EPA Killed a $50M Climate Justice Grant Biden Already Shelved

In its first weeks back in power, the second Trump Administration has made no secret it will stop or undo most of former President Joe Biden’s progressive accomplishments. So it wasn’t a surprise when the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator shut down a $50 million grant earmarked for fighting climate change because its recipients support Palestine. 

The administrator, Lee Zeldin, boasted about the move in a Feb. 13 social media post: “I just cancelled a $50 MILLION Biden-era environmental justice grant to the Climate Justice Alliance, which believes ‘climate justice travels through a Free Palestine,’ a slogal featured on the organization’s website.

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But the BIden administration had already sidetracked the grant, apparently because CJA had called for an independent Palestinian state and urged Biden to demand a ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine war. Because the grant has been canceled, however, Black and brown communities that suffer most from climate change won’t see relief. 

The grant was part of $600 million in “pass-through” funding budgeted for the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, part of the Inflation Reduction Act — Biden’s signature legislative accomplishment. The $50 million set for Climate Justice Alliance from that program would have bankrolled smaller grants to local organizations working on climate justice issues, like clean water access, drought and wildfire, across the western U.S. as well as tribal communities throughout the country.

But the grant was the only one from the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities program that wasn’t disbursed before Biden left office in January. 

That was despite the efforts of EPA staffers: in December, they wrote an open letter arguing that the White House was punishing CJA because of its pro-Palestinian position in the war. At the same time, a number of progressive lawmakers — including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York as well as Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont — pushed the EPA to release the funds, which they believed would disappear if kept in limbo.

Now, CJA has scrapped its plan to award grants to local organizations, and has pinned the blame on the Biden Administration. 

“Their legacy is now one of broken promises to frontline communities,” CJA said in a statement.  By slow-walking the initial grant, according to the statement, Biden’s EPA enabled the Trump administration to scrap the program, ensuring “that those hit first and worst by the climate crisis would not have a chance to access critical climate funds that could help mitigate against the climate chaos ahead.”

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Under President Donald Trump, the phrase “environmental justice” is on par with “diversity, equity and inclusion,” as trigger words that catch the attention of budget-cutters. The $50 million is small change compared to the $20 billion climate change-related funds alreadly distributed that the EPA is now also trying to claw back. 

That far larger sum of money, however, has a better chance of being spent on reducing greenhouse gases —and nearly half of it in Black and brown communities as it was granted under the Justice40 initiative — because the Biden Administration has already disbursed funds. 

As a result, the EPA under Trump will likely face extensive legal challenges if it tries to take back $20 billion that is already out the door.

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