Photo by Matt Boitor on Unsplash
The Indiana Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund Committee met for the final time Tuesday after awarding over $45 million in grant funding for clean air projects across the state of Indiana.
The originally 11-person committee was formed in 2017 by an executive order from Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb following a settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Volkswagen Corporation after Volkswagen was found to be in violation of the Clean Air Act via the use of “defeat devices” which were used to cheat emissions test, releasing excess nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere.
Eight members remained on the committee from its formation until the final meeting on Tuesday. Among those eight was former State Senator Beverly Gard, who represented Hancock County for over two decades in the Indiana Statehouse, was the long-standing chair of the environment committee and currently chairs the Environmental Rules Board, which adopts rules that regulate air pollution, solid and hazardous waste, and water pollution.
“I think we helped an awful lot of communities with equipment — certain different types of vehicles, work vehicles, and so forth — that they couldn’t have afforded to have upgraded for themselves,” Gard said.
The equipment purchased with the grants awarded by the committee included electric charging stations, electric and propane school buses and compressed natural gas and electric passenger buses.
According to Gard, most of the grants went to the northwestern corner of the state, especially the area along the coast of Lake Michigan, as that area had poor air quality in comparison to the rest of the state, although Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Evansville also received grant funding. There were no grant applications received from Hancock County.
The funds from the settlement were also used to launch GO Electric Vehicle INdiana which, according to the committee’s press release, is “an education and outreach initiative to provide Hoosiers with reliable information on Electric Vehicles and EV infrastructure.”
Per the release, around $1 million were remaining at the committee’s final meeting. Those funds were delegated to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which plans to allocate those funds to current projects needing additional funding and to qualifying projects which were initially not awarded with grants.
Gard said that IDEM staff was instrumental throughout the process and highlighted the committee’s persistence through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The staff that works on air quality issues was exceptionally good to work with on this,” Gard said. “We had a very dedicated committee, obviously part of the time that we were functioning was during COVID, but we could continue to meet by Zoom. The work continued from the time that we were established until our last meeting.”
