The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon pollution, contains an antipoverty transfer program to help offset the harm it does to the poor, a Wall Street Journal editorial explained.
According to WSJ, the EPA has stated that they are concerned about low-income communities and wants to ensure that they benefit from the implementation of their regulations.
"At the federal level, the EPA is creating a program that gives twice as large a subsidy for renewable and efficiency projects that are built in inner-city neighborhoods and disadvantaged rural areas," states the article. "There will be job retraining for laid-off coal miners."
"The agency also plans to install more solar generation on top of or around public housing," states WSJ. "So while it will raise their utility bills, at least the poor will get a complementary photovoltaic panel."
For those with lower incomes, increasing energy prices can consume a majority of one’s paycheck. Forty-one percent of low-income seniors went without medical or dental care because of high energy bills, one study found.
Another study found that EPA’s Clean Power Plan will increase black and Hispanic poverty.