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EJCPS
66.306
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The Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving (EJCPS) Cooperative Agreement Program provides funding to support community-based organizations in their efforts to collaborate and partner with local stakeholder groups (e.g., local businesses and industry, local government, medical service providers, and academia) as they develop and implement solutions that address environmental and/or public health issues for underserved communities. For purposes of this listing, the term “underserved community” refers to a community with environmental justice concerns and/or vulnerable populations, including people of color, low income, rural, tribal, indigenous, and homeless populations. Eligible projects must demonstrate use of the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model to support their collaborative efforts during the project period. Applying organizations should have a direct connection to the underserved community impacted by the environmental harms and risks detailed in the workplan. The long-term goals of the EJCPS Program are to help build the capacity of communities with environmental justice concerns and to create self-sustaining, community-based partnerships that will continue to improve local environments in the future. Funding Priorities - EPA may give special consideration to high-ranking applications that focus on the following program priorities: 1) Rural Areas – EPA may give special consideration to high-ranking proposals to be performed in rural areas as defined by the program. Rural areas, for the purposes of this competition, are defined as local areas with populations of 50,000 or less that have limited access to public or private resources commonly found in metropolitan areas. Applicants claiming rural status must provide sufficient detail (census data, population figures, descriptions of local resources, etc.) for EPA to validate the rural status of the underserved community. The goal of this special consideration is to encourage and increase project performance in rural areas in the EPA EJ Grants program. 2) Health Impact Assessments (HIA) – HIA is a tool designed to investigate how a proposed program, project, policy, or plan may impact health and well-being and inform decision-makers of these potential outcomes before the decision is made. EPA may give special consideration to HIA projects that seek to determine the potential effects of a proposed decision on the health of underserved and vulnerable communities and the distribution of those effects within the communities. 3) Projects addressing Climate, Disaster Resiliency, and/or Emergency Preparedness – The effects of climate change and extreme weather events tend to adversely impact the most vulnerable communities and populations disproportionately. Therefore, EPA may give special consideration to projects that address the needs of underserved and vulnerable communities that have been adversely impacted or are likely to be adversely impacted by natural disasters, including, but not limited to, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, earthquakes, and future pandemics.
This chart shows obligations for the program by fiscal year. All data for this chart was provided by the
administering agency and sourced from SAM.gov, USASpending.gov, and Treasury.gov.
For more information on each of these data sources, please see the
About the data page.
Each of the recipients were awarded up to $120,000 to support two-year projects. The projects include such activities as identifying and reducing exposures to sources of air pollution; reducing lead exposure in homes of low-income residents; and managing stormwater runoff to support clean water and safer drinking water . Projects must use the Collaborative Problem Solving model, comprised of seven elements of a successful collaborative partnership, to address local environmental and/or public health issues. The FY 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act provided $21,000,000 ($20,809,000 with rescission applied) for EPA to issue grants to states and tribes to assist with implementing environmental programs. EPA provided $19,809,000 to states and territories to support implementation of air and state-led climate activities and other state-identified high priority activities. Based on EPA’s grant guidance, states are to direct at least 65% of their funding to support air work and may use up to 35% of their funding on other state-identified activities. EPA also provided $1,000,000 to tribes that have obtained authorization to develop water quality standards. All 56 states, territories, and the District of Columbia accepted their allocated share of multipurpose grant funding. Tribes are using multipurpose funding to complement and enhance implementation of their water quality standards programs in conjunction with existing Clean Water Act Section 106 activities.
This program was not funded in FY 2017 due to budgetary limitations
A few examples of some of the projects funded under this assistance listing include: 1) increasing the number of healthy residential housing units available and empowering those residents to access healthy housing; 2) a program composed of teams of young leaders serving to address environmental challenges in the community by working directly with a local collaborative initiative to plan and execute a demonstration project creating community engagement and an active portal empowering the community to report illegal dumping; 3) monitoring the disproportionate air and water quality hazards experienced by two historically African American neighborhoods and informing residents about the severity of those hazards and steps they can take to better protect themselves and their families from those environmental impacts; 4) creating coastal community collaborations between rural towns on a shoreline in order to develop and implement water quality improvements in the area; and 5) addressing water contamination by hiring a watershed group coordinator to organize activities, field trips and watershed education activities and trainings for collaborative members and the public, including the creation of an outreach plan and information materials, and conducting public meetings to establish broad-based, diverse membership.
For information on accomplishments associated with the EJCPS program, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/case-studies-environmental-justice-collaborative-problem-solving-program
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected 34 organizations to each receive up to $200,000 through the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program (EJCPS). Approximately $4.3 million of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds will support projects that address health outcome disparities from pollution and the COVID–19 pandemic and that identify and address disproportionate environmental or public health harms and risks in minority populations or low-income populations through activities authorized by section 103(b) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7403(b)) and section 1442(c)(3) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300j–1(c)). An approximate amount of $2.5 million from EPA’s Fiscal Year 2021 annual appropriation for environmental justice (EJ) will fund additional community-based projects. Additional program accomplishments for 2021 can be found here: https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/environmental-justice-collaborative-problem-solving-cooperative-agreement-5.
In FY 2021/2022, EJCPS program awarded 34 cooperative agreements of up to $200,000 each for a total of $6,719,004 awarded nationwide.
In Fiscal Year 2023, EJCPS program issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), EPA-R-OEJECR-OCS-23-01, on January 10, 2023, for $30,000,000 in estimated EPA funding. EPA received 365 applications in response to the NOFO before it closed on April 14, 2023. 117 total accepted selections were made from those 365 applications. 89 of the 117 awards were obligated in Fiscal year 2024.
Single Audit Applies (2 CFR Part 200 Subpart F):
For additional information on single audit requirements for this program, review the current Compliance Supplement.
OMB is working with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and agency offices of inspectors general to include links to relevant oversight reports. This section will be updated once this information is made available.
