For U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Thursday served as a “win-win-win,” as he highlighted the department’s commitment to tackling climate change by purchasing clean materials and explained the role Toledo can play in helping the country achieve those goals.
Speaking to a small group of officials with Cleveland-Cliffs’ $1 billion hot-briquetted iron production facility in Toledo as a backdrop, Mr. Buttigieg announced a department-wide policy to lower carbon emissions produced from infrastructure projects. He said that the initiative is going to come through more education and research and $2 billion in incentives to purchase cleaner materials.
“We’re recognizing that this can’t be our grandparents' idea of what infrastructure looks like. It’s got to look to the future,” he said. “And we’re acting with the knowledge that the years right in front of us are going to be the pivotal ones.”
The Biden Administration delegation led by Mr. Buttigieg, deputy national climate adviser Ali Zaidi, and U.S. General Services Administration administrator Robin Carnahan used the Cleveland-Cliffs facility as an example of what the administration is looking for: American-made, energy-efficient material production to power everything from electric vehicles to wind turbines.
The facility produces its briquettes and reduces emissions by shipping in iron ore through the Great Lakes from Minnesota. It powers the facility with American natural gas and has the ability to utilize hydrogen as replacement for 30 percent of the natural gas, according to Traci Forrester, executive vice president for environment and sustainability for Cleveland-Cliffs.
Mr. Zaidi said that the United States already has two key advantages in being able to achieve its climate goals: its work force and the fact that the country already produces materials more cleanly. He noted that steel made domestically is already two times cleaner on average than competitors such as China, and he reinforced the government’s commitment to production.
“When we talk about the clean energy economy, I want to make sure everyone understands that we’re all in that boat together,” Mr. Zaidi said. “You build a wind turbine, one megawatt of wind requires 500 tons of steel. That means one gigawatt of wind requires 500,000 tons of steel, and by the way, the President has set a goal for 30 gigawatts, just of offshore wind. So think about the demand we’re creating for steel, just in the wind industry.”
Toledo Mayor Wade Kapzsukiewicz was in attendance for the remarks and shared his thoughts on the importance of the initiative being taken by the Department of Transportation.
“When you think of all of the infrastructure that needs to be built in this country, roads, bridges, everything, a lot of that is going to need the product that is made here [at Cleveland-Cliffs],” Mr. Kapzsukiewicz said in an interview after the event.
“Wouldn’t it be better, wouldn’t it be more efficient, wouldn’t it be better for taxpayers if that was being produced in a way that produces high-level products, but produces less of a carbon footprint, less carbon emissions? That’s what Cleveland-Cliffs is all about, that’s what this plant is all about.”
When asked about what role other companies might play in the “buy clean” initiative, the mayor hinted at possible developments in Toledo’s automotive industry.
“I think that you will see some announcements here in the very near future. Some of our auto facilities are going to receive investments here, I think in a relatively short amount of time that will show that they are transitioning from sort of the old gas-powered automobile into an electric-powered vehicle,” he said.
During his remarks, Mr. Buttigieg also touted the fact that the department’s effort to become more climate-conscious will be done using union labor and highlighting the fact that the effort will be done in conjunction with projects funded by the $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed by President Biden in November of 2021.
“We know that we have a responsibility to use the purchasing power of our government to accelerate that move toward modern, lower carbon construction materials,” Mr. Buttigieg said. “So we’re modernizing the transportation systems Americans depend on to get where they need to be, and we’re modernizing the materials that are used to build it.”
First Published September 15, 2022, 9:27 p.m.
