U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Environmental Justice Small Grants Program

The Environmental Justice Small Grants (EJSG) Program provides funding for projects that address local environmental and public health issues within an affected community. The EJSG Program is designed to help communities understand and address exposure to multiple environmental harms and risks. The EPA defines “environmental justice” as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no one group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal environmental programs and policies. Meaningful involvement means that: (1) potentially affected community residents have an appropriate opportunity to participate in decisions about a proposed activity that will affect their environment and/or health; (2) the public’s contribution can influence the regulatory agency’s decision; (3) the concerns of all participants involved will be considered in the decision-making process; and (4) the decision makers seek out and facilitate the involvement of those potentially affected.

The EPA will award grants that support activities designed to empower and educate communities to understand environmental and public health issues and to identify ways to address these issues at the local level. The EJSG Program is designed to address multi-statute environmental and/or public health issues. For this reason, each project must include activities related to at least one of the following federal environmental statutes:

1. Clean Air Act, Section 103(a)(1): conduct research, investigations, experiments, demonstration projects, surveys, and studies (including monitoring) related to the causes, effects (including health and welfare effects), extent, prevention, and control of air pollution.
2. Clean Water Act, Section 104(a)(1): conduct and promote the coordination of research, investigations, training, demonstration projects, surveys, and studies (including monitoring) relating to the causes, effects, extent, prevention, reduction, and elimination of water pollution.
3. Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, Section 20: conduct research, development, monitoring, public education, training, demonstration projects, and studies on pesticides.
4. Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act, Section 203: conduct research, investigations, experiments, training, demonstration projects, surveys, and studies relating to the minimizing or ending of ocean dumping of hazardous materials and the development of alternatives to ocean dumping.
5. Safe Drinking Water Act, Section 1442(c) (3)(A): develop and expand the capability to carry out a program (that may combine training, education, and employment) for occupations relating to the public health aspects of providing safe drinking water.
6. Solid Waste Disposal Act, Section 8001(a): conduct and promote the coordination of research, investigations, experiments, training, demonstration projects, surveys, public education programs, and studies relating to solid waste (e.g., health and welfare effects of exposure to materials present in solid waste and methods to eliminate such effects). Please note that proposals supporting brownfields work are not eligible for funding under this announcement.
7. Toxic Substances Control Act, Section 10: conduct research, development, monitoring, public education, training, demonstration projects, and studies on toxic substances.

An “affected community,” for the purposes of this program, is defined as a vulnerable community that may be disproportionately impacted by environmental harms and risks and has a local environmental and/or public health issue that is identified in the applicant’s application.

Amount: Total available is $1,200,000. EPA anticipates awarding up to four grants per EPA region in amounts of up to $30,000 per award for one year.

Eligibility: Incorporated non-profit organizations, including, but not limited to, environmental justice networks, faith based organizations and those affiliated with religious institutions; federally recognized tribal governments; or tribal organizations.

EPA may consider the following factors when making final selections among high ranking proposals: 1) projects located in Underrepresented States (New Mexico is not part of this list); and 2) projects from eligible organizations that have not received an EPA EJ grant award from either the EJSG or CPS programs since FY2012.

Link: https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/fiscal-year-2017-ej-small-grants-request-proposals

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