WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is giving nearly $3 billion to boost green equipment and infrastructure at ports across the country, including in Baltimore, where a bridge killed six construction workers in March and disrupted East Coast shipping routes for months. days.

President Joe Biden announced the federal funding Tuesday during a visit to the city’s main port, saying the money will improve and electrify port infrastructure at 55 locations nationwide while supporting about 40,000 union jobs, reducing pollution and combating the climate crisis. The presidential visit, a week before Election Day, was meant to highlight Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ efforts to promote clean energy while protecting and creating jobs.

“Ports are the backbone of America’s supply chain,” Biden said in a speech at the Dundalk Marine Terminal, near the site of the March 26 bridge collapse that shut down commercial shipping traffic for nearly three months. A small blue and white sign next to the site. he reminded passersby, “Project funded by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Relief Act,” the 2022 law passed with only Democratic votes.

While the grant announcement appeared timed to help Harris’ campaign for president, Biden appeared to ignore those concerns as he followed Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore to an outdoor podium flanked by metal containers. “I think he could be the best governor in the country,” Biden said of Moore, passing up praise for Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Biden used his speech to repeatedly criticize former President Donald Trump and took an indirect shot at a controversy Trump is facing after he appeared at a weekend rally in New York where racist comments were made about Puerto Rico. Biden pointed out that federal funding for the ports also includes Puerto Rico. At one point, he even recalled with a laugh, “Don’t go, Joe. Slower”.

The Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest on the East Coast, is a major hub for the import and export of motor vehicles and agricultural equipment. More than 20,000 workers support port operations, including unionized liquidators and truckers.

The Port of Baltimore and others around the country “keep the goods moving — they keep the economy strong, Biden said. “And they have over 100,000 union workers, from the Teamsters to the shoremen. But for too long, they have run on fossil fuels and outdated infrastructure, putting workers at risk and exposing nearby communities to dangerous pollution.

The new funding will help ports and communities across the country reduce operating costs and keep consumer prices low, “while reducing carbon pollution and supporting approximately 40,000 new, high-paying jobs to support energy production clean across America,” Biden said.

“This is about environmental justice,” he added, citing studies showing higher rates of asthma, cancer and lung and heart disease in children living near US ports.

The grants announced Tuesday include $147 million for the Maryland Port Administration to purchase and install cargo handling equipment and trucks to transition the port into a zero-greenhouse-gas-emissions facility.

The Port of Maryland is among 55 ports in 27 states and territories to receive nearly $3 billion through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Ports Program. Ports receiving money include the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Detroit-Wayne County Port Authority, the ports of Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia, as well as Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Oakland, California.

The grants are funded by Biden’s landmark climate law passed in 2022, the largest clean energy investment in US history.

Protecting people and the environment “does not come at the expense of a booming economy,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said before Biden’s visit, offering an implicit rebuke to Trump and other Republicans who have complained that tough environmental regulations hinders the economy. “In fact, healthy communities and a strong economy go hand in hand,” Regan said.

The grant announcements, which follow $31 million in federal funds to rehabilitate a section of Baltimore’s Dundalk Marine Terminal, come a week after the owner and manager of the cargo ship that caused the bridge’s deadly collapse agreed to pay more of $102 million in cleanup costs. settle a lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice.

The settlement does not cover any damages for the reconstruction of the bridge, a project that could cost nearly $2 billion. The state of Maryland filed its own claim for damages, among others.

Funding through the Clean Ports program will reduce more than 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to the energy use of nearly 400,000 homes, for one year, Regan said. It will also reduce 12,000 short tons of nitrogen oxides and other harmful pollutants, he said.

John Podesta, senior White House adviser on international climate policy, said the grants would help deliver on Biden and Harris’ promise to “rebuild our nation’s infrastructure and address the climate crisis … and lift up communities that they bore the brunt of the pollution. .”

In February, the EPA announced two separate funding opportunities for US ports, a competition for direct funding of zero-emissions equipment and infrastructure and a separate competition for climate change and air quality programs. More than $8 billion in applications were received from applicants across the country.

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California welcomed the funding announcement, which includes more than $1 billion for seven California ports. The Port of Los Angeles will receive $411 million, the largest award in the country.

“California’s ports move the goods that fuel our economy,” Padilla said Tuesday, noting that the state’s ports process about 40 percent of all containerized imports and 30 percent of U.S. exports. The EPA grants will help decarbonize the U.S. supply chain “to produce cleaner air in neighboring communities and meet our climate goals while creating green jobs,” Padilla said.