National Environmental Performance Partnership System (NEPPS)
About NEPPS
For 30 years, the National Environmental Performance Partnership System has provided flexibility for states and Tribes to take on environmental challenges - from supporting the day-to-day operations of our nation’s public water infrastructure, operation of air quality monitors, and cleaning up Brownfields sites, to ensuring speedy recovery when unexpected environmental disasters strike. NEPPS empowers states and Tribes to make strategic choices and implement localized solutions based on their greatest needs.
Through NEPPS, EPA acts as a supporting partner to achieve environmental results, using two partnership mechanisms: Performance Partnership Agreements and Performance Partnership Grants.
Performance Partnership Agreements and Grants
- A PPA is an agreement on joint commitments that is signed between an EPA Regional Administrator and state or Tribal Official. The PPA ensures stronger, more efficient and cost-effective partnerships to achieve joint success.
- A PPA can be used by a state or Tribe as the strategic and collaborative underpinning for a PPG. A PPG is a single grant that combines funds from two or more eligible environmental program grants. PPGs have their own statutory authority distinct from individual program statutes, which provides unique administrative, financial, and programmatic flexibilities to recipients offered by no other grant program at EPA.
PPAs are commitments to achieve joint accountability between EPA and the state or Tribe to meet state, Tribal, and agency environmental goals; PPGs reduce administrative burden and allow EPA to remain a strong steward of taxpayer dollars by emphasizing measuring and reporting of results. Empowering its implementing partners through cooperative federalism, NEPPS serves as a useful tool in supporting the "Powering the Great American Comeback” Initiative.
More information on how to apply for a PPG can be found in the state and Tribal Best Practices Guides.
Program History
NEPPS was established on May 17, 1995, in response to the states’ request for a flexible and outcome-focused approach to environmental protection. In signing the agreement that established NEPPS, EPA and state leaders stated that they sought to "strengthen our protection of public health and the environment by directing scarce public resources toward improving environmental results, allowing states greater flexibility to achieve those results, and enhancing our accountability to the public and taxpayers."
Congress then provided EPA with the authority to implement NEPPS through two statutes, Public Law (PL) 104-134 (commonly referred to as the Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act) and PL 105-65. States and Tribes were provided with an opportunity to participate in NEPPS through these statutes and they remain active partners today.
PPG Story Map
The Story Map below provides examples of how states and Tribes have utilized the flexibilities of PPGs. A larger version of the Story Map can be viewed here.