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Approving the City being a coalition partner in an application led by the City of Minneapolis to the USEPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program for a business decarbonization grant program.
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WHEREAS, the Saint Paul Climate Action and Resilience Plan set a goal of reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 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 Grant 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 commercial and public buildings by promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, electrification, and lower-carbon design, materials, and fuels; and
WHEREAS, City of Minneapolis will be the lead applicant to the EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program in a multi-city program that will provide grants to businesses for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency, electrification, and on-site renewable energy production, and the City of Saint Paul will be a coalition partner in the application along with other metro communities; and
WHEREAS, over 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in Saint Paul come from energy use in commercial and industrial buildings, and the Saint Paul Climate Action and Resilience Plan identifies the need to accelerate the number of businesses investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to reduce those emissions and generate energy cost savings for businesses; 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 City of Minneapolis in an EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant application totaling $8 million, for which the City of Saint Paul would be a subgrantee of up to $1 million for the purpose of enacting a program to offer grants to businesses in Saint Paul, with a focus on small businesses located in federally designated environmental justice and disadvantaged community census tracts; and
FURTHER RESOLVED, that should the City or its 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 City of Minneapolis.