66.203: Environmental Finance Center Grants

66.203

Active

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Sept. 2, 2022

Sept. 2, 2022

The Environmental Finance Center Grant Program provides funding to support Environmental Finance Centers (EFCs) that provide multi-media environmental finance expertise and outreach to communities. The EFCs work with state and tribal governments, local governments, and the private sector to address the growing costs of environmental protection. The EFCs provide finance-related training, education, and analytical studies to help these regulated parties develop solutions to the difficult how-to-pay issues associated with meeting environmental standards. The EFCs educate state, tribal, and local governments and businesses on lowering environmental costs, increasing environmental investments, improving financial capacity, identifying appropriate revenue generating mechanisms, and evaluating environmental financing options. A central goal of the EFCs is to create sustainable systems. Sustainable systems have the financial, technical, and institutional resources and capabilities to operate in compliance with environmental requirements and in conformance with accepted environmental practices over the long term. EFCs focus on helping smaller parties find ways to obtain financing for their environmental protection responsibilities. Funding Priority - Fiscal Year 2021: Providing education, training, technical assistance, and analytic support and outreach to state, tribal and local governments and businesses (with a focus on smaller governments and businesses) on: (1) supporting cleaner/greener business through source reduction, pollution prevention, conservation, resource recovery, reuse, and recycling (sustainable materials management); (2) promoting environmentally sustainable development, redevelopment, smart growth and land use planning; green infrastructure approaches; and green building efforts by state and local governments and the private sector; (3) supporting wetlands programs and protection; (4) improving drinking water and wastewater utility water conservation, energy efficiency, management, and capital planning; (5) encouraging green jobs and green business products and services; (6) promoting innovative ways to finance and otherwise support interstate, state, regional, and local air pollution reduction efforts; (7) assisting the owners and operators of small, medium, and disadvantaged environmental systems in planning, developing, and obtaining financing for infrastructure projects; (8) developing fiscal sustainability plans for utilities that include inventories of critical assets, evaluations asset performance, energy conservation efforts, operations, maintenance and repair needs and activities, and any required certifications; (9) reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and developing decision tools and financial strategies for adaptation to adverse weather events and/or climate change.; (10) identifying, supporting and advancing environmental equity and justice concerns, where appropriate, in all training, outreach, projects, programs, and activities; and, (11) encouraging the development and use of public-private partnerships, where appropriate in providing environmental services, infrastructure, projects, and activities.

B - Cooperative Agreements (Discretionary Grants)

Assistance under this program is available to public and private non-profit universities and colleges and to nonprofit organizations. For certain competitive funding opportunities under this assistance listing, the Agency may limit eligibility to compete to a number or subset of eligible applicants consistent with the Agency's Assistance Agreement Competition Policy.

States, tribes, local governments, businesses and community organizations and the general public are the beneficiaries of this program.

66.814 - Brownfields Training, Research, and Technical Assistance Grants and Cooperative Agreements

66.611 - Environmental Policy and Innovation Grants

https://sam.gov/fal/ce46e4a75e9f4aeda258f40e543eb8e8/view