Podcast: The Impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on the Loan Programs Office

In this episode of our Public Policy & Regulation Group's Eyes on Washington podcast series, energy attorney Taite McDonald is joined by Jigar Shah, Executive Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) and Justin Boose, co-head of the firm's Renewable Energy practice. Their conversation focuses on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which makes significant investments in climate and energy, enabling the U.S. to tackle the climate crisis and work toward achieving a net zero economy by 2050. Within its energy and climate provisions, the IRA appropriates approximately $11.7 billion for the LPO to support issuing new loans and increases authority in LPO’s existing programs by approximately $100 billion. The group spends time discussing what these new appropriations mean for the office and for companies looking to apply for loans. They also highlight a new loan program added by the IRA, the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) Program (section 1706), to help retool, repower, repurpose or replace energy infrastructure that has ceased operations or to improve the efficiency of infrastructure that is currently operating. The group closes their conversation by providing a brief look ahead regarding office activities and sharing encouragement for companies considering contacting the LPO about new initiatives.