Funding

Applications Accecpted Year-Round. The Technical Assistance to Brownfields (TAB) Communities Program helps communities, states, tribes and others understand risks associated with contaminated or potentially contaminated properties, called brownfields, and learn how to assess, safely clean up and sustainably reuse them. EPA funds three organizations—Kansas State University (KSU), the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and the Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR)—to serve as independent sources of technical assistance. Each of these TABs has an extensive network of partners, contractors and other contacts that provides services across the country. They help communities tackle a variety of challenges related to identifying, assessing, cleaning up and redeveloping brownfields. The technical assistance comes at no cost to communities. This makes the TAB program a great resource for small, underserved, rural and other communities that might otherwise struggle to address their brownfields.

Deadline passed. Most recent deadline: June 20, 2023. The purpose of the Pollution Prevention Grant: Environmental Justice Through Safer and more Sustainable Products is to provide pollution prevention (P2) technical assistance to businesses (e.g., information, training, expert advice) in order to improve human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities by increasing the supply, demand and use of safer and more sustainable products, such as those that are certified by EPA’s Safer Choice program, or those that conform to EPA’s Recommendations for Specifications, Standards and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing (Recommendations).

2017 deadline: June 15, 2017. Unknown for 2018. This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits proposals from eligible entities that will provide training, peer-to-peer technical assistance and travel scholarships to federally-recognized tribes in support of waste management capacity building on tribal lands. The recipient will conduct three training courses that will assist tribes in the development and implementation of sustainable waste management programs. The training will focus on implementing an Integrated Waste Management Plan (IWMP) through waste diversion programs such as recycling, composting, et al. The training courses should include tribal speakers that have developed and implemented successful waste diversion programs. In addition, the recipient will offer travel scholarships to support the trainings as well as provide travel scholarships to financially assist tribes that voluntarily participate in the EPA’s National Tribal Waste Management Peer Matching Program.

RFP Closed for FY 2016. The PPIN grant program funds grants/cooperative agreements that support a national network of P2 information centers that coordinate training and information resources across the nation to minimize any duplication of effort among state programs. The centers offer training and promote new P2 technologies.

Deadline passed as of August 1, 2017. Deadline for 2018 unknown. This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits proposals to develop and stand-up a place-based estuary program encompassing one or more of the following bays in Florida’s northwest panhandle region: Perdido Bay, Pensacola Bay, Escambia Bay, Choctawhatchee Bay, St. Andrews Bay and Apalachicola Bay.

Deadline Passed 02/22/2019. Deadline Unknown for 2020. This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible organizations to provide the outreach and technical assistance necessary to increase tribal participation in the National Environmental Exchange Network (EN), which is an element of E-Enterprise for the Environment (EE). The EN is an Internet-based system used by state, tribal and territorial partners to securely share environmental and health information with one another and EPA. The objective of the cooperative agreement is to strengthen the data and information technology (IT) management skills of tribes so they can fully participate in innovative technology efforts of the EN, and incorporate data schema, software, and services developed by EN partnerships into their environmental management programs.

Deadline passed. Latest deadline: April 4, 2023. SWIFR Grants for Tribes and Intertribal Consortia will provide funds for tribes and intertribal consortia to develop or update plans focused on encouraging environmentally sound post-consumer materials management; establish, increase, or expand materials management infrastructure, utilize funds for equipment and construction related costs as part of their implementation plans, and identify, establish, or improve end-markets for the use of recycled materials.  Materials and waste streams within scope of this funding opportunity include: municipal solid waste, including plastics, organics, paper, metal, glass, etc. and construction and demolition debris. In addition, materials and waste streams considered include the management pathways of source reduction, reuse, sending materials to material recovery facilities, composting, industrial uses (e.g., rendering, anaerobic digestion), and feeding animals. Apply here.

Deadline Passed 07/31/2018. Deadline Unknown for 2019. The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014 (WIFIA) established the WIFIA program, a federal credit program administered by EPA for eligible water and wastewater infrastructure projects.

Deadline Passed. Most Recent Deadline: November 8, 2023. Under the Environmental Education Grants Program, EPA seeks grant applications from eligible applicants to support environmental education projects that promote environmental awareness and stewardship and help provide people with the skills to take responsible actions to protect the environment. This grant program provides financial support for projects that design, demonstrate, and/or disseminate environmental education practices, methods, or techniques. Since 1992, EPA has distributed between $2 and $3.5 million in grant funding per year, supporting more than 3,920 grants.

This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible entities for demonstration, training, outreach and/or education cooperative agreements that will have a national scale impact to reduce exposure to indoor air contaminants and yield measurable environmental outcomes.

Past Deadline: 5/7/2021. The Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving (EJCPS) Cooperative Agreement Program provides financial assistance to eligible organizations working on or planning to work on projects to address local environmental and/or public health issues in their communities. The program assists recipients in building collaborative partnerships with other stakeholders (e.g., local businesses and industry, local government, medical service providers, academia, etc.) to develop solutions that will significantly address environmental and/or public health issue(s) at the local level. Additionally, the EJCPS Program requires selected applicants, or recipients, to use the EPA’s Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model as part of their projects. The model aims to address local environmental and/or public health issues in a collaborative manner with various stakeholders such as communities, industry, academic institutions, and others. Case Studies highlight some of the successful and effective strategies of previous projects.

Pollution Prevention (P2) Grants provide technical assistance to businesses in order to help them develop and adopt source reduction practices (also known as “pollution prevention” or “P2”). P2 means reducing or eliminating pollutants from entering any waste stream or otherwise released into the environment prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal. In keeping with the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, EPA is encouraging P2 because implementing these approaches can result in reductions in toxic pollutants, the use of water, energy and other raw materials, while also lowering business costs. P2 grants are awarded to States, colleges and universities (recognized as instrumentalities of the state), and federally-recognized tribes and intertribal consortia.

Deadline passed. Most recent deadline: January 31, 2023. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10 (EPA), is issuing a Request for Applications (RFA) from eligible Columbia River Basin tribal governments to improve water quality in the Columbia River Basin, through specific actions to reduce toxics, and/or increase public education and outreach. The Columbia River Basin Restoration Program (CRBRP) will assist tribes as they implement the Columbia River Basin Toxics Reduction Action Plan and the Lower Columbia River Estuary Plan - Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan and conduct activities to support EPA national goals for the Columbia River Basin. Learn more here.

Most Recent Deadline: September 26, 2023. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act authorized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a historic $27 billion investment to combat the climate crisis by mobilizing financing and private capital for greenhouse gas- and air pollution-reducing projects in communities across the country. As part of this program, EPA is launching a $7 billion Solar for All competition — designed to spur the deployment of residential distributed solar energy to lower energy bills for millions of Americans and catalyze transformation in markets serving low-income and disadvantaged communities. Solar for All will tackle the financial and non-financial barriers that limit the ability of low-income and disadvantaged communities across the country to benefit from the rapid growth in distributed solar capacity, thus advancing the Biden-Harris Administration’s climate and environmental justice goals. This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is for the $7 billion Solar for All competition. This competition will award up to 60 grants to states, territories, Tribal governments, municipalities, and eligible nonprofit recipients to expand the number of low-income and disadvantaged communities primed for distributed solar investment—enabling millions of low-income households to access affordable, resilient, and clean solar energy. Grantees will use funds to expand existing low-income solar programs or design and deploy new Solar for All programs nationwide. EPA will not fund individual projects under this competition. EPA’s $7 billion Solar for All competition will help deliver on the climate and environmental justice goals of the United States. To achieve these goals, Solar for All grantees will provide subsidies and other financial assistance to residential rooftop and residential-serving community solar projects in and benefiting low-income and disadvantaged communities in addition to project-deployment technical assistance such as workforce development, community outreach, and other project-deployment support (e.g., interconnection technical assistance, siting and permitting support) to help overcome barriers to solar deployment.