Why a low-emissions cement bill easily passed the House — and might survive the Senate, too

Key takeaways:

• The IMPACT Act, a low-emissions cement bill, passed with a large majority in the Republican-held House.
• The bill allows states to decide whether they want to take advantage of a $15 billion to implement low-emission cement, concrete and asphalt R&D and initiatives.
• The bill was successful in this anti-climate era because funding was already designated and lobbying was strategic.

Despite the divisive state of U.S. politics today, a bill to promote the commercial application of low-emission cement, asphalt and concrete passed through the House on March 25 with a surprising vote count of 350-73.

The IMPACT Act — short for the Innovative Mitigation Partnerships for Asphalt and Concrete Technologies Act and co-sponsored by Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.) — is a bipartisan bill that instructs the Department of Energy to establish a program dedicated to advancing the production of low-emissions cement, concrete and asphalt.

“This is such a pragmatic bill,” said Rob Niven, CEO of sustainable concrete company CarbonCure. “It creates strong demand signals to really pull [sustainable concrete] solutions into the market.”

Nonetheless, in a time of frequent and often random cuts to any federal programs related to mitigating climate change, a bill focused on low-emission concrete and passed by an overwhelming majority of the House is reason enough to examine what makes it so special.

It is notable that this bill doesn’t require any additional funding from Congress. Instead, it takes advantage of the available $14.6 billion State Transportation Block Grants (STBG). The money was already allocated by Congress in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, providing states the annual option to take advantage of the funds to preserve or improve highways, bridges and tunnel projects.

Plus, Niven noted, the majority of cement, concrete and asphalt company customers and stakeholders want their product to be low-emissions. And one of the only commonalities between all Congress-members, regardless of party, is the need for roads and and parking lots.

Language for successful lobbying

IMPACT now needs to make it’s way through the Senate, something Niven and his team have been preparing for.

“We’ve had repeated conversations on the Senate side with the sponsors of that parallel legislation,” said Niven. “We’ve had multiple conversations about innovation in the concrete industry and the opportunity with such legislation.” The Senate side sponsors are Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

Crucial to swaying Republican legislators was the language used in advocacy and the bill itself.

“IMPACT creates strong demand signals by empowering the Federal Highways and state DOT’s to be able to use their procurement power to really pull these solutions into the market,” said Niven.

Translation: The power to create these specific markets lies completely with the states.

“Each state has to want to innovate construction materials in the first place, which is one of the reasons that this is a crowd pleaser,” said Joe Hicken, vice president of business development and policy at Sublime Systems, a clean cement startup, “The IMPACT Act really delegates the locus and the ownership to each state that’s actually doing the building of the infrastructure projects.”

How businesses can get involved

Riven noted that IMPACT “equips companies with an R&D program,” meaning that if companies haven’t yet integrated low-emissions tactics into their operations, the legislation would provide funds to do so. In any case, any parties interested in making sure those funds become available should:

• Contact your senator to encourage them to vote for the IMPACT Act; and
• If the bill becomes law, inform your governor that you want your state to participate in IMPACT-related programs.

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