The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has announced two grant funding opportunities for States and Tribes to develop and provide businesses with information, training, and tools to help them adopt pollution prevention (P2) practices. Approximately $14 million in grants with no cost share or match requirement are made possible by the $100 million investment in the P2 program provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This is the first time USEPA has offered P2 grants without a match requirement.
The first grant opportunity includes approximately $14 million that is the first of five annual installments of P2 grant funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This opportunity does not include the 50% grantee funding match requirement required by traditional P2 grants, increasing access to the funding for all communities. Grants supported with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be fully funded at the time grants are awarded. The maximum amount of these grants is $350,000.
The second grant opportunity includes approximately $9.38 million in P2 grant funding over a two-year funding cycle with individual grant awards up to $800,000 for the two-year funding period, or $400,000 funded per year, and includes a 50% cost share or match requirement.
USEPA announced it intends to provide at least 40% of the benefits of the program to underserved communities. For both grant funding opportunities, USEPA strongly encourages applicants to address environmental justice and/or climate pollution in their project. To help prospective applicants, USEPA will launch an additional mapping tool, which will allow users to identify industrial facilities located in or adjacent to communities with environmental concerns.
Under these grants, USEPA emphasizes the importance of grantees documenting and sharing P2 best practices that are identified and developed through these grants, so that others can replicate these practices and outcomes. Grant applications will need to address at least one of six National Emphasis Areas (NEAs), which were established to generate the most beneficial economic, environmental, and health impacts when applying P2 practices, and to facilitate sharing of information among grantees working on similar issues. Each grantee will be required to develop at least one case study during the grant period on P2 practices that are new or not widely known or adopted, or where detailed information on the P2 practices could benefit other businesses or P2 technical assistance providers.
Eligible applicants include States, State entities such as universities, U.S. territories and possessions, and Federally recognized Tribes and intertribal consortia. Applicants are strongly encouraged to consider partnering with others in the P2 stakeholder community to strengthen their ability to provide P2 technical assistance to businesses and facilitate the development, adoption, and dissemination of P2 solutions.
Proposals are due by April 11, 2022. Additional information is available on: https://www.grants.gov/ under Funding Opportunity Announcements EPA-HQ-OPPT-2022-001 and EPA-I-OCSPP-OPPT-FY2022-001.