Pollution Prevention Grants Program

The P2 grant program was enacted under the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 to 1) Provide technical assistance (e.g., information, training and tools) to businesses/facilities on source reduction/P2 techniques to help them adopt and implement source

EPA awards P2 grants to provide information, training, and/or technical assistance to businesses/facilities to encourage the adoption and implementation of source reduction approaches. Adoption of source reduction approaches can help businesses save money (by reducing resource use, expenditures, waste, and liability costs), while at the same time reducing their environmental footprints and helping protect human health and the environment.

Colleges and universities must include documentation within their applications, which may include, but is not limited to: a state constitutional reference, college/university charter, W-7 tax form that has confirmed the college or university to serve as an instrumentality of a state or a federally-recognized tribe. For certain competitive funding opportunities under this assistance listing description, the Agency may limit eligibility to compete to a number or subset of eligible applicants consistent with the Agency's Policy for the Competition of Assistance Agreements.

Eligible applicants under this program are State agencies, State colleges and universities that are instrumentalities of the State, and federally recognized Tribes. These eligible applicants are encouraged to establish partnerships with businesses and environmental assistance providers to deliver seamless P2 assistance. Over the years, the P2 Program has found that the most successful P2 grant applicants are those who make the most efficient use of their government funding. In many cases, this has been accomplished through securing grant partnerships. As a result, those who are eligible to apply directly for P2 grant funding can also provide P2 benefits to their grant partners and grant beneficiaries, which include, but are not limited to: States, interstate, intrastate, and local agencies or organizations/universities, federally-recognized Tribes, intertribal consortia, public or private nonprofit organizations/institutions, private businesses, trade associations, student interns (within undergraduate and graduate programs), quasi-public nonprofit organizations, schools and the general public.

Funding under the P2 grant program helps businesses establish and provide on-site technical assistance or training to businesses, support educational outreach and research endeavors, support data collection and analysis to curb environmental inefficiencies, and help businesses significantly reduce facility overhead and/or production costs. P2 grants are authorized under the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) of 1990 and supported through Congressional appropriation. Past grants have addressed the transfer of potentially harmful pollutants across all environmental media: air, water, and land, and have supported the establishment and expansion of State and Tribal P2 programs under diverse topic areas, some of which include industrial toxics usage, chemical substitution, energy reduction, reduction of hazardous waste and wastewater, and reductions in water usage. For more information on the scope of this grant program, please refer to PPA Section 6603 and 40 CFR Sections 35.343 and 35.662.P2 does not involve practices which alter the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics or the volume of a pollutant, hazardous substance or contaminant through a process or activity which itself is not integral to and necessary for the production of a product or the providing of a service (refer to PPA Section 6603 and 40 CFR 35.343 and 35.662). Recycling of discarded materials, waste clean-up, disposal activities, and management of or processing of non-hazardous solid waste (e.g., paper/cardboard, glass, plastics, etc.) are not P2 activities and cannot serve as a basis for P2 grant funding. If any of these activities represent more than a small and ancillary part of the proposed work, EPA will not consider the application for an award. For assistance with recycling of discarded materials, waste clean-up, disposal, and management or processing of non-hazardous solid waste activities, please contact the EPA's Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. 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 judgment ("discretion"), selects the recipient and/or the amount of Federal funding awarded through a competitive process or based on the merit of proposals. A discretionary award may be selected on a non-competitive basis, as appropriate. For further information, please contact the Headquarters or the regional office.

Assistance agreements are awarded for an initial funding period of two years.

Regarding pre-application assistance with respect to competitive funding opportunities under this assistance listing, EPA will generally specify the nature of the pre-application assistance, if any, that will be available to applicants in the NOFO. For additional information, contact the individual(s) listed in the NOFO.

The evaluation and selection criteria for competitive awards under this assistance listing will be described in NOFO posted on Grants.gov.

EPA will review and evaluate applications in accordance with the terms, conditions, and criteria stated in the NOFO. Competitions will be conducted in accordance with EPA's Policy for the Competition of Assistance Agreements.

For competitive awards, deadlines will be specified in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

Approximately 120 days after the deadline for application submission.

Generally EPA incrementally funds grants and cooperative agreements. Approval of subsequent funding increments is dependent on satisfactory project progress, continued relevance of the project to [EPA's] priorities, and availability of funds.

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.