CPRG Tools and Technical Assistance - Low Income and Disadvantaged Communities Resources
Further guidance providing recommended analytical approaches and metrics for estimating benefits flowing to low income and disadvantaged communities as required in the planning grants can be found in the technical reference document below:
Technical Reference Document for Low-Income and Disadvantaged Communities Benefits Analysis (pdf)
The “Capacity Building Through Effective Meaningful Engagement Booklet” is a tool intended to help create or expand plans for engaging meaningfully with communities. No two approaches to meaningful engagement will be exactly alike. We hope this tool helps spark ideas on how to build trust within communities through meaningful engagement.
EPA has provided a layer to EJScreen that combines CEJST and EJScreen data to identify whether a community is disadvantaged for the purposes of implementing EPA programs under the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. The EJScreen layer can be found on the EJscreen tool under “Places” tab and by selecting “EPA IRA Disadvantaged”: https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/
The underlying data for this layer is available for download here: https://gaftp.epa.gov/EPA_IRA_Public/. The database provides a list of all U.S. census tracts and identifies which are designated as disadvantaged and provides the data in two formats: text file (.csv) and geodatabase file (.gdb). An ArcGIS map identifying EPA IRA disadvantaged communities is available here: https://epa.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=f3be939070844eac8a14103ed6f9affd