Deadline: 30 June 2020
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) is seeking applications for its State Environmental Justice Cooperative Agreement Program (SEJCA) / COVID-19 Projects.
The SEJCA program provides funding to eligible entities to work collaboratively with underserved communities to understand, promote and integrate approaches to provide meaningful and measurable improvements to public health and/or the environment in those communities.
The purpose of the SEJCA program is to support and/or create model state activities that lead to measurable environmental or public health results in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms and risks. These models should leverage or utilize existing resources or assets of state agencies to develop key tools and processes that integrate environmental justice considerations into state governments and government programs.
The SEJCA program goals are to (1) achieve measurable and meaningful environmental and/or public health results in communities; (2) build broad and robust, results-oriented partnerships, particularly with community organizations within disproportionately impacted areas; (3) pilot activities in specific communities that create models, which can be expanded or replicated in other geographic areas; (4) reinforce connections to EPA regional EJ activities and priorities and, (5) strengthen the development and implementation of specific approaches to achieve environmental justice.
Funding Information
- The total estimated funding expected for all awards under this solicitation is approximately $1,000,000.
- EPA anticipates the award of approximately five (5) cooperative agreements in the approximate amount of $200,000 per award.
- Funded assistance agreements will have a two-year project period.
- Applicants should plan for projects to start on October 1, 2020.
Eligible Project Activities
The following is a list of some examples of the types of activities which may be considered for funding under this solicitation. It is provided for illustrative purposes only and is not all inclusive. Under this solicitation, applicants may submit COVID-19 related projects or general non COVID-19 SEJCA projects as further discussed below.
- Assessment and data collection. The project activities to be funded may include activities to assess, characterize or identify the community; activities for conducting assessments of States’ environmental justice related programs, or researching related environmental justice issues, areas of policy development, implementation of plans/strategies and evaluation of action plans.
- Tool development. These activities may entail the use and development of software, hardware, methodologies, best practices and other resources in support of EJ efforts, such as: the adoption or modification of EPA tools by states, or EJ Review Protocol for local applications, or the purchase of hardware enhancements, as GPS handheld devices for documentation and location of EJ community concerns.
- Training. Activities that enhance a State’s staff or coordinators knowledge and skills on the use of particular EPA and other environmental justice related tools, techniques, methodologies, cross-media knowledge, certification or continued education necessary for effective collaborative assistance in the EJ partnerships.
- Measurement. Activities that support efforts for measuring and reporting results and outcomes of activities, projects and programs related to environmental justice and environmental justice benefits, (i.e., using resources to measure efforts effectiveness, or measuring ranking factors).
- Outreach. Activities that educate, raise public knowledge and awareness toward achieving behavioral changes that improve human health and/or prevent environmental pollution for the specific project proposed (e.g. translation services, development of written material of technical or scientific nature in comprehensive but appropriate literacy levels for the impacted communities with environmental justice concerns).
- Staffing support. Internal staffing shall not account for more than 25% of the budgeted expenses associated with the cooperative agreement. Funded staffing support should be directly related to the project and should be clearly stated in the narrative.
Eligibility Criteria
- An eligible applicant must be one of the following entities:
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- a state, U.S. territory, or commonwealth;
- an instrumentality of the state (i.e. government-created organization which performs governmental functions but does not have full power of the state government).
- federally recognized tribal governments – including Alaska Native Villages
- local governments-includes cities, towns, municipalities, and counties
- The following entities are INELIGIBLE to receive a SEJCA award as the lead applicant. However, they strongly encourage eligible entities to PARTNER with these organizations (and others) as appropriate to successfully perform a SEJCA project. for information regarding requirements for funding partner organizations:
- Public and Private Institutions of Higher Education, including State Colleges and Universities
- Hospitals and medical facilities
- Incorporated non-profit organizations
- Businesses and Industry
- Faith-based organizations and local churches
- Civic and Philanthropic organizations
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=326650