EPA Announces First Recipients of $2B Climate Justice Grant Program

Cars drive along a road in South Los Angeles with visible bumps, under a gray-blue sky

Among the communities benefitting from the grants is South Los Angeles, pictured here. A workforce development program will focus on pollution reduction through training options that include lead abatement, energy auditing and weatherization of buildings, and EV maintenance.

Photo [cropped] credit: Ken Lund under Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Building on its Justice40 environmental justice initiative, the Biden administration announced the first $350 million out of a $2 billion total in funding for organizations, governments and tribes across the country to enact projects addressing climate and environmental justice. It is the “single largest investment in environmental justice ever,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said on a July 24 press call.

The Inflation Reduction Act-funded Community Change Grants Program will distribute awards for a variety of projects designed to take on climate-related challenges in communities that bear disproportionate impacts from climate change and pollution. The program will accept applications for grants on a rolling basis through Nov. 21.

The program “recognizes that we need a huge diversity of solutions to climate and environmental injustices and that we need to source those solutions from the ground up at the community level,” said John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy.

The first group of award recipients, 21 in total, demonstrates the variety of location- and community-specific projects supported by the program. Examples include a Texas A&M University/Black Belt Unincorporated Wastewater Program partnership to install wastewater treatment systems for rural Alabama households, coupled with training and certification programs to develop area wastewater professionals.

In Bakersfield, California, funds will go toward energy efficiency or solar panel retrofits for homes, the addition of a microgrid for an existing community center and training for 150 residents in solar panel installation and electric vehicle repairs, along with electrician apprenticeships. A tri-state program across Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota will work with 35 tribes to weatherize homes and deliver energy efficiency upgrades while providing training for emerging leaders who will seek additional grants for additional resiliency work. Some of the projects have also received funding, including federal funds, from other sources and programs.

Grant recipients, which are required to be a partnership between two community-based non-profit organizations or one non-profit and a federally recognized tribe, higher education institution or local government, are divided into two tracks. The majority of the funds will go to Track I awards, which range from $10 million-$20 million and are expected to be given to 150 recipients for project-based work. Track II grants are between $1 million and $3 million, expected to be awarded to 20 recipients for programmatic work on education and participatory processes related to climate and the environment.

The nature of the applications, which require a “very detailed plan” said Regan, ensure not only that “there are metrics built in to show the climate progress we are making, but there are also metrics built in to show the holistic benefits to the community.”

The announcement follows a July 24 White House summit on “Environmental Justice in Action,” the administration's first, which featured progress reports from 24 agencies on their EJ initiatives, as well as the release of Phase Two of the Environmental Justice Scorecard.

The full list of recipients can be found here.

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