Feds Shower Port With Green-ing Green

None of the three federal legislators standing on a pier in New Haven Harbor Friday afternoon mentioned the presidential and congressional elections that are days away.

But, in their remarks celebrating $34 million newly set to wash ashore on the city’s industrial port, they all made an argument that is central to the political legacies of Biden-era Democrats.

That is: That America’s economy can grow and become more environmentally sustainable at the same time, and that the federal government can help steer the way. 

That revived-industrial-policy message pulsed through every speech given by public and private sector speakers alike, during a windswept press conference that took place on a Gateway Terminal pier jutting out into the water at 400 Waterfront St.

Underneath a towering green electric-powered crane, U.S Rep. Rosa DeLauro and U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal crowded alongside City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, Port Authority Board Chair Nick Fabiani, and Enstructure Co-CEOs Matthew Satnick and Philippe DeMontigny, among others, to celebrate a newly announced $34,032,340 grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Ports Program.

Those funds are heading to Enstructure, a Massachusetts-based logistics company that owns 22 ports and terminals across the country, including in New Haven. Enstructure plans to use these funds to install two new electric cranes and replace other diesel-powered cargo-handling equipment with zero-emission infrastructure. They’ll also be installing rooftop solar panels and battery storage systems to supplement the power supply for the mobile equipment.

The $34 million New Haven grant is one of two in Connecticut, and 55 nationwide, to come from the $3 billion Clean Ports Program, which in turn is funded through the $380-to-$800 billion, climate-change-fighting Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented investment on our shoreline right now. That didn’t happen by accident,” Murphy said. Instead, he and Blumenthal and DeLauro — the latter of whom was the chair, and is now the ranking member, on the House Appropriations Committee — made sure during the ​“prodigious legislative session” of the early Biden years to earmark funds for a host of infrastructure projects that would benefit Connecticut.

That means the hundreds of billions of dollars for building projects with a focus on carbon-emission reductions included in the Inflation Reduction Act and in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 are now making themselves felt at the local level, in projects like electrifying much of New Haven’s port.

“This is a lot of money. This is going to create a lot of jobs, and have a lot of local impact, and global impact,” Murphy said.

DeLauro agreed. “$34 million. Not chump change, my friends.” That is ​“serious money.” She said that, nationwide, the Clean Ports Program should add 40,000 new jobs and curb carbon emissions by three million metric tons over the next decade. 

The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are ​“not just words on a paper. This is what they produce,” she said.

Satnick and DeMontigny said that Gateway Terminal currently employs 135 people. These funds should add roughly 50 jobs. They said the cargo that the city’s port currently handles includes de-icing salt, scrap metal, steel products, cement, and lumber. They said they’ve converted many of the oil tanks along the water from holding petroleum products to asphalt. 

Fabiani, the chair of the quasi-public port authority’s board, praised these federal grants for contributing to what will be a ​“drastic reduction” in diesel usage at the port, as well as a ​“huge step torwards more sustainable and equitable growth.”