New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who has made fighting climate change a focal point of his administration, announced on Tuesday that the state would invest $100 million in green transportation projects, many of which target disadvantaged or social justice communities.

The money will come from New Jersey’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the state’s share of the legal settlement Volkswagen paid after being caught systematically cheating on air quality tests.

Murphy’s office provided a breakdown of how the funds will be allocated:

• $9 million in grants for local governments to improve air quality in disadvantaged communities through the deployment of electric garbage and delivery trucks;
• $13 million in grants for low- and moderate-income towns to reduce emissions through the deployment of electric school buses and shuttle buses;
• $5 million in grants for equitable mobility projects that will bring electric vehicle ride-hailing and charging stations to Gloucester City, Newark, Trenton and Woodbridge;
• $5 million in grants for the deployment of fast charging infrastructure at 27 locations;
• $36 million to reduce diesel and black carbon emissions in social justice communities by electrifying cargo handling and other medium- and heavy-duty equipment in port and industrial areas;
• $15 million toward New Jersey Transit bus electrification; and
• $15 million in “flex funding” to further the initiatives.

Murphy, who is up for re-election this year, also signed an executive order establishing the Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy. The department will address the impacts of climate change and transition the state to a green economy while making environmental justice and equity a priority. Jane Cohen, currently Murphy’s senior policy adviser on environment and energy, will be the office’s first executive director.

The Climate Office will also oversee the creation of the New Jersey Council on the Green Economy, which Murphy announced last month in his State of the State Address.

Under the governor’s executive order, the council will compile an initial report on its recommendations for developing a green economy strategy, to be delivered within a year.  Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters called the council’s creation a “terrific idea” that will create “good union jobs that cannot be outsourced,”

“Gov. Murphy’s announcement today gets us one step closer to realizing the 21st-century sustainable green jobs economy that most New Jerseyans say they want — and the future that we and our partners have been calling for,” Potosnak said in a press release.