PA Environment Digest Blog: EPA: Pennsylvania One Of 45 States, MSAs To Submit Priority Climate Action Plans As Part Of $5 Billion Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

EPA: Pennsylvania One Of 45 States, MSAs To Submit Priority Climate Action Plans As Part Of $5 Billion Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program

On March 11, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a record 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and dozens of Metropolitan Statistical Areas have now developed priority climate action plans through investments made possible by the federal Inflation Reduction Act’s Investing in America program.

The planning process is supported by EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, which offers a unique opportunity to help state and local governments develop strategies to reduce harmful pollution and address environmental justice concerns, while building the infrastructure, industry, and competitive economy for a clean energy future.

The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program created under the Inflation Reduction Act is enabling community-driven solutions to the climate crisis and helping accelerate America’s clean energy transition.

The submitted PCAPs lay the groundwork for the second phase of the CPRG program: $4.6 billion in competitive implementation grants that planning grant recipients and other eligible entities can use to fund GHG reduction measures contained within the PCAPs.

Pennsylvania’s Plan

The Department of Environmental Protection submitted Pennsylvania’s Priority Climate Action Plan to EPA on March 1.

Louie Krak, DEP’s Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator, told DEP’s Environmental Justice Advisory Board on February 21-- “DEP plans to submit a $500 million implementation grant application” under the federal Priority Climate Action Plan program. Read more here.

The Plan identifies these priority sectors for greenhouse gas reductions in these categories of measures--

-- Industrial Electrification, Efficiency and Process Emissions - Industrial

-- Incentivize industrial decarbonization efforts through technical assistance and funding incentives

-- Low Carbon Fuels - Industrial

-- Provide incentives on the use of hydrogen and biomethane as a substitute for fossil gas by industrial operations

-- On-Site Renewable Energy - Industrial, Buildings

-- Bolster clean electricity generation through on-site renewable energy generation and storage

-- Carbon Capture Utilization And Storage - Industrial, Land Use, Land Use Change, Forestry

-- Focus efforts on carbon capture by heavy industries that lack viable low-carbon alternatives like cement and chemicals

-- Fugitive Emissions Reduction - Industrial, Agricultural, Waste

-- Expand ‘Super-Emitter’ Response Program to detect, act on methane emission from oil & gas and other sources;

-- Expand voluntary adoption of methane monitoring, control beyond minimum federal standards;

-- Net-Zero Electricity Grid - Power

-- A net zero electricity grid by 2050 will require a combination of resources including existing nuclear, new small modular nuclear, solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, coal or gas-fired power plants with carbon capture or gas-fired with low carbon fuels like biomethane or hydrogen

-- To deploy clean energy resources at a pace and scale needed, the state will have to consider permitting reform to ensure new project can be sited and developed in a timely manner

-- To support grid reliability, these measures prioritize investments in energy efficiency and distributed energy resources and the use of battery storage with intermittent resources.

-- Building Electrification & Efficiency - Buildings

-- Electric & Alternative Fuel Vehicles - Transportation

-- Public & Active Transportation - Transportation

For each priority sector, the Plan outlines existing programs and new opportunities to achieve greenhouse gas reductions primarily through adoption of technical assistance, education, grant and funding incentive programs.

DEP said it has the statutory authority in the 1995 law that created the agency, the state Air Pollution Control Act and other laws to establish grant and funding programs to implement the Plan.

Pennsylvania’s Climate Action Priority Plan is available online.

Visit DEP’s Priority Climate Action Plan webpage for more information. Questions should be directed to Lindsay Byron, DEP Energy Programs Office, 717-772-8951 or send email to: lbyron@pa.gov.

Click Here for the complete EPA announcement.

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