As the EPA continues to cancel and freeze funding for grants awarded under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), environmental justice programs appear to be targeted, with more than $2.4 billion in grant funding for disadvantaged communities eliminated.
“The administration argues these programs constitute ‘favoritism’ and has tied them to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives it seeks to eliminate, despite a judge’s order to lift the funding freeze,” reports Environmental Health News. “The cuts affect a broad range of projects, including clean water access in low-income and tribal communities, air pollution monitoring, and climate resilience efforts, with legal challenges now advancing to the appellate courts.”
In Houston, it’s believed these funding cuts will create a “perfect storm” for increased pollution in areas that already suffer from excess pollution.
To date, the EPA has canceled “$1.5 million in funding for a project to build out a solar energy farm, create a resilience hub and plant trees in Houston’s long-polluted Fifth Ward neighborhood,” according to Houston Public Media.
Two programs that lost funding are the Houston Health Department’s “Vulnerable to Vibrant: Solar Workforce Development Trainings, Illegal Dumping Abatement and Education in an Environmental Justice Community” and “Vulnerable to Vibrant: Strategies to Achieve Climate Resiliency in an Environmental Justice Community” projects.
These programs were to “grow the energy workforce; reduce heat, flooding and pollution; support climate and energy resilience; and help with revitalization efforts in the Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens environmental justice communities that have faced decades-long contamination from the neighboring Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) site,” according to the Houston Health Department’s website, which also notes it’s searching for other funding sources.
Last year, the Houston City Council “accepted an additional $20 million from the EPA for the project’s third stage, intended to fund ‘the final stepping-stone in establishing a community solar farm’ and ‘provide free or reduced-price electricity plans’ for residents who have been affected by underground, cancer-causing contamination linked to a site owned by the Union Pacific Railroad,” Houston Public Media continues. “The Houston Chronicle reported the $20 million grant was ‘suspended.’ A spokesperson for the city’s health department told Houston Public Media the grant ‘has not been cancelled.’ Asked whether the funds were frozen, the spokesperson said the department ‘does not have any further comment at this time.’”
Additionally, $3 million in funding for Air Alliance Houston have been paused for a program focused on notifying nearby residents when companies apply for pollution permits.
“The automated program sent postcards to homes around polluting facilities about upcoming permit hearings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), and it included an online map of pollution permits,” continues Houston Public Media. “The grant would’ve expanded the program to cover 10 Gulf Coast counties over the next three years.”
“There is a need for this work in the community,” notes Air Alliance Houston Executive Director Jennifer Hadayia, according to the Houston Public Media article. “There’s a need for people to know what pollution is happening in their community. There’s a need for people to know how they can get involved. And now that these funds are frozen, we are not able to implement that program to meet those needs.
“Hadayia said the canceled grants, coupled with the expected rollback of rules and regulations tied to the Clean Air Act (CAA), create ‘a perfect storm for our air quality to be worse and for ultimately the health of our population to be worse.’ The EPA in March described its actions, including the reconsideration of rules regulating air toxicity standards and pollution from oil and gas production facilities, as ‘the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.’”