Headquarters and Regional Underground Storage Tanks Program

This grant program funds activities in both the LUST prevention and cleanup programs. On the Prevention program, grants are used for activities that promote the prevention, compliance, and identification of underground storage tanks. For the cleanup

The purpose of the Headquarters and Regional Underground Storage Tank Program is to support activities that promote the prevention, compliance, and identification of USTs, and to support activities that promote corrective action, enforcement and management of releases from UST systems.

These assistance agreements are only available to public authorities (state, interstate, intrastate, agencies designated by states or territorial Governors to receive UST notifications, Federally-recognized tribes and intertribal consortia, and local), public agencies and institutions; private non-profit organizations and agencies that meet the requirements of Section 8001(a) and (b) of the Solid Waste Disposal Act. Profit-making organizations and the general public are not eligible. 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.

State and local governments, territories and possessions, interstate agencies, tribes, intertribal consortia, members of the regulated community and residents in areas impacted by federally-regulated USTs.

Grants and cooperative agreements are available to support recipients' eligible and allowable direct costs incurred under an approved work plan plus allowable indirect costs, in accordance with established EPA policies and regulations. Funds awarded under Section 8001(a) and (b) of RCRA must be used for projects that may include the following types of activities: research presentations, educational materials, surveys, training, studies, demonstrations, investigations, special projects and the development or use of methods to improve UST systems management and performance to reduce the actual and potential risks to human health and the environment. 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.

Restrictions are based on the specific appropriation being used, either EPM or LUST.EPM may only be used for UST prevention program activities while LUST funding may be only be used for UST corrective action activities. More information on the specific restrictions may be found in the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Prevention Cooperative Agreement Guidelines (March 2025) or Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Corrective Action Cooperative Agreement Guidelines (March 2025), respectively. Both may be found at https://www.epa.gov/ust/state-grant-policy-and-guidance

The length and time phasing of the assistance agreement shall be determined prior to the award. The length of the assistance agreements may be from one year to seven years.

Preapplication coordination is required. Environmental impact information is not required for this program. This program is excluded from coverage under E.O. 12372. 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 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 competitive announcement.

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

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

EPA may incrementally fund grants and cooperative agreements under this program. 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/grantcompetition-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.