The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will invest $40 billion total, including $27 billion in direct spending, towards environmental justice communities and low-income residents—despite supporters claiming that the amount is $60 billion. Just Solutions Collective performed its own section-by-section analysis of the IRA’s text, adding up appropriations and other tailored spending to produce its own calculation. In total, the IRA includes $228 billion in appropriations and an additional $324 billion in tax expenditures. Direct appropriations in the IRA for environment, climate, and energy total $145 billion. This is dwarfed by the $270 billion provided in energy-related tax expenditures, through a variety of tax credits intended to incentivize primarily the private sector to invest in different aspects of the alternative energy economy: from mining companies extracting lithium to factories manufacturing inverters to refineries making biomass-based jet fuel to utilities installing solar arrays.

This report includes descriptions of specific budget lines for different IRA provisions. Just Solutions Collective's original analysis searched the IRA text for (1) provisions with mandatory carve outs/targeting for “underserved,” “low-income,” or “disadvantaged communities,” (2) all funding for Tribal Nations and insular areas, and (3) other justice-oriented programs that acknowledge and attempt to address harms. This analysis excluded (1) provisions with non-mandatory options for spending on “underserved,” “low income,” or “disadvantaged communities,” (2) targeting for low- and moderate-income homeowners, and (3) funding for general governmental permitting and oversight activities. Just Solutions Collective is a BIPOC-led organization working to broaden and deepen the understanding of equitable and effective policies and programs to support the priorities of environmental justice organizations to define, innovate, replicate, and scale their solutions to the climate crisis.