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Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people, including a racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies.
Environmental Justice Grant Programs
- Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program provides financial assistance to eligible organizations working on or planning to work on projects to address local environmental and/or public health issues in their communities, using EPA's "Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model." On June 22, 2006, a new announcement for the EJ CPS was released. An earlier RFA was released on February 1, 2006 but was cancelled. Any organization that applied under the earlier RFA must submit a new application because significant changes to the RFA have been made in an effort to solicit more applications.
(about pdf)
- Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program - June 22, 2006 (PDF, 552KB, 48 pages)
- Programa de Justicia Ambiental Acuerdo Cooperative para Solucionar Problemas de Justicia Ambiental de Manera Colaborativa: Guia para Solicitar 22 de Junio de 2006 (PDF, 487KB, 48 paginas)
- Required Forms and Templates
The EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) established the Environmental Justice Small Grants Program (EJSG) in fiscal year (FY) 1994. The purpose of this grant program is to support and empower communities that are working on local solutions to local environmental and/or public health issues. The EJSG Program is designed to assist recipients in building collaborative partnerships that will help them understand and address the environmental and/or public health issues in their communities. Successful collaborative partnerships with other stakeholders involve well-designed strategic plans to build, maintain and sustain the partnerships, and to work towards addressing the local environmental and/or public health issues.
Recent Awards
On October 3, 2007, EPA announced $1 million in grants across the country for improving the environment in low-income communities. These grants were awarded on September 30, 2007Environmental Justice Small Grants Program 2007 Awards: project Descriptions PDF (30KB, 6 pages)
Request for Applications
On October 28, 2009 the Request For Applications (RFA) was released announcing the availability of funds and solicitation of applications from eligible entities interested in participating the Environmental Justice Small Grants Program. The Environmental Justice Small Grants Program (EJSG), supports and empowers communities working on solutions to local environmental and public health issues.
This year the program is emphasizing the need to address the disproportionate impacts of climate change in communities with environmental justice concerns. There is a well-established scientific consensus that climate change will cause disproportionate impacts upon vulnerable populations. As stated in the Technical Support Document for the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (April 2009), “Within settlements experiencing climate change, certain parts of the population may be especially vulnerable; these include the poor, the elderly, those already in poor health, the disabled, those living alone, those with limited rights and power (such as recent immigrants with limited English skills), and/or indigenous populations dependent on one or a few resources. Thus, the potential impacts of climate change raise environmental justice issues.” The goals of this focus on climate change are to recognize the critical role of grassroots efforts in helping shape strategies to avoid, lessen, or delay the risks and impacts associated with climate change; to decrease the number of under represented communities; and, to ensure equitable green economic development in ways that build healthy sustainable communities.
The EJSG continues to assists recipients in building collaborative partnerships to help them understand and address environmental and public health issues in their communities. Successful collaborative partnerships involve not only well-designed strategic plans to build, maintain and sustain the partnerships, but also to work towards addressing the local environmental and public health issues.
For the guidance document go to http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/ej/grants /rfa-small-grant-2010.pdf
For questions contact Sheila Lewis: lewis.sheila@epa.gov
If you are not already a member, the Office of Environmental Justice would like to invite you to join the EJ List Serve. The purpose of this information tool is to notify individuals about activities at EPA in the field of environmental justice. By subscribing to this list you will receive information on EPA's activities, programs, projects grants and about environmental justice activities at other agencies. Noteworthy news items, National meeting announcements, meeting summaries of NEJAC meetings, and new publication notices will also be distributed. Postings can only be made by the Office of Environmental Justice. To request an item to be posted, send your information to environmental-justice@epa.gov and indicate in the subject "Post to EPA-EJ List Serve"
To join the list serve go to: https://lists.epa.gov/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=epa-ej
To change the way you receive these emails, go to: https://lists.epa.gov/read/?forum=epa-ej and click "My Account."
To Unsubscribe: Send an e-mail to listserv@unixmail.rtpnc.epa.gov with the following in the body of the message "unsubscribe EPA-EJ" without the quotes. Make sure that the subject is blank and there is no additional information after the one line, such as a signature line.
Presentations from the Mid-Atlantic Cumulative
Risk Workshop are still available. The conference was held on May 28-29, 2003
in Philadelphia, PA. The focus was
HOW CAN CUMULATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT BE USED TO ACHIEVE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE?
Click to View and Download Presentations.
- The Environmental Risk Study for the City of Chester Pennsylvania dated May 1995.
The report is in Adobe PDF format. The Full Report is large and has been separated for downloading. File sizes are listed to the right.- Summary Report (pdf file 5.3 MB)
- Full Report (pdf file 9 MB)
- Tables (pdf file 5 MB)
- Figures and References (pdf file 1 MB)
- Appendix I (pdf file 1.5 MB)
- Appendix II (pdf file 2 MB)
- Appendix III (pdf file 5 MB)
- Summary Report (pdf file 5.3 MB)
EPA Environmental Justice Links
- EPA's Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ)
- EPA's OEJ Grants Program designed to address environmental justice concerns and issues
- EPA Office of Civil Right (OCR) Information on Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Environmental Justice in EPA's NEPA Compliance Analysis
- OSWER Environmental Justice Home Page
- List of Title VI Cases Filed with the Environmental Protection Agency
- Executive Order 12898 - Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,
Environmental Justice Links, Articles and Reports
- Environmental Health Perspectives
Online
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Website
- Lead
History--Violent Future? A 574
- EHP Online Issue, Volume 110, Number 10, October 2002 NIEHS.
- Environmental
Justice: Building a Unified Vision of Health and the
Environment
- Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements Volume 110, Number
2, April 2002
- Lead
History--Violent Future? A 574
- EHP Children’s
Health
This new NIEHS site provides more centralized access to all of EHP’s
children’s health resources including a wide range of news articles
and scientific research dating back to the 1970s as well as links to
outside organizations and information focused on children’s health.
Additional Information
If you have any questions concerning the Office of Enforcement, Compliance and Environmental Justice program contact:
- Reggie Harris (harris.reggie@epa.gov) Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator, Office of Enforcement, Compliance and Environmental Justice, EPA, Mid-Atlantic Region 215-814-2988.
- Public Information Hotline - 800-438-2474