The EPA is canceling nearly 800 environmental justice grants, court filing reveals
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to cancel a total of 781 grants issued under President Joe Biden, EPA lawyers wrote in a little-noticed court filing last week, nearly twice the number previously reported.
The filing in the case Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council v. Department of Agriculture marks the first time the agency has publicly acknowledged the total number of grants set for termination, which includes all of its environmental justice grants. It comes amid ongoing court fights over whether the EPA has violated its legal obligations when clawing back the funds.
“EPA is in the process of sending out the formal termination/cancellation notices to all of the impacted grantees,” EPA career official Daniel Coogan wrote in the filing. “EPA has already sent out formal notices to approximately 377 grantees. For the remaining approximately 404 grantees, EPA plans to issue notices within the next two weeks.”
Prior to the filing, the EPA had not confirmed that 781 grants would be canceled, although a list obtained by The Washington Post had shown more than 450 terminated or frozen grants totaling more than $1.5 billion.
The canceled grants would have funded a range of projects aimed at helping communities cope with the worsening impacts of climate change. Recipients planned to use the money to seal homes in Washington state against wildfire smoke and protect Alaska Native villages from coastal flooding, among other things.
Most of the grants were issued by the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, which the Trump administration plans to shutter as part of its efforts to remake the agency. Trump officials last week informed more than 450 employees working on environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion that they will be fired or reassigned.
A coalition of environmental nonprofits, including the Providence, Rhode Island-based Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, is challenging the Trump administration’s move to freeze billions of dollars in funding under Biden’s signature 2022 climate law and the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021.
The watershed group has not been able to access a $1 million grant from the Forest Service since January. The lawsuit names as defendants the Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Housing departments, along with the EPA and the Office of Management and Budget.
U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy issued a preliminary injunction on April 15 that required the agencies to release frozen funding while the litigation proceeds. McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that the nonprofit groups had shown the funding freeze was “arbitrary and capricious.”
Before canceling any grants, the EPA is required to conduct a detailed review of each grant award. Coogan wrote in the filing that the agency had complied with this mandate.
“EPA leadership conducted an individualized, grant-by-grant review to determine which grants should continue, which should be modified, and which should be terminated based on alignment with Administration priorities or the purposes for which the Federal award was made,” he wrote.
Yet several lawyers and experts raised concerns that the EPA has not, in fact, conducted such a review and that the agency has misled the court.
“I can tell you from working with many, many of those grantees that the review has never happened,” said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit group that has provided free legal assistance to several grant recipients.
“They’re claiming to the court that each one of those was done on an individualized basis, even though they haven’t shown any evidence, and almost none of the grantees has received a termination notice,” Blanchard added. “Now some of them are starting to get those termination notices, but that's well after the injunction order on April 15.”
Asked for comment, EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou said in an email: “In keeping with a long-standing practice, EPA does not comment on any current or pending litigation.”
Local officials say the terminations will undermine their ability to keep their constituents healthy.
For residents in Hampden County, Massachusetts, unhealthy air quality is a regular occurrence, and more than 49,000 children and adults suffer from asthma. A three-year, nearly $1 million grant from the EPA was intended to support in-home environmental public health projects to reduce asthma risk.
“By canceling these grants for Hampden County, the Trump Administration is undermining our efforts to improve the health of the people of Western Massachusetts,” said Gov. Maura Healey (D) in a statement last week. “This is just their latest attack on the health and well-being of communities across our country.”
Zealan Hoover, a former senior adviser to Biden’s EPA administrator, Michael Regan, said the canceled grants could have far-reaching consequences.
“EPA’s attempts to terminate these grants not only violates their legal rights but abandons hundreds of communities across the country that were finally making progress reducing their energy costs and tackling polluted air and water,” he said.