An American flag flies amid burned structures at the Altadena Town & Country Club during the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California on Jan. 8, 2025. Mario Tama / Getty Images
Alright, so you know how the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is supposed to protect the environment and all that good stuff, right? Well, guess what? They’re planning to cancel a whopping 781 environmental justice grants that were given out under former President Joe Biden. Crazy, right? This news went relatively unnoticed until The Washington Post reported on it last week.
The grants had already been handed out to recipients, which was twice the number that was originally believed. Daniel Coogan, the deputy assistant administrator for infrastructure and extramural resources at the EPA, mentioned in a court filing that they are in the process of sending out formal termination/cancellation notices to all the impacted grantees. They’ve already sent out notices to about 377 grantees, with plans to reach the remaining 404 within the next two weeks.
This filing was the first time the EPA publicly acknowledged just how many grants they were axing, and get this – they’re cutting all environmental justice grants. The agency is currently tangled in court battles over whether they broke the law by pulling back the grant funds.
Coogan mentioned that the EPA conducted “an individualized, grant-by-grant review” to decide which grants should be continued. However, some experts and lawyers are skeptical, claiming that the agency misled the court and never actually conducted such a review.
Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, stated, “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.”
In response to a request for comment, EPA spokesperson Molly Vaselious said in an email, “In keeping with a long-standing practice, EPA does not comment on any current or pending litigation.”
Most of the grants were issued by the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. The Trump administration plans to shut down this office, and over 450 employees working on diversity, equity, inclusion, and environmental justice have been informed that they’ll be reassigned or let go.
These grants were meant to fund projects to help communities deal with the worsening impacts of the climate crisis. For instance, they were planning to use the money for coastal flood protection in Alaska Native villages and sealing homes against wildfire smoke in Washington state.
Local officials are worried that losing these grants will make it harder to keep their communities healthy. In Hampden County, Massachusetts, where the air quality is often unhealthy and over 49,000 people suffer from asthma, a three-year EPA grant of nearly $1 million was intended to support environmental public health projects to reduce the risk of asthma.
Democratic Governor Maura Healey expressed her concern, saying, “By canceling these grants for Hampden County, the Trump Administration is undermining our efforts to improve the health of the people of Western Massachusetts.”
So, yeah, it seems like things are getting pretty messy over at the EPA. Not really sure why this matters, but there you have it. Subscribe for more updates if you want, I guess.
