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Approving the City as a coalition partner in the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s application to EPA for Equitable Residential Decarbonization.
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WHEREAS, the Saint Paul Climate Action and Resilience Plan set a goal of reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030 and down to zero by 2050, and emphasizes the need to ensure that vulnerable and disadvantaged communities benefit from the City’s work to reduce climate pollution; and
WHEREAS as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has created the Climate Pollution Reduction program, a one-time grant program that aims to invest in projects that can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring that disadvantaged and environmental justice communities’ benefit from those reductions; and
WHEREAS in order to be eligible for an implementation grant under the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, the City of Saint Paul’s proposed projects must be included in either the State of Minnesota’s or the Metropolitan Council’s Priority Climate Action Plans; and
WHEREAS both the State of Minnesota and the Metropolitan Council Priority Climate Action Plans identify activities that include reducing greenhouse gas emissions from residential buildings by promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, electrification, and lower-carbon design, materials, and fuels; and
WHEREAS, the Saint Paul Climate Action and Resilience Plan identifies the need to reduce the energy cost burden on lower-income households through weatherization and increasing the availability of affordable clean energy as a priority area of work for the City to undertake as part of its climate action portfolio; and
WHEREAS, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is leading an effort to pursue Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Funds from EPA for equitable residential decarbonization and the City of Saint Paul is a coalition partner in this effort along with the Metropolitan Council, City of Minneapolis, City of Duluth, 3 tribal governments, and several other local units of government, in order to invest resources that will decarbonize the homes of low- and moderate-income residents through weatherization, electrification, and in some cases the use of rooftop solar; and
WHEREAS, the EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program has no local match requirement for implementation grants; and now, therefore be it
RESOLVED, the Saint Paul City Council provides its support for the City of Saint Paul to be a coalition partner to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in an EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant application totaling $350 million, for which the City of Saint Paul would be a subgrantee of up to $15 million for the purpose of enacting an equitable residential decarbonization program; and be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Saint Paul City Council support the City entering into a Memorandum of Agreement outlining the roles that each coalition partner would have should the grant be awarded; and be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, should the MPCA and coalition partners be awarded grant funds for this application, the Saint Paul City Council authorizes the appropriate City departments to enter into a grant agreement with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.