evidence: "We see the hope of her presidency as something really refreshing," said Kaniela Ing, national director of The Green New Deal Network, noting that Harris was an original co-sponsor of the group’s signature legislation as a senator in 2019. She has a record of "making sure that Black and brown and low-income communities aren’t disproportionately impacted by corporate pollution," Ing said, "so we’re jumping into the race, something folks didn’t necessarily expect from a coalition like ours." [...] Harris was in the city to announce the recipients of $20 billion in so-called "green bank" grants, the largest ever federal investment in financing for community-based climate projects. The grantees, eight groups of nonprofit lenders, would be a key conduit for ensuring that the IRA’s clean energy money gets to disadvantaged and rural communities. A former staffer in the vice president’s office, who was not speaking for the campaign and asked not to be named, said Harris saw the program as an opportunity to draw on her experience working on access to capital issues in the Senate. (She co-sponsored the record $12 billion in funding for community development financial institutions that was included in the 2020 pandemic relief bill.)