(CN) — The Biden administration on Tuesday awarded $3 billion in competitive grants to U.S. ports from the East Coast to the West Coast as part of its program to transition terminal operations and transportation of cargo to zero-emission equipment.
“Today’s historic $3 billion investment builds on President Biden’s vision of growing our economy while ensuring America leads in globally competitive solutions of the future,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “Delivering cleaner technologies and resources to U.S. ports will slash harmful air and climate pollution while protecting people who work in and live nearby ports communities.”
The grants are funded by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — the landmark legislation that set aside $783 billion to combat climate change and promote clean energy — and will advance environmental justice by reducing diesel air pollution in U.S. ports and surrounding communities while promoting good-paying and union jobs that help America’s ports thrive, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
The EPA in February solicited applications under the Clean Ports Program for a zero-emission technology deployment competition, to directly fund zero-emission equipment and infrastructure, and for a climate and air quality planning competition to fund planning activities. Ports across the country submitted $8 billion in requests to invest in next-generation, clean technologies, according to the EPA.
The agency said it selected 55 applications based on their workforce development efforts, to ensure that projects will expand access to high-quality jobs, as well as on their projects’ alignment with the administration’s national goal for a zero-emission freight sector.
The grants will used for, among other things, the purchase of zero-emission equipment, including over 1,500 units of cargo handling equipment, 1,000 drayage trucks, 10 locomotives, and 20 vessels, as well as shore power systems, battery-electric and hydrogen vehicle charging and fueling infrastructure, and solar power generation.
Seven California ports, from San Francisco and Oakland in the north to San Diego in the south, will receive about one-third of the new funding, said Governor Gavin Newsom.
“Thanks to historic support from the Biden-Harris administration and our state’s congressional leaders, California’s ports are undergoing a rapid transition to become zero-emission,” Newsom said. “Cleaner ports means cleaner air for communities up and down our state — this is a huge win for our ports that are the backbone of the fifth largest economy in the world.”
The Port of Los Angeles — which together with the neighboring Port of Long Beach is the busiest container port complex outside Asia — was awarded $412 million, the single largest grant.
The port said that it and its private sector partners will match the EPA grant with an additional $236 million, bringing the total new investment in zero-emission programs at its terminals to $644 million.
The new funding will go toward about 425 pieces of battery electric, human-operated zero-emission cargo-handling equipment, installing 300 new zero-emission charging ports and other related infrastructure, and deploying 250 zero-emission drayage trucks, the port said. The money will also provide for $50 million for a community-led zero-emission grant program, workforce development, and related engagement activities.
“This transformative investment will be a tremendous boost to our efforts to meet our ambitious zero-emission goals, improve regional air quality, and combat climate change, while accelerating the port-industry’s transition to zero emissions across the country,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka. “This successful application is the culmination of a deep partnership with environmental justice groups, labor, the private sector and stakeholders at all levels of government.”
California has committed itself to phasing out the heavy-duty diesel trucks that haul containers from the ports to inland destinations by 2035, but a near complete absence of public charging stations for electric trucks has presented a major obstacle for truckers to go green.
Every day thousands of drayage trucks arrive at the ports of LA and Long Beach to pick up 40-foot boxes with imports from Asia and move them to distribution centers and railyards inland. The diesel fumes from the trucks clogging the surrounding streets and freeways have long been a source of misery for the neighboring communities, and both ports have set ambitious goals to eliminate diesel trucks and equipment from the docks.