The Biden administration is planning to give up to $12.5 million in grant funding for equity-driven emissions reduction research.

The new grant opportunity released last week and announced by the Department of Transportation (DOT) on Tuesday, the Climate and Transportation Initiative, will award $2.5 million annually to either a university, public research entity, or private nonprofit research entity to establish a research center.

“As we face the climate crisis, we need cleaner transportation systems, and this investment will help deliver that by harnessing research & technology for new solutions.” –@SecretaryPete

Announcing a @USDOT Climate & Transportation Research Initiative https://t.co/8cv9wqfGrM

— Gretchen Goldman, PhD (@GretchenTG) October 4, 2023

The grant partnership may be renewed for up to five years, totaling up to $12.5 million.

In addition to tackling emissions reductions goals, the research center must also be equity-driven: aiming to have “proportional,” not equal, impact on the community in which the research center will be located. The research center must also eliminate any disparities in transportation access.

“[The research center will] create proportional impacts to all populations in a project area, remove transportation related [sic] disparities to all populations in a project area, and increase equitable access to project benefits,” stated the grant opportunity page.

Equity won’t be the only goal of the research center. The full funding goals documents declare that the research center must produce “innovative applications of social and behavioral sciences and other policy interventions” to influence public usage of lower-carbon transportation.

In a press release announcing the funding, DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg claimed that the burden of emissions on the climate were responsible for recent natural disasters like the Maui fire and the Vermont flood.

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“In the past few months alone, Americans from Vermont to Hawaii have faced the devastating impact of so-called ‘once-in-a-century’ disasters that are now becoming more frequent, more deadly, and more destructive to our economy than ever,” said Buttigieg. “As we face the profound and urgent threat of the climate crisis, we need cleaner transportation systems, and this investment will help deliver that by harnessing research and technology to find new solutions.”

Gretchen Goldman, the DOT Climate Change Research and Technology director overseeing the grant awarding, said in a LinkedIn post that the initiative would support the goal of total decarbonization of the transportation sector by 2050.

Goldman took on the directorship in April, switching over from her two-year tenure as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) assistant director for environmental science, engineering, policy, and justice, part of the greater Climate & Environment (C&E) Team.

Goldman was behind the controversial federal guidance on incorporating indigenous knowledge into federal research, policy, and decision-making.

In a co-authored White House blog post, Goldman said that indigenous knowledge incorporation was necessary for improved science and policy outcomes.

“[N]ever before has there been such a driving need to expand and diversify the kinds of evidence and knowledge we rely upon to make critical decisions to address them,” stated the post.

Indigenous knowledge inclusion played a role in the delayed water deployment during the Maui fires. It was also cited in the Department of the Interior’s decision last month to end Arctic National Wildlife Preserve drilling, as well as oil and gas leases.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Monday that the dire conditions on the U.S.-Mexico border allows the administration the legal right to waive dozens of laws and regulations in order to rapidly build sections of border wall in areas of south Texas that are being overrun by illegal aliens.

Mayorkas said in an announcement on the U.S. Federal Register that the situation makes it “necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements” in order to ensure the expeditious construction of “physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States.”

Mayorkas was forced to highlight the administration’s failures to secure the border and their open border policies in the announcement, noting that in August, nearly a quarter of a million illegal aliens were caught attempting to enter the U.S. — a number that does not include illegal aliens who evaded detection and escaped into the country.

The announcement named multiple areas within the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector that are areas of “high illegal entry” that the administration now has designated as “project areas.”

The administration said in the announcement that it was waiving 26 laws to start construction, including the National Environmental Policy Act; the Endangered Species Act; the Federal Water Pollution Control Act; the National Historic Preservation Act; the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; the Migratory Bird Conservation Act; the Clean Air Act; the Archeological Resources Protection Act; the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act; the Safe Drinking Water Act; the Noise Control Act; the Solid Waste Disposal Act; as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act; the Antiquities Act; the Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act; the Farmland Protection Policy Act; the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act; the National Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956; the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act; the National Trails System Act; the Administrative Procedure Act; the Eagle Protection Act; the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; the American Indian Religious Freedom Act; and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

The news comes as there remain hundreds of miles of unprotected areas along the U.S.-Mexico border following former President Donald Trump’s time in office.

Under the administration of former President Trump, 450 miles of border wall was built, though the majority of that was replacing old barriers. 85 miles of new border wall — 52 miles of new primary wall and 33 miles of new secondary wall — was built in areas that had no preexisting border barriers, according to a press release that the Trump campaign posted on X from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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FACT CHECK: President Trump built over 450 MILES of new border wall. #CNNTownHall pic.twitter.com/KDPMFMWpbS

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 11, 2023