WASHINGTON (July 25, 2024) – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $325 million in Community Change Grant funding to 21 projects to help marginalized communities reduce pollution, increase resilience to climate change, and build community capacity.
The Equitable and Just National Climate Platform (EJNCP), which played an essential role in conceptualizing, advocating for the creation of, and shaping the design of the program, noted, “The $2 Billion program, created through the Inflation Reduction Act, marks the largest federal investment in environmental justice communities in U.S. history. The program also is unique in that the grants provide direct support to community-based nonprofit organizations to implement solutions to the problems they are uniquely positioned to understand. We applaud the efforts and dedication of the members of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) who worked tirelessly to conceptualize and lead the creation of these grants to ensure no community is left behind.”
The following quotes were shared by EJNCP members:
“It’s heartening to see these grants, which we advocated so hard for, awarded to local environmental justice organizations because it is the groups on the ground that are the most knowledgeable about how communities are being disproportionately harmed by pollution and climate impacts and what must be done to address these disparities,” said Donele Wilkins, founder & chief executive officer of The Green Door Initiative.
“The need for funding is great. Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities and low-income areas are inordinately saddled with power plants and other industrial facilities that release air and water pollution, leading to higher rates of cancer, asthma, and other life-threatening health problems. These grants will help harmed communities transition to clean energy, and to monitor and remediate air, water and waste pollution,” said Dr. Yukyan Lam, research director and senior scientist at The New School’s Tishman Environment & Design Center.
“Environmental justice communities experience inequitable living conditions tied to chronic disinvestment and structural racism, such as the continued harmful legacy of mortgage redlining practices and mid 20th century federal highway policy, which resulted in highly polluting freeways being intentionally built through communities of color. These grants will allow communities to implement projects that will help to restore the dream of the beloved community that includes improving walkability, bikeability and transit use and infrastructure for low or zero-emission transportation options,” said Michele Roberts, national co-coordinator at the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform.
“We are thrilled that the Biden Administration has made this historic investment to help ensure that all communities, regardless of race, income, or ZIP code, have access to clean air and water and can live in a healthy and safe environment. Communities with crumbling infrastructure, poor quality housing, and few parks or green spaces are vulnerable to some of the most dangerous climate change effects. These new Community Change Grants announced by EPA will fund projects that reduce climate change threats and local pollution and are led by local groups who know better than anyone what their communities need,” said Patrick Gaspard, president of the Center for American Progress.
“These grants will bring much needed funding to disproportionately overburdened communities. It will improve and save lives by funding community-driven projects to reduce pollution and improve public health, the environment, and strengthen climate resilience in disadvantaged communities overburdened by high levels of pollution and climate risks. The simple fact is: Everyone deserves to live in a safe neighborhood with clean air and water,” said Byron Gudiel, executive director at the Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED).
“This historic program is a sign of hope and tangible support to those at the forefront of the climate crisis,” said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “By directing much-needed resources to environmental justice, frontline, and marginalized communities, the Community Change program serves as a model for communities to lead the development and implementation of the projects that address long-standing inequities and result in healthy, climate resilient, and thriving neighborhoods across the country.”
“As a former director in EPA’s office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, I can attest to the historic nature of these grants. EPA is breaking new ground today by directly funding local environmental justice groups to implement the solutions they have identified to address centuries of racism that have disenfranchised their communities and in many cases turned them into pollution dumping grounds. We are turning a page today with these Community Change grants,” said Chitra Kumar, the managing director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists
EJNCP looks forward to the EPA continuing to work with local community groups to ensure they can navigate the grant program’s requirements to access this critical source of funding.
More information on EPA’s Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants can be found here: https://ajustclimate.org/pressrelease.html?pId=1042
For more information, please contact Lisa Nurnberger at lnurnberger@ucsusa.org.
