Federal Funding

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides the largest federal investment since the New Deal in the nation’s roads, bridges, water and energy systems. The funding provided represents the largest investment in developing the tools to curb carbon emissions and strengthen infrastructure to increase resiliency against the current global challenge of climate change and other threats.

Agencies will be tasked with implementing new and/or expanding existing programs to award federal funds to eligible infrastructure projects. Agency offices will issue requests for information to inform their decisions in establishing grant program parameters, develop and publish solicitations for project applications, set timelines for awards and oversee implementation of awarded funds. The Department of Energy and other federal agencies will be responsible for spending billions of dollars for power and grid related programs, including grid infrastructure, resiliency investments, clean energy demonstration projects and cybersecurity. Along with the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation will provide $7.5 billion for the construction of alternative fueling infrastructure for electric, biofuels and hydrogen transportation fuels.

It is important to engage the agencies as they develop the parameters of these grant programs, to ensure projects will meet the program criteria for a funding award, and to ensure solicitations are designed to support clients’ infrastructure projects. Our professionals have had significant success in assisting clients through these processes, assisting clients in the development of grant applications, and negotiating awards in both Democratic and Republican Administrations.

In addition to securing federal funding, our team is experienced with every aspect of grant writing, from initial drafting to serving as the clearing house for the entire application. Our experience and capabilities include:

• Assisting with and completing all grant application forms;
• Ensuring all required materials and documents are appropriately drafted, complete and incorporated into the application;
• Providing early advice on how to approach the application, project narrative and technical information or budget plans in order to ensure the application and project is viewed favorably by the agency in its review process;
• Drafting of all parts or portions of the project narrative, technical information and budget plans, or alternatively, providing editorial advice and/or guidance on these areas - the latter is a more cost-effective way to assist with the project application; and
• Serving as the clearinghouse for the application materials by integrating all documents and components into the final application, and electronically filing the final application on behalf of the client.

Van Ness Feldman's federal tax policy practice combines substantive, legislative tax policy acumen with focused experience in energy and environmental policy—allowing the firm to effectively promote clients’ tax issues with legislators, regulators, and decision-makers across the political spectrum. The newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes myriad tax and spending provisions that will be beneficial to project developers and other key industry stakeholders and our team is uniquely positioned to help clients focus on these opportunities.  

Specifically, the firm helped clients secure significant modifications to the IRA, including:

• Modifications/Improvements to Section 45Q - Carbon Sequestration Tax Credit
• Clean Hydrogen Production/Investment Tax Credit
• Renewable electricity credits
• Renewable fuels credits
• Direct Pay/Transferability
• Clean Vehicle Credit
• Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit

For more information on these provisions and how they may benefit your business, please contact Michael Platner. 

Wabash Valley Resources – Assisted Wabash Valley Resources with their recently awarded $35-million-dollar grant for Design Development and System Integration Design Studies for Coal FIRST Concepts.  The project will gasify coal and biomass, produce electricity and hydrogen, and store the captured CO2 in a deep geologic formation.

Air Products & Chemicals – Awarded a $253 million industrial CCUS grant at the Port Arthur, Texas refinery to capture the CO2 from their steam methane reformer and use the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.

American Electric Power – Secured a $334 million Clean Coal Power Initiative CCUS grant at their Mountaineer Power Plant in West Virginia to add post-combustion capture to their coal plant and store the CO2 in the Mount Simon geologic storage formation.

BrightSource – Drafted the application for the client which resulted in securing $4.8 million in funding for their solar energy project through the DOE SunShot grant program.

Clean Energy Systems, Inc. – Secured a $25 million grant from the Department of Energy to implement biomass carbon capture project.

Enerkem – Awarded a $50 million biorefinery demonstration grant from DOE and an $80 million loan guarantee through the Department of Agriculture’s Biorefinery Assistance Program.

Sacramento Municipal Utility District – Secured a $127.5 million Smart Grid Investment Grant to install a comprehensive regional smart grid system from transmission to the customer.

Skyonic – Secured a congressional authorization for a new DOE program to develop CO2 conversion technologies and secured the appropriations necessary to fund the competitive Department of Energy program. The firm also assisted in drafting Skyonic’s successful grant applications to demonstrate their technology resulting in the company receiving $28 million through the program.