Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is using funds from the Volkswagen settlement to reduce air pollution in Minnesota today and invest in a cleaner transportation system for tomorrow. Air pollution from vehicles both causes negative health impacts for our communities and contributes to climate change. The settlement funds offer an opportunity for us to tackle both of these problems by reducing harmful emissions — including greenhouse gases — from vehicles and equipment in our state.
In the first six years of the MPCA’s Volkswagen settlement grants program, MPCA distributed nearly $35 million across five categories: transit buses and trucks, off road equipment, school buses, heavy-duty electric vehicles, and EV charging stations.
Open and upcoming grant rounds
See the Grants and loans page for currently available funding opportunities.
- Apply now: $200,000 for grants to reduce diesel emissions from idling locomotive engines. Locomotive engines spend a great deal of time idling, particularly in cold months, to keep the engine ready for operation in a railyard. Applications are being accepted on a rolling, “first come, first served” basis until funding is gone or June 30, 2025, whichever occurs first.
- Apply now: $1.4 million for grants to repower/replace freight switcher locomotives with cleaner diesel engines or zero-emission motors. Application deadline is 4 p.m. on July 3, 2025.
Awarded grants
- Clean heavy-duty off-road equipment (2019-2024)
- Electric heavy-duty vehicles (2023)
- Cleaner heavy-duty diesel vehicles (2023)
- Electric and cleaner school buses (2018-2021, 2023)
- Electric vehicle charging stations (2018, 2020, 2023)
- Cleaner heavy-duty electric vehicles (2019, 2021)
- Clean heavy-duty on-road vehicles (2019)