Maryland Port Administration to launch multi-year, $147 million project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Jeff Barker, The Baltimore Sun on Jan 13, 2025

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BALTIMORE — The Maryland Port Administration said Monday that it is beginning preliminary work on a multi-year, federally funded $147 million project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the Port of Baltimore.

The funds are part of a $3 billion national investment in ports that was part of the Inflation Reduction Act signed by outgoing President Joe Biden in 2022. It is aimed at reducing pollution for port workers and surrounding communities and creating union jobs.

Biden, whose term ends Jan. 20, announced the funding during an Oct. 29 visit to the Dundalk Marine Terminal.

The project is overseen by the Port Administration, which is to receive $145 million in Environmental Protection Agency grants to purchase zero-emission cargo handling and other equipment, and new heavy-duty transport trucks and locomotives, according to the White House. It said the port also will receive $2 million to help it “chart a path to greater emissions reductions in the future.”

The funding has not been received yet. The Port Administration’s grant application to the Environmental Protection Agency said the project was to begin Feb. 1 with community engagement and engineering. It is scheduled to end in December 2028.

But the grant award did not became effective until Jan. 6, and the Port Administration said in response to Baltimore Sun questions that it did not receive the official award notice until Monday. It said in a statement that it is “currently engaged in internal planning discussions and will work closely with our grant stakeholders to move forward.” It’s not certain when work will begin, but the administration did not indicate it anticipated a lengthy delay.

The grant’s purpose is to “significantly reduce” greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality in the neighborhoods surrounding the port, according to the grant application.

The funds won’t all be available at once. Rather, the Port Administration “will request only the amount of payment as needed to cover immediate cash needs, rather than drawing down funds in even amounts of the life of the grant agreement,” according to its application.

Biden has made Baltimore a symbol of his push to upgrade ports, roads, bridges, transit systems and broadband.

In 2021, the Democratic president toured the port to celebrate the passage of the infrastructure improvement legislation that came as American ports, particularly along the West Coast, experienced jams that spurred price jumps for many products as the nation recovered from the coronavirus pandemic.

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