Provide funding under the inflation reduction act (IRA) to the city of new orleans

This $51,150,200 Cooperative Agreement awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CFDA 66.046) program will fund the City of New Orleans to implement greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction programs, policies, projects, and measures identified in a priority climate action plan. The key activities include:

• Constructing 6 centerline miles of protected bikeways, providing 2,500 electric bicycle rebates, and expanding the city's bike share system to increase transportation-related emissions reductions.
• Supporting a building benchmarking program, decarbonizing 41 municipal buildings, and providing bridge subsidies for residential solar installations to reduce emissions from the building sector.
• Planting 7,500 trees to serve as a carbon sink and mitigate urban heat island effects.

The City of New Orleans will receive approximately $2.4 million as a subaward from the State of Louisiana's $250 million EPA Grid Resilience and Innovation award to support these activities. The grant period runs from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2029.

Description

The purpose of this award is to provide funding under the inflation reduction act (IRA) to the city of new orleans. The recipient will implement greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction programs, policies, projects, and measures identified in a priority climate action plan (pcap) developed under a climate pollution reduction grants (cprg) planning grant. Activities conducted through this grant will benefit all residents and visitors to the city of new orleans through four main objectives: implementation of ambitious measures that will achieve significant cumulative greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions by 2030 and beyond; pursuit of measures that will achieve substantial community benefits, particularly in low-income and disadvantaged communities; complementing other funding sources to maximize these greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and community benefits; and, pursuit of innovative policies and programs that are replicable and can be 'scaled up' across multiple jurisdictions. Activities:the activities includes three measures as follows there are 3 reduction measures focused on transportation greenhouse gas (GHG) the protected bikeways measure will see the design and construction of 6 centerline miles of low-stress protected bikeways serving as a bikeway spine across the new orleans central business district and adjacent central neighborhoods. This would be implementing elements from the city's bikeway blueprint. The e-bike rebate measure will incentive the purchase of electric bicycles to replace internal combustion engine vehicles. The program will provide rebates at the point of sale for a seamless customer experience, providing 2,500 rebates over the 5 year period. Finally, bike share expansion will see an increased bike fleet and service area for the city's existing blue bikes bike share system. This expansion will double the number of stations, expand the service area by 41 and increase the fleet size from 800 e-bikes to 2,000 e-bikes. An additional three reduction measures are focused on buildings. The benchmarking program support will result in the creation of a portfolio of building related programs to support the decarbonization of large buildings. The municipal building decarbonization reduction measure will implement energy efficiency recommendations at 41 city-owned buildings and the installation of rooftop solar at 14 buildings based on previously completed energy audits and solar feasibility studies. The final building reduction measure will provide bridge subsidies for the solar for all new orleans louisiana targeted at residential installations to cover the remaining costs of solar panels partially subsidized by the state of louisiana. The last reduction measure, the reforestation plan serves as a carbon sink, in addition benefits around urban heat island impacts. The program will see 7,500 trees planted by the city and IT's non-profit partners. See the measure and primary climate action plan (pcap) relations: protected bikeways: develop more biking and walking infrastructure, including paths, bike lanes, crosswalks, and striping. Bike share expansion: expand or develop bike share programs. E-bike rebates: provide subsidies for bikes or e-bikes. Benchmarking program support: establish building energy benchmarking and performance standards, particularly for large buildings with high energy demand municipal building decarbonization: install solar energy generation and battery backup storage on public buildings. Solar for all new orleans louisiana (nola) bridge subsidies: create programs to incentivize solar adoption on privately owned facilities reforestation plan: implement urban forestry programs with an emphasis on native plants, expanding the urban tree canopy, and developing tree protection districts.subrecipient:the city will receive approximately $2.4M as a subaward from the state of louisiana's $250M award from U.S. Department of energy grid resilience and innovation (grip