On Tuesday, Gov. Roy Cooper paid a visit to the Green Swamp Preserve in Brunswick County to highlight a $421-million grant from the EPA.
Last week, Cooper announced that North Carolina secured funding from the EPA's Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. That program has made nearly $5 billion available to tribes, states, and local governments looking to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
North Carolina applied for the grant alongside South Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia as the Atlantic Conservation Coalition. The $421 million will be used to protect and restore at least 200,000 acres of coastal, peatland, and forest lands across those four states.
About $70 million will go towards the Nature Conservancy in North Carolina. The nonprofit says it will use the money to restore and protect peatlands, which executive director Katherine Skinner said will result in significant carbon dioxide emissions reductions.
“Restored peatlands also have other benefits including absorbing floodwaters, which is particularly important on our hurricane-prone coast,” Skinner said. “And, of course, restored peatlands provide habitat for a myriad of animals, which boosts our economy through hunting and wildlife-watching.”
Gov. Cooper announced the grant alongside EPA administrator Michael S. Regan, a North Carolina native, and Congressman Wiley Nickel. Cooper says the grant would allow North Carolina to fight climate change.
“As we move toward a clean energy future, we must also recommit ourselves to preserving, restoring and protecting our natural resources that play such an important role,” he said. “This historic funding from the Biden-Harris administration will help us make our state and future generations more resilient to storms, more attractive for tourism dollars, and more effective at removing carbon from our air."
Gov. Cooper recently withdrew his bid to be vice president for presidential candidate Kamala Harris. After his speech, he expanded on his decision to bow out.
“I strongly support Kamala Harris for President of the United States, and I am going to work every day to see that she is elected. I believe that she will win, and I look forward to this campaign because she has the right message and she is the right person for this country,” Cooper said.
“This was not the right time for our state or for me to potentially be on a national ticket, so that’s why I’m not doing it. But I’m excited about the fact that we have a lot of great options for her to choose from. I think a number of them are very eager to do this, and I look forward to her announcement probably at the end of the week as to who it is, and we’re gonna move forward and we’re gonna win this race,” he continued.
