Environmental Justice Grants and Programs
(Environmental Justice)
Environmental Protection AgencyCommunities disproportionately affected by pollution; environmental justice organizations
Summary
The EPA's Environmental Justice Grants and Programs fund community organizations, tribes, and local governments to reduce pollution, monitor air and water quality, and prepare for disasters in areas hit hardest by industrial pollution and climate impacts. The FY2027 budget proposes eliminating this program entirely, cutting all $300 million and ending 100% of its funding, in line with executive orders rolling back federal equity and environmental justice initiatives.
Who Is Affected
The cut affects roughly 350 grant recipients nationwide, including nonprofits, Tribal nations, and local governments that had already been awarded Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants for projects like flood mitigation, air-quality monitoring, and workforce development. It also affects communities served by the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, an $600 million pass-through network of 11 regional grantmakers that had reached 23 states and 116 Tribal nations before terminations began.
What this cut would actually mean
If this elimination takes effect, community groups that already hired staff and signed contracts for pollution-monitoring, flood-preparedness, and clean-energy projects will have to halt or cancel that work, since the federal funding they were relying on disappears. Low-income and industrial-adjacent neighborhoods that face disproportionate exposure to air and water pollution lose the grant programs designed specifically to help them track and reduce that pollution, and EPA's Office of Environmental Justice, which coordinated this work, has already been shut down, so no comparable federal support structure remains.
Why this hits Alabama harder
Alabama's Black Belt is one of the nation's biggest examples of the pollution and sanitation problems these grants are meant to fix, so eliminating the program hits the state harder than most. The EPA had awarded more than $14 million from this program to install wastewater systems across 17 Black Belt counties, where a 2017 study found 73% of residents had raw sewage inside their homes and about a third tested positive for hookworm. About 32% of Black Belt residents live in poverty, well above the national rate, making the area especially dependent on this now-eliminated federal support.
- Trump has canceled environmental justice grants. Here's what communities are losing. — Alabama Reflector reports that a $14 million EPA grant for the Black Belt Unincorporated Wastewater Program, covering 17 Alabama counties, was among the environmental justice grants canceled.
- Sewage Flooded Their Homes for Years. Trump Just Cut the Fix. — Capital B News describes how a 2017 study found 73% of residents in one Black Belt county had raw sewage inside their homes, with a third testing positive for hookworm, and how federal environmental justice funding aimed to fix this was cut.
- Alabama Black Belt gets millions from EPA for sanitation projects — WBHM reports on the $14 million EPA Community Change Grant sending funds to Alabama's Black Belt region for onsite wastewater treatment systems, highlighting the region's need for this environmental justice funding.
Sources
- Trump's EPA Cancelled 350 Environmental Justice Grants, Then Congress Cut Funding for Future Projects — Reports that the Trump EPA cancelled about 350 environmental and climate justice grants and that subsequent federal budget action rescinded unobligated funding for future environmental justice projects.
- Nonprofits, Tribes and Local Governments Sue Trump Administration for Terminating EPA Grant Programs — Describes a lawsuit by nonprofits, Tribes, and local governments over termination of EPA's Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant programs, noting the 350 affected grant recipients and the community projects involved.
- EPA Terminates Biden's Environmental Justice, DEI Arms of Agency (EPA press release) — EPA's own announcement that its Environmental Justice and DEI offices were being shut down following an executive order ending federal DEI and environmental justice programs.
- The Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program RFPs — Explains that EPA selected 11 regional and national grantmakers to distribute $600 million in Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program funds nationwide.
- RTI selected to support EPA's Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program — Details how one of the program's grantmakers alone was set up to serve 23 states and 116 Tribal nations under a $100 million cooperative agreement.
- EPA Funding Cuts Target Disadvantaged Communities, Analysis Shows — Analysis showing EPA funding cuts disproportionately targeted grants intended for disadvantaged and pollution-burdened communities, and covers ongoing litigation over the terminations.
Administration's Stated Rationale
“Environmental justice programs eliminated per executive orders rolling back equity initiatives.”