Environmental Finance Center Grants

The Environmental Finance Center Grant Program provides funding to support Regional and National Environmental Finance Centers (EFCs) in the following categories: 1) Regional Multi-Environmental Media EFCs, 2) Regional Water Infrastructure EFCs with

The Environmental Finance Center Grant Program provides funding to support Regional and National Environmental Finance Centers (EFCs) that provide 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 support to help these regulated parties develop solutions to the difficult "how-to-pay" issues associated with meeting environmental standards. EFCs focus on helping smaller parties find ways to obtain financing for their environmental protection responsibilities. The Water Infrastructure EFCs will support access to Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) resources by delivering targeted technical assistance to support disadvantaged communities in accessing federal funding for water infrastructure improvements.

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.

Grants and cooperative agreements are available to recipients to support allowable direct costs for approved environmental financial technical assistance and outreach work plus allowable indirect costs, in accordance with established EPA policies and regulations. As part of EPA's substantial involvement, the appropriate EPA regional and/or headquarters office reviews and approves each annual project phase consistent with the scope of work for the cooperative agreement. Assistance agreement awards under this program may involve or relate to geospatial information. Further information regarding geospatial information may be obtained by viewing the following website: Geospatial Resources at EPA. This program makes Federal awards on a discretionary basis. Grants and cooperative agreements are available to recipients to support allowable direct costs for approved environmental financial technical assistance and outreach work plus allowable indirect costs, in accordance with established EPA policies and regulations. As part of EPA's substantial involvement, the appropriate EPA regional and/or headquarters office reviews and approves each annual project phase consistent with the scope of work for the cooperative agreement. Assistance agreement awards under this program may involve or relate to geospatial information. Further information regarding geospatial information may be obtained by viewing the following website: https://www.epa.gov/geospatial.

Under this program, EPA does not fund research, training, and technical assistance to facilitate the inventory of brownfields sites, site assessments, the remediation of brownfields sites, community involvement, and site preparation. These activities are covered by the EPA grant program established under assistance listing 66.814. This program makes Federal awards on a discretionary basis. A discretionary award means an award in which the Federal awarding agency, in keeping with specific statutory authority that enables the agency to exercise judgement ("discretion"), selects the recipient and/or the amount of Federal funding awarded through a competitive process or based on merit of proposals. A discretionary award may be selected on a non-competitive basis, as appropriate. For further information, please contact the Headquarters or regional office.

The term of the grant shall be determined at the time of grant award.

EPA financial assistance programs and activities subject to intergovernmental review that are subject to review under State single point of contact procedures are identified at https://www.epa.gov/grants/epa-financial-assistance-programs-subject-executive-order-12372-and-section-204-demonstration. Applicants for programs or activities subject to Intergovernmental Review that are not subject to State single point of contact review must provide directly affected State, areawide, regional, and local entities at least 60 days to review their application following notification by EPA that the application has been selected for funding as provided by 40 CFR 29.8(a) and (c). Regarding pre-application assistance with respect to competitive funding opportunities under this program description, EPA will generally specify the nature of the pre-application/pre-proposal assistance, if any, that will be available to applicants in the competitive announcement. For additional information, contact the individual(s) listed in the competitive announcement.

The evaluation and selection criteria for competitive awards under this assistance listing will be described in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.

For competitive awards, EPA will review and evaluate applications in accordance with the terms, conditions, and criteria stated in the Notice of Funding Opportunity. Competitions will be conducted in accordance with EPA policies/regulations for competing assistance agreements.

For competitive awards, deadlines will be specified in the NOFO.

Assistance agreement competition-related disputes will be resolved in accordance with the dispute resolution procedures published in 70 FR (Federal Register) 3629, 3630 (January 26, 2005). Copies of these procedures may also be found at: https://www.epa.gov/grants/grant-competition-dispute-resolution-procedures. Disputes relating to matters other than the competitive selection of recipients will be resolved under 2 CFR 1500 Subpart E, as applicable.