EPA Environmental Justice Grants 2026: Status Guide

This guide is for: Community organizations, environmental nonprofits, tribal governments, and local agencies that used to rely on EPA environmental justice funding, or that were planning to apply, and need to know what still exists.

Last updated: October 9, 2026

Full answer: There are no open EPA environmental justice grant programs in 2026. EPA terminated grants under all 6 of its EJ programs in 2025, Public Law 119-21 rescinded the unobligated IRA money behind Community Change Grants, EJScreen is offline, and Justice40 was revoked. The money that still reaches overburdened communities comes through state environmental justice grants and federal programs that were never labeled "environmental justice," such as Brownfields grants, Superfund Technical Assistance Grants, and state revolving funds. This page explains what happened to each EPA program and where to look instead.

EPA Environmental Justice Grants: Every Program, Award Size, and What's Changed

Data note: Grantsights checked Public Law 119-21, the EPA Office of Inspector General's March 2026 Track I Community Change fact sheet, EPA's Brownfields and Superfund pages, and USASpending.gov obligations for assistance listings 66.306, 66.312, 66.604, 66.614, 66.615, and 66.616 on October 9, 2026. Termination details come from EPA's April 24, 2025 court status report as summarized by Duane Morris and NADO.

Grantsights Source Review: Where Each EPA EJ Program Stands

6 programs made up EPA's environmental justice grant portfolio, and none of them is open to new applicants. Grantsights checked each one against the current law, EPA's own pages, and federal award records. The table below replaces the old "every active program" list with the status of each program as of October 2026.

A common mistake on older guides, including the earlier version of this one, was listing Community Change, TCGM, and TCTAC under assistance listing 66.042. That number belongs to an unrelated EPA ecosystem monitoring program. G2G is 66.312, not 66.306, which is EJCPS only.

Bad fit check: if your plan depends on an EPA EJ notice opening in 2026 or 2027, stop. None is scheduled, the office that ran these programs was eliminated, and Congress rescinded the IRA money. Start with the state and federal routes later in this guide, or search EPA and state program matches in Grantsights.

Historical EPA records still matter for history and audits. The Financial Assistance for Community Support Activities record covers inactive 66.614 award history.

What Happened: The 2025 Timeline

4 actions in 2025 ended EPA's environmental justice grant programs, and they're worth knowing in order because each one closes a different door.

January 20, 2025: Justice40 revoked. Executive Order 14148 rescinded Executive Order 14008, which had set the goal that 40% of the benefits of certain federal climate and environmental investments flow to disadvantaged communities. Executive Order 14151, signed the same day, directed agencies to end environmental justice offices, positions, and programs. According to Harvard's Environmental and Energy Law Program tracker, the rescission ended Justice40 and the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool.

February to April 2025: EPA terminates EJ grants. EPA announced in February 2025 that environmental justice was no longer an agency priority, according to NADO. EPA's April 24, 2025 court status report listed programs slated for termination, including EJCPS, G2G, EJ Small Grants, Thriving Communities Grantmaking, community support activities (66.614), and the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program behind Community Change. The same report said EPA had terminated 377 IRA grants and planned more than 400 more termination notices. EPA also took EJScreen offline in February 2025; epa.gov/ejscreen returns a 404 error.

May 2025: Community Change termination notices. According to the EPA OIG Track I fact sheet, the Track I review produced 80 awardees with about $1.5 billion, and EPA issued termination notices in May 2025.

July 4, 2025: Congress rescinds the money. Section 60016 of Public Law 119-21 says the unobligated balances made available to carry out section 138 of the Clean Air Act "are rescinded." Section 138 was the IRA's Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant authority, the source for Community Change Grants. That's the red flag that matters most: even if a court restores a specific terminated award, there's no unobligated IRA pool left for a new competition.

What The Award Records Show

According to USASpending.gov FY2024 data, EPA obligated about $312 million in grants across its environmental justice assistance listings in FY2024, not the $2.3 billion an earlier version of this page claimed. Grantsights analysis of USASpending.gov obligations for each listing shows where the money actually landed before the programs ended.

According to USASpending.gov FY2025 data, Community Change obligations reached $1.50 billion, which matches the OIG's count of 80 Track I awardees with about $1.5 billion. According to USASpending.gov FY2026 data, the EJCPS and G2G listings show essentially no new obligations so far this year.

Two cautions apply. First, these are obligation totals, not cash paid. Many FY2025 obligations were later terminated, so they overstate what reached communities. Second, an obligation table can't tell you whether a specific award survived; only the assistance agreement and any court order covering it can.

For example, the three Thriving Communities grantmakers that sued (Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, the Minneapolis Foundation, and Philanthropy Northwest) held $180 million in grants covering 15 states and 315 federally recognized tribes. That's real money still tied up in litigation, not money a new applicant can compete for.

What EPA.gov Doesn't Tell You About EJ Grants

5 things are missing from EPA's own pages, mostly because those pages are gone.

1. Old EPA pages and third-party lists still look current. EPA's EJCPS and EJScreen URLs return 404 errors, but many grant databases, university guides, and older blog posts still describe EJCPS as an annual April or May deadline and EJ Small Grants as a spring cycle. Those cycles ended. If a listing doesn't link to a live notice on Grants.gov, treat it as history.

2. A court win for one grantee isn't a reopened program. On June 17, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland set aside EPA's termination of $180 million in Thriving Communities grants held by three grantmakers, according to the Minneapolis Foundation. The government appealed to the Fourth Circuit (No. 25-1808). The ruling covers those three agreements and their subrecipients, not new applicants nationwide. If you were a subgrantee in one of those regions, ask the grantmaker directly where your subaward stands.

3. No court has restored TCTAC services that we could confirm. The 17 technical assistance centers lost their funding in 2025. Some host organizations may still help local groups with other funding, so it's worth asking, but don't plan on a federally funded center writing your next application.

4. Rescission is harder to undo than termination. A termination can be challenged in court. A rescission by Congress removes the unobligated money itself. Section 60016 means a future administration would need new appropriations, not just a policy change, to run another Community Change competition.

5. Your burden data still matters, but you'll source it differently. Without EJScreen and CEJST, state notices and non-EJ federal programs name their own data. New York uses its own potential environmental justice area maps; California programs often use CalEnviroScreen. Cite whichever source the notice names, with the specific census tracts and indicators.

Where Environmental Justice Funding Still Exists

4 categories of funding still reach overburdened communities in 2026. None carries the EJ label at EPA, but each one can fund work that EJ grants used to fund.

State environmental justice grant programs

Several states fund their own programs from state money, which wasn't affected by the federal terminations.

• New York: The Department of Environmental Conservation runs Environmental Justice Community Impact Grants for community-based organizations, funded by the state's Environmental Protection Fund. Third-party listings for Round 13 show awards of $50,000 to $200,000 and a July 1, 2026 deadline. Confirm those terms with the NYSDEC Office of Environmental Justice for the current round and eligibility rules, including a revenue cap for applicants.
• California: CalEPA's Environmental Justice Small Grants program is set in state law (Public Resources Code section 71116) and has historically offered awards up to $50,000 for nonprofits and federally recognized tribes. CalEPA shares solicitations through its environmental justice email list, so sign up there for the next round.
• Other states: New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, and other states have built environmental justice laws or grant programs. Search your state environmental agency's site, and check our environmental justice grants guide for state-by-state routes.

EPA Brownfields grants

Brownfields grants weren't part of the EJ portfolio and are still running. EPA announced about $270 million in FY 2026 Brownfields grants. According to EPA's Brownfields application resources page, EPA expects to issue FY 2027 Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup solicitations in fall 2026, with applications due about 60 days after posting. Planned maximums include $500,000 for Community-wide Assessment grants, $1,000,000 for Assessment Coalitions and Revolving Loan Funds, and $500,000 for Cleanup grants. Cleanup and Revolving Loan Fund recipients must provide a 20% cost share. No Multipurpose solicitation will be issued in FY 2027.

Nonprofits are eligible for some Brownfields grant types, but many community groups partner with a city, county, or tribe that applies. See our EPA grants guide for how Brownfields fits with EPA's other programs.

Superfund Technical Assistance Grants

According to EPA's TAG program page, Technical Assistance Grants give qualified community groups an initial grant of up to $50,000 to hire their own technical advisor at Superfund sites on or proposed for the National Priorities List where a response action has begun. If your community lives near a listed site, a TAG pays for an independent expert to explain cleanup plans and data, which is part of what EJCPS projects used to do.

State revolving funds and other federal routes

Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds, run by each state, can provide additional subsidy such as principal forgiveness to disadvantaged communities under state-set definitions. Rural communities should also look at USDA rural development grants, which fund water, waste, and community facilities in small towns. For nonprofit-focused federal options outside EPA, see federal grants for nonprofits.

Foundations

Private foundations didn't lose funding when EPA did, and some regional funders took on grantees after the federal cuts. There's no single list, so search a foundation database by your county and issue area, and look at community foundations in your region first. Our guide to the best grants for environmental nonprofits lists foundation programs by focus.

How To Plan A 2026 Application Without EPA EJ Grants

12 months is a realistic planning window for the routes above, because Brownfields and state cycles run once a year. Here's a planning calendar built around those cycles rather than the old EPA EJ deadlines.

Registration warning: You must have an active SAM.gov registration and a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) to apply for any federal grant, including Brownfields and TAGs. Our guide on how to register on SAM.gov walks through the process. New registrations can take several weeks.

Common mistake: recycling an EJCPS or Community Change narrative for a Brownfields or state application. The scoring criteria are different. Brownfields reviewers want site inventories, redevelopment plans, and partner commitments; state EJ programs usually want proof that the organization is based in and led by the affected community. Rewrite for the notice in front of you.

To see which programs fit your organization, try the free Grantsights eligibility checker, which takes about two minutes, or explore the grants database by state and applicant type.

If You Already Hold An EPA EJ Award

3 situations cover most current and former EPA EJ grantees, and each calls for a different first step.

You received a termination notice. Keep every notice, payment record, and correspondence. Check whether your agreement is covered by any court order, and talk to a lawyer before spending further against the award. Allowable closeout costs follow your agreement and 2 CFR 200.

You're a subrecipient of a Thriving Communities grantmaker. Ask the grantmaker in writing whether your subaward is active, paused, or terminated. If your grantmaker is one of the three plaintiffs in the Maryland case, ask how the ruling and the pending appeal affect your payments.

You were selected but never received an agreement. With Section 60016 rescinding unobligated Community Change balances, an unsigned selection almost certainly won't turn into an award. Move your project to another route.

For tips on writing for a new funder, see our guide on how to write a federal grant proposal.

Bottom line: Don't plan around EPA environmental justice grants. They're gone, and the IRA money behind the largest one was rescinded. Put your effort into your state's EJ program, the fall 2026 Brownfields solicitations, a Superfund TAG if you qualify, and foundation funders.

Sources

• Public Law 119-21, Section 60016 (rescission of Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant funds), approved July 4, 2025
• EPA Office of Inspector General, Track I Community Change fact sheet, March 2026
• USASpending.gov, FY2024 to FY2026 grant obligations for assistance listings 66.306, 66.312, 66.604, 66.614, 66.615, and 66.616, accessed October 9, 2026
• EPA Brownfields MARC grant application resources
• EPA Superfund Technical Assistance Grant program
• NADO: Environmental Justice Grants
• Duane Morris: EPA terminates IRA grants, May 2, 2025
• Minneapolis Foundation: Federal court rules in favor of regional grantmakers, June 2025
• Harvard EELP: Rescission of Executive Order 14008 and Justice40