3 Arkansas metro areas win record-breaking $100 million EPA grant for climate projects

Communities in Arkansas’s three largest metropolitan areas are receiving a $100 million climate grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The funding will be used to build or expand projects that the EPA predicts will reduce the state’s carbon emissions by more than 1 million metric tons between 2025 and 2050.

The EPA announced Monday that it would distribute more than $4 billion to 25 recipients of the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program in 30 states. The funding will support community projects designed to reduce carbon emissions. Examples include urban forestry programs, solar installations and reducing methane emissions from landfills.

Metroplan, an association of local governments in Central Arkansas, applied for the grant program in partnership with the city of Fort Smith and the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission. It is the largest grant Metroplan has ever received for economic development, Metroplan leadership told the Arkansas Times Monday.

The EPA applied “rigorous, uniform evaluation criteria to select applications for grants,” an agency representative said. Organizations in every state applied for more than $33 billion in funding, while only $4.3 billion was available in the last round of funding.

The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program is part of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in 2022. The law directs hundreds of billions of dollars to renewable energy projects in the U.S.

IRA financing is provided through loan and grant programs.

Funding for Arkansas is allocated to local communities in Central Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas, as well as Fort Smith, the state’s third-largest population center.

In the grant application, Metroplan and its partners outlined several key goals. These include developing more infrastructure, such as bike lanes. Metroplan, the city of Fort Smith and the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission will award money to participating local governments to preserve or expand parks, forests and wetlands.

The coalition plans to spend $68 million of the funding on preserving and building more “green grids,” or natural areas designed to absorb carbon emissions and provide other uses for the public. The coalition’s grant application reflected priorities outlined in the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s Energy and Environmental Innovation Plan.

“A green network would be along a critical corridor, such as a creek or a mountain ridge, where it is really important that we can preserve the natural environment there,” said the Metroplan director. Chris Covington told the Arkansas Times. “We want to create vegetation there, or we want to keep the vegetation that is there. It is also a great place to create bicycle and pedestrian facilities.”

The city of Benton’s Saline River Greenway project is an example of a green network funded by Metroplan, Covington said.

Of the total $100 million grant, $10 million will go toward improving transportation efficiency and another $17 million will go toward improving building efficiency, the grant application said.

Transportation and energy efficiency projects could include investments in electric vehicle fleets for local governments, electric vehicle charging stations and LED streetlights. Eighteen locations in Northwest Arkansas have been identified for green projects. In Fort Smith, some of the funding will be used to revitalize downtown alleys to promote bicycling.

The interior of Metroplan’s Little Rock office. (Phillip Powell/Arkansas Times)

In the coming years, businesses, nonprofits and local governments will be able to apply for Metroplan funding that has not yet been allocated to specific projects, Covington said.

Communities in Central Arkansas will receive $49 million, while $36 million is allocated to projects in Northwest Arkansas. Fort Smith will receive $14.5 million. The money will be distributed based on population.

Metroplan, Fort Smith and the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission have worked with more than 50 communities, agencies and organizations to develop projects, a news release said.

“If it wasn’t for the quality of life, I don’t think we would be doing this,” Covington said. “We live in the Natural State, so when we were putting this program together, we looked at it and recognized the tourism that’s already happening in the state and bringing people in. So it was really an easy sell when we started looking at these projects, and it’s absolutely going to impact the quality of life.”

Economic development planners in Arkansas have worked to strengthen the state’s tourism sector while promoting outdoor recreation as part of a broader effort to improve workforce development.

For example, in 2020, the Northwest Arkansas City Council offered tech professionals and entrepreneurs $10,000 and a free mountain bike to move to the region.

In a press release, Metroplan praised the efforts of Arkansas lawmakers as essential to securing the investment. None of Arkansas’s four Republican House members or two Republican senators voted for the IRA in 2022. In an email to the Arkansas TimesCovington said the congressional delegation “had expressed support for our request.”

Later this week, Covington and Metroplan will meet with EPA officials to discuss implementation of the grant.

“At Metroplan, we focus on transportation, on quality of life, and on preserving the natural environment that we have here in Arkansas. Receiving this grant emphasizes all three of those aspects,” Covington said.