By Ramona du Houx
April 3, 2024
In late February 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its $3 billion Clean Ports Program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), intended to address pollution from diesel engines at ports and freight hubs across the country.
The Clean Ports Program will fund zero-emission port equipment and infrastructure as well as climate and air quality planning at ports. This is crucial because communities that live near ports experience pollution from ships, trucks, trains, and cargo handling equipment throughout the day and night. The people living adjacent to these ports and suffer from the pollution the most. These Justice40 communities have for too long been overlooked and too many have died from the emissions they’ve been forced to breath by having a zip code too close to industrial operations like ports. That’s why the EPA seeks to prioritize in its funding: disadvantaged communities experiencing poor air quality.
The Clean Ports Program will help advance the Justice40 Initiative, which sets the goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments in climate, clean energy, and other areas flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
Because of this scope of the Clean Ports Program many locations away from large port facilities are available for the funding. For example, San Bernardino in Southern California which is nearly 75 miles away from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles can apply.
The Clean Ports Program will provide funding to water-based ports and dry ports. The first must be areas accessible via the ocean, river, or lake where passengers or cargo are loaded and unloaded from commercial vessels – with a minimum amount of funding set aside for smaller water ports. The second, dry ports: intermodal truck-rail facilities that handle a minimum amount of freight traffic.
The application period for the Clean Ports Program is open until May 28 at 11:59 pm ET.
Sources and Notes
EPA published a list of qualifying counties under its definition of Disadvantaged Communities for the Clean Ports Program, as of February 2024, available at https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-02/2024-clean-ports-disadv-community-county-list-2024-02.pdf.
County geospatial data are sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau, available at https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/cartographic-boundary.html.