 exposed the persistent vulnerabilities of a system that's reliant on imported fossil fuels, 32,000 miles of distribution lines and a public utility that's $9 billion in debt. Since private American-Canadian company LUMA took over the island's transmission and distribution in 2021, rates have increased more than seven times and blackouts have continued.

Puerto Ricans experience the consequences on a daily or weekly basis, while spending 8% of their income ($21,967, on average) on electricity, compared to 2.4% on the U.S mainland. To keep cool during increasingly frequent heat waves, islanders are using more energy - causing blackouts amid exceedingly dangerous temperatures.

Hundreds of renewable energy advocates, many represented by the movement Queremos Sol (We Want Sun), say the solution is obvious. Rooftop solar alone could potentially provide four times the island's residential energy demand, Department of Energy studies have shown.

Despite efforts to transition to renewables and the local government's goal of sourcing 100% renewable energy percent by 2050, the island currently sources less than 4% from renewables.

The utility Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) has instead advanced natural gas projects without federal regulatory approval and even proposed a fee on energy generated by rooftop solar to help restructure their debt. In April, a group of environmental non-profits sued FEMA, claiming that the federal agency's plans to rebuild the grid "fail to meaningfully consider relying on distributed renewable energy systems."

The Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund's $1 billion, approved by Congress last year and managed by the U.S. DOE, isn't expected to be allocated until the end of 2023. In the meantime, the DOE team is collecting input from community leaders like those at Casa Pueblo, who have been on the ground developing their own solutions for the past six years.

La Insurrección Energética

Since distributing 14,000 solar lamps after Maria, Casa Pueblo has built a public solar park and installed more than 350 solar systems on homes and essential service buildings.

Homes with solar are saving an average of $40 per month on energy bills, Casa Pueblo estimates, and were able to maintain power when Fiona hit last fall.

These ongoing projects have given locals the opportunity to see the benefits of solar energy firsthand and garnered support for the microgrid, which has been four years in the making.

In 2019, leaders at Casa Pueblo were considering the potential impacts of solarizing businesses in downtown Adjuntas - providing energy security in the heart of the community while disrupting the fossil fuel industry by unplugging those with the highest energy demands, as Massol Deyá saw it. Meanwhile, business owners like Izairry were looking for alternatives.

But as the microgrid idea was taking shape, Casa Pueblo's late co-founder Tinti Deyá Diaz wasn't totally on board; she wanted to ensure lower-income residents would continue to benefit from the solar transition.

Her concern led the 14 businesses owners who will receive power from the microgrid to form the nonprofit Asociación Comunitaria Energia Solar Adjuntas (Community Solar Energy Association of Adjuntas, or ACESA), essentially operating as an independent utility.

They'll pay 25 cents per kWh to themselves, about 10 cents cheaper than what they'd pay the utility. After covering maintenance and operation costs, proceeds will be reinvested in community solar projects, prioritizing homes of the most vulnerable Adjunteños.

It's a model many communities on the island are interested in replicating. Last October, Casa Pueblo organized a community meeting to bring together about 30 groups working on solar projects on the island. Attendees included folks working on a microgrid project in Maricao, a mountain town of about 5,000. They're also aiming to solarize local businesses, including the town's only bank, which doesn't have a backup generator.

It hasn't been easy to get some business owners to commit to a 20-year project (the approximate life of the panels and batteries), says Andrew Hermann, director of Monte Azul Foundation, which is spearheading the Maricao project.

When residents of the mountain town visited Casa Pueblo, "seeing [the microgrid] in person and talking to business owners that are super pro-microgrid - it's really assuring the business owners here," Hermann says. "That's the type of energy that helps build these projects from the ground up."

Adjuntas is also the site of microgrid resilience research by scientists at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez and other U.S. Universities.

"What happens if you lose 30-40% of the [power] generation in one solar array due to a hurricane?" says Maximiliano Ferrari, an engineer at the Oak Ridge lab and among the leaders of the research team.

The team is working to develop a technology to connect the two microgrids - which they call a "microgrid orchestrator" - enabling them to share energy if one is compromised. Referred to as networking or clustering, this nascent technology is expected by many in the industry to be an important component of future microgrids.

Ferrari says the project in Adjuntas is a perfect - and rare - testing site, because the microgrids are so close together. The team plans to start testing the microgrid orchestrator this summer. At the end of the project, all the developments will be open sourced, says Ferrari.

"Solar energy, for an even better country!"

The project still faces the challenge of connecting to the central grid. Only time will tell how the goals of ACESA will play out in reality. Massol Deyá acknowledges mistakes along the way - for one, the project was costlier than it could have been.

"But it's the first time; you have to do it to have that experience, and use that to help others," says Massol Deyá. "We share what we have done - the challenges, the limitations, the complications."

The developments in Adjuntas have already been put to the test with Hurricane Fiona.

A Category 1 storm when it hit in the fall of 2022, just days after the five-year anniversary of Maria, Fiona caused prolonged outages across the island. But in Adjuntas, the solar-powered fire station was able to respond to local needs and even intercept calls from the station in Ponce, 15 miles south, which had lost power. Casa Pueblo's solar radio broadcast was uninterrupted; remote workers gathered at the solar park to plug in; many residents with medical conditions were able to continue treatments thanks to the panels on their roofs.

Hours after the storm, one family posted on Casa Pueblo's social media thanking them for the solar system that allowed their daughter to continue her dialysis during and after the storm.

In March, thousands lined the streets of Adjuntas for Casa Pueblo's Marcha del Sol to show support for solar energy and celebrate the completion of the microgrid.

"Energía so-lar - pa' un mejor país!" they shouted. Solar energy, for a better country!

"When you see the entire landscape, you know that we are still at risk - we are going to be confronting the same climate change challenges, hurricanes, earthquakes," says Massol Deyá. "But I can say, and it was tested with Fiona, that Adjuntas is in a better position to confront these realities."


Katherine Rapin wrote this article for Next City.


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By Kristoffer Tigue, Dennis Pillion, Dylan Baddour and Marianne Lavelle for Inside Climate News.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

When a rare tornado swept through the north side of Minneapolis, Michelle Neal scrambled for cover at a fast-food restaurant. "It was unreal-we could have died," she told Minnesota Public Radio. "McDonald's saved me."

It's the kind of scenario that Julia Nerbonne, executive director of Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, wants to make sure communities are better prepared for as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather. The faith-based nonprofit hopes to transform churches and other congregations into emergency shelters with solar power and battery storage to withstand power outages-especially in historically disadvantaged communities, like north Minneapolis, which have long been overburdened by pollution and underinvestment.

"We want to have a building," she said, "in which they can have a cooling place, in which they can refrigerate their medication-a place where they can be with the community in the midst of a crisis."

Around the country, nonprofits and other community organizations like Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light were hoping these sorts of projects would receive funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has $3 billion to spend on environmental justice community grants through Sept. 30, 2026. But the Biden administration has only been able to award about half the money so far, and experts say the unspent 50 percent can most likely be clawed back by President-elect Donald Trump-a blow to communities of color and poor rural communities that had long waited for help like this.

Among the threatened initiatives is the EPA's Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, which dedicated $600 million in block grants for projects aimed at tackling climate and environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. The money has been hailed by advocates as one of the most important federal investments ever made in closing the nation's long-standing socioeconomic and racial gaps.

The Biden administration has so far awarded nearly $266 million, according to an EPA database, leaving more than half-or just over $334 million-vulnerable to reversal efforts from Trump officials or Republican lawmakers. "EPA continues to work through its rigorous process to obligate the funds under the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Thriving Communities Grantmakers program," said Nick Conger, the EPA's communications director.

Last week, the EPA opened up the first round of applications for the Thriving Communities program, giving hopeful applicants like Nerbonne less than two months to navigate the complicated federal grantmaking process before Trump is sworn in. In fact, several EPA regions have yet to open their application processes, leaving some groups worried they won't be able to complete their applications on time.

"It just seems like an incredibly missed opportunity. I'd feel disappointed about that," Nerbonne said, when asked how she would feel if the program's funding was rescinded under Trump. "Congregations aren't talking about politics. They're ready to get to work serving their community and they're tired of politics, especially after this election."

Republicans Target Environmental Justice Funding

The IRA's idea for addressing historic environmental injustice through a community grant program was taken from the sprawling Environmental Justice for All legislation originally introduced in 2020 by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz) and the late Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.).

"We approached it with the fundamental belief that communities know what communities need best," said Grijalva in an email.

But Congressional Republicans have been vocal about their intention to cut or limit the environmental justice grant program, characterizing it as a form of cronyism, providing support to political allies of Democrats and opponents of fossil fuels.

"The EPA is awarding taxpayer dollars to special interest groups committed to a radical energy agenda," wrote U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) in a House Energy and Commerce Committee report, released just before Election Day. "Enriching nonprofit organizations to spread radical, left-leaning ideology is an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars. These programs demand rigorous scrutiny and meticulous oversight."

Trump himself suggested in a 2023 campaign video that he could "simply choke off the money" allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Typically, Congress would have to pass new "rescission" legislation to take away unspent money that Congress previously appropriated. Republicans could use the appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2025, which began in October and now appears likely to be in the hands of the newly elected Congress and Trump, to do so. But in order to avoid the threat of a filibuster in the Senate, they instead could use a budget reconciliation bill that only needs a simple majority-the approach Democrats used to pass the IRA. Republicans are aiming to embark on a reconciliation bill soon after taking office in order to extend and expand Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

Ending environmental justice grantmaking is also part of the vision laid out in Project 2025, the policy roadmap that conservative groups drew up for Trump's second term. Although Trump professed no familiarity with Project 2025 during the campaign, he has named authors of the plan to key positions in his new administration, including tapping Russell Vought, his former budget chief, to head the Office of Management and Budget again. Project 2025 called for pausing and reviewing all environmental justice grants in light of the Supreme Court's recent decisions against affirmative action.

The Thriving Communities grant program has become a particular target of Republicans, who singled out one of its recipients and accused it of being "radical" and "anti-American." The Climate Justice Alliance, a California-based organization, is one of 11 regional grantmaker organizations that were initially awarded $50 million each from the Thriving Communities program. Those groups would then disseminate $40 million of their funds as subgrants to community organizations in their regions.

The Climate Justice Alliance is the only regional grantmaker that has not received any of its funding, sparking speculation that GOP rancor could be to blame. In May, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, criticized the group for its support of Palestinians in Gaza and its opposition to Israel, calling its members "radical," "anti-American," and "antisemitic."

Conger, the EPA spokesperson, said the "EPA continues to review the grant for the Climate Justice Alliance," but provided no further details.

KD Chavez, the Climate Justice Alliance's executive director, said that the group's pro-Gaza advocacy is constitutionally protected speech that is separate from the work it would fund under the Thriving Communities program. "This grant money would only be used as intended by Congress, going towards things like air quality and asthma, water quality and lead, asbestos contamination," she said.

If the group's political views are the reason for the holdup in funding, Chavez said it could put at risk any social justice or progressive work that receives federal funding. "This could really be setting up a horrific First Amendment precedent moving forward for any type of organization across civil society," Chavez said.

Other groups involved in the EPA grant program pushed back against the GOP attacks as well. In addition to the 11 regional grantmaker organizations, another 18 institutions were chosen to act as technical assistance centers-known officially as Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers, or TCTACs-to help community organizations navigate the often complicated federal grant application process.

Bonnie Keeler, a University of Minnesota public affairs associate professor who runs the Midwest region's TCTAC, said it's a misrepresentation of her center's work to say it channels federal funding to "left-leaning activist or extremist organizations," adding that the program deserves broad bipartisan support.

"The TCTACs do not advance a particular policy agenda, we respond to requests for assistance wherever they come from," Keeler said. "To date, we have responded to over 400 requests for technical assistance from urban, rural and tribal communities seeking assistance with everything from energy efficiency goals, to cleaning up brownfields, to managing hazardous waste, to reducing indoor air pollution."

How Far Will Trump Go?

In the early 1970s, then-President Richard Nixon had a problem. A Democratic-controlled Congress wanted to fund highway improvements, drug rehabilitation and a number of other initiatives that the Republican president believed were "undisciplined" and "fiscally irresponsible."

So Nixon decided to withhold funds in the budget that he didn't agree with, sparking a constitutional struggle that resulted in the passage of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. That law, which is still in effect today, prohibits a president or other government officials from refusing to release congressionally appropriated funds and essentially substituting their own funding decisions for those of Congress.

The legislation also defines when federal funding has been "obligated," a legal term for when a contract has been signed between a federal agency and the recipient of federal funds, such as an organization applying for a grant, said Jeremy Kalin, a finance attorney for the law firm Avisen Legal. That means the $266 million dedicated to environmental justice under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed in 2022, and already obligated is protected from being rescinded, Kalin said.

But legal experts, including Kalin, aren't sure if Trump and his officials will respect that federal law and refrain from trying to seize or rescind obligated funds, pointing to statements made by Trump and Vought.

Vought and members of right-wing think tanks he is associated with have argued that the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is unconstitutional, saying that Article II of the Constitution, which obligates the president to "faithfully execute" the law, also allows a president to forbid enforcement of the law.

Trump appears to agree with that interpretation. In a statement announcing Vought's nomination last week, Trump bragged about Vought's experience as a deregulator, saying, "Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government."

"Russell Vought," Kalin said, "may stretch the bounds of the Impoundment Control Act ... and just force people to stop it through the courts."

If that's the case, Kalin said, some funds-even those protected as "obligated" funds under the Impoundment Control Act-may be subject to reversals by the Trump administration, and only funds that get fully dispersed to organizations before Trump takes office may be safe from those efforts.

Trump has already tested this theory. During his first term in office, he withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while pressuring President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open a corruption investigation into Joe Biden and his family. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, later ruled that Trump's actions violated the Impoundment Control Act.

Trump will have an opportunity to appoint a new head of GAO next year when the 15-year term of the current Comptroller General ends, giving him a chance to choose who will have direct oversight of any decisions he makes to withhold funding.

If Trump decides to withhold funds, it will most certainly trigger legal fights that could go all the way to the Supreme Court. The high court has never directly weighed in on the subject, however, but the court's conservative majority has indicated it is willing to take an expansive view on presidential power.

"Time Is Just Not on the Side of the Grantees"

The short amount of time, roughly seven weeks, before Trump takes office, could also be discouraging some community groups from applying for federal environmental justice grants at all. In some cases, nonprofits see it as a reason to rely less on federal support to do their work.

Caleb Roberts applied for a $1.5 million grant earlier in November from another IRA-funded environmental justice program. He hoped to use the money to hire more employees at his nonprofit, Dallas-based Downwinders at Risk, to conduct door-to-door screenings to check residents' homes for conditions that cause asthma. But now he's unsure he'll ever see that money.

"We think we'll definitely run into some funding issues," he said. "Starting day one after inauguration, those things are probably under fire."

Another nonprofit, Alabama-based We Matter Community Association, said it plans to apply for a Thriving Communities grant to purchase 1,200 acres of land in the city of Prichard, on which it plans to build community amenities, including a community center, athletic fields, commercial space and affordable housing. But Carletta Davis, the group's president, said the organization will likely rely less on federal support in the future.

"[The election] is the reason why We Matter is really solely focused on trying to create a way to sustain itself without having to go through governmental grants," she said. "I think that our model is probably going to be the model going forward for EJ organizations."

Some organizations aren't sure if applying for a federal environmental justice grant is worth the effort at all. Applications for the Thriving Communities grant program, the largest single program of federal environmental justice block grants, haven't even opened in the EPA-designated area that includes Texas and Louisiana, home to the nation's largest petrochemical complexes and environmental justice communities.

"At this time, the groups we know of that may be interested still need more time to understand the grant program and whether they will apply," said Vanessa Toro Barragán, a senior program officer at the Houston-based Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, which isn't involved with the grant program.

But time may not be a luxury community groups can afford at the moment, should Trump officials and Republican lawmakers follow through with their threats.

Employees of organizations that work closely with the Thriving Communities program, also expressed concern that community groups would struggle to complete a complicated federal grant application before Trump takes office in just seven weeks, agreeing to comment anonymously to safeguard their prospects as potential grantees.

"Time is just not on the side of the grantees," one employee told Inside Climate News.

Still, organizations involved with the federal grant programs are encouraging community groups to apply and hope to see a big turnout.

"The fact is that this program, it still exists, and it doesn't make sense to turn away from an opportunity that is still there while it is still there," said Chandra Taylor-Sawyer, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, one of the partner organizations helping to recruit applicants to the Thriving Communities program.

Keeler, who runs the Midwest technical assistance center at the University of Minnesota, expressed a similar sentiment. "The future of these programs is uncertain," she said. "That said, all we can do is continue the work we've started. We get new requests for support every week and we'll keep responding to those requests for technical assistance as long as we are able."


Kristoffer Tigue, Dennis Pillion, Dylan Baddour and Marianne Lavelle wrote this article for Inside Climate News.


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A new report says fossil-fuel lobbyists in two states with strong transparency and disclosure laws are not making full disclosures - including in Maryland.

Maryland ranks seventh in the country and gets a grade of C-plus in the report from a group called F Minus - which tracks fossil-fuel lobbying efforts across the U.S.

James Browning, executive director of F Minus, said Maryland has strong laws requiring lobbyists to disclose their salaries and the bills they're working on.

But its audit found these disclosures are being made less than 50% of the time. Browning said some lobbyists also appear to have major conflicts of interest.

"What we also found is this rampant culture of lobbyists being sort of double agents for oil and gas companies," said Browning, "at the same time they're working for climate-conscious institutions."

Browning pointed to Johns Hopkins University's lobbying firm actively opposing a climate bill on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute. The lobbying firm didn't disclose that conflict.

Browning said the audit from F Minus has been sent to the state's ethics commission. He said he hopes that will spur additional audits on lobbying practices in the state.

He added that new policies on reporting would help keep their activities during legislative sessions transparent.

"There has to be a reality check in the middle of Maryland's three-month session - let's say at the end of February - where everyone has to disclose what they're doing," said Browning. "The way the law is written now, lobbyists can wait until May. The session is over in April."

Twenty-seven states received failing grades in the report for the overall lack of transparency in their lobbyist disclosure laws.



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A county high in the Colorado Rockies is working to include its underserved residents in plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the primary driver of climate change.

Nina Waters, a Summit County commissioner, said its new Climate Equity Plan is an opportunity for all residents to help keep the area economically viable. Summit County is a prime winter sports destination and Waters argued a warming planet puts all of that at risk. Even man-made snow cannot be created when temperatures hit 40 degrees.

"We have four world-class (ski) resorts here in Summit County," Waters pointed out. "As the planet heats up, we're going to have drier winters, less snow, and that will have really serious economic impacts to our community."

Officials tapped nonprofits and community leaders to engage low-income and minority residents who were left out of a 2019 Summit Community Climate Action Plan. Using online surveys, focus groups and individual interviews, new mitigation strategies emerged around energy use, transportation and waste reduction, along with ways to lower barriers to allow more residents to participate in solutions.

Waters pointed to a recent EV Ride and Drive event created specifically for the county's 15% Latino population. Residents were able to test drive new electric vehicles and the entire event was conducted in Spanish.

"We've prioritized ensuring that our large Spanish-speaking population can have access to that information in their native language," Waters noted.

Summit County and the towns of Breckenridge, Dillon, Frisco and Silverthorne aim to reduce fossil-fuel emissions by 50% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Waters stressed free public transportation is critical for residents who cannot afford electric vehicles. A new initiative added smaller vehicles to the county's bus fleet to make it easier for more people to leave their gas-powered cars at home.

"A lot of our residents do not have access to a vehicle or they share a vehicle," Waters explained. "The micro-transit is really catered toward getting folks from that main bus hub station to their place of residence."


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