West Coast Ports to US EPA: “Show Me the Money”
By Jacqueline M. Moore, Vice President, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association
West Coast ports have made it clear that they expect an overwhelming majority of the $3 billion for the maritime industry’s transformation to a zero-emission future to be awarded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through its Clean Ports Program. Established through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, this is an exceptional amount of funding for seaport emissions reductions; comparatively, the size of these grants is over one-third of the agency’s entire budget over the last decade. The maritime industry will likely never again see federal funding at this level for zero-emission port equipment, infrastructure and associated planning activities.
Of the $3 billion available, the largest US West Coast ports are seeking almost two-thirds of the pot: $1.75 billion in funding. In addition, the ports are committing over $700 million in the form of matching public funds to be expended. The Ports of Hueneme, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland, as well as Seattle and Tacoma, all threw their hat in the ring. And PMSA is in support of all these grant requests.
The projects propose funding a range of equipment purchases and infrastructure projects, including acquisition of hundreds of cargo handling equipment units and drayage trucks. While California’s ports already have a head start in the zero-emissions port paradigm, these proposed projects have the ability to demonstrate whether or not it is practical to fully metamorphosize the fleets. What is imperative is that the program embraces and rewards those ports who have already proactively worked with industry partners and their customers to finance existing emissions reductions, and not reward those who were dragging their feet. Doing this right would favor West Coast projects, not penalize them.
How EPA will choose to divide the funds remains to be seen. Will they sprinkle money around such that each port receives a little something, resulting in only a portion of each project moving forward, or will some ports be awarded large shares and others excluded all together? California's ports submitted grant requests individually; and that's a lot of hats in the ring to choose from. As these are unprecedented federal funds, we can only speculate as to whether a single statewide application could potentially have made for one tantalizing project.
But one thing is undoubtedly clear: if the federal government actually desires these funds to be truly transformational and establish our West Coast ports as the model, world-class zero-emission ports, then all the US EPA has to do is show us the money.