Program objective

The goals of this program are to make awards for the design and management of a new Environmental Justice (EJ) competitive pass-through program where EPA will competitively select pass-through entities to provide grant funds via subawards to community-based nonprofit organizations, underserved and disadvantaged communities, and other EJ community stakeholders. Per the Code of Federal Regulations (2 CFR200.74), a pass-through entity is defined as a non-Federal entity that provides a subaward to a subrecipient to carry out part of a federal program. Under this program, EPA plans to award 5 - 11 cooperative agreements in FY 23 to pass-through entities (referred to as Grantmakers by the program) who will collaborate with EPA to design and build their own processes to receive and evaluate competitive community project applications from communities and community stakeholders addressing local environmental and/or public health issues impacting underserved and disadvantaged communities. The Grantmaking program strives to increase the access Eligible Subrecipients have to funding, as well as reduce the burden of the federal grants application process on underserved and disadvantaged communities. As a result, community-based nonprofit organizations and other EJ stakeholders will be better positioned to advance and address EJ issues nationwide. This will lead to progress towards achieving the objectives of Executive Order 13985, "Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government," and Executive Order 14008, "Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,", as well as the Justice40 Initiative.