US to invest $4bn in programmes to improve air quality around ports

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  has announced that it is preparing to invest $4bn from the Inflation Reduction Act fund in the country’s port infrastructure to reduce air pollution.

The money will be split over two different projects: $3bn will go to setting up the Clean Ports Program (CPP) which will invest  in technologies to reduce harmful air and climate pollutants and create a zero-emission shipping future. The remaining $1bn will go to creating the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicle Program (CHDVP) to reduce vehicle emissions and better protect the health of the people living and working near ports, schools, and other truck routes.

The scheme was announced by the EPA’s Administrator Michael S. Reagan while touring the Port of Savannah in Georgia, where the EPA has previously awarded over $9 million in Diesel Emission Reduction Act funds. This award was to reduce diesel emissions and improve air quality by upgrading and replacing older freight trucks, cargo handling equipment, and marine engines with cleaner models. 

As the first stage of the Clean Ports Program, the EPA will consider responses to a Request for Information which is intended to ‘improve the Agency’s understanding of zero-emission trucks and port equipment as well as their associated charging and fueling infrastructure requirements’.

The EPA declare themselves particularly interested in comments detailing the availability, market price, and performance of zero-emission trucks, zero-emission port equipment, electric charging and other fueling infrastructure needs for zero-emission technologies, as well as how much of this is manufactured in the United States. 

The Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicle Program will provide funding to offset the costs of replacing heavy-duty commercial vehicles with zero-emission vehicles, deploy infrastructure needed to charge, fuel, and maintain these zero-emission vehicles, and develop and train the necessary workforce.

The Request for Information pertaining to the CHDVP seeks to improve the EPA’s understanding of  Zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles, zero-emission port equipment (dray trucks, harbor craft, locomotives, and cargo handling equipment etc) and the associated charging and/or fueling infrastructure.