BlueGreen Alliance Helps State and Community Leaders Navigate Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Process
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As community leaders and elected officials work to unlock billions in federal funding to reduce climate pollution, the BlueGreen Alliance has released a new user guide. Job Quality and Community Benefits in the Climate Pollution Reduction Implementation Grants: A User Guide breaks down the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), offering information on how to meet application criteria and how to create high-quality jobs, engage communities, and develop community benefits.
“President Biden and Democrats in Congress have made historic amounts of federal funding available to help clean up our air and water, but navigating this new funding can be overwhelming for those it’s meant to benefit,” said BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director Jason Walsh. “It is our hope that this new user guide will help states and municipalities deliver the benefits of new federal funding to their communities.”
The new user guide helps community leaders draft implementation plans that will meet the four goals of the EPA program and create good jobs in their communities:
- Implement ambitious measures that will achieve significant emissions reductions by 2030 and beyond;
- Pursue measures that will achieve substantial community benefits particularly in low-income and disadvantaged communities;
- Complement other funding sources to maximize these emissions reductions and community benefits; and
- Pursue innovative policies and programs that are replicable and can be “scaled up” across multiple jurisdictions.
The guide also walks readers through how to engage with stakeholders to ensure that their proposals will deliver real benefits to workers and communities. To do this, the user guide recommends engaging with community groups, labor unions, and high-road workforce development partners through meetings with individual stakeholders, community meetings, public consultations, workshops, and other organized ways to gather input, feedback, and insights from community members. The guide also highlights the breadth of projects eligible for these grants, including those involving public buildings and the industrial sector.
To bring it all together, the user guide also includes an example of a project proposal that shows how applicants can address key application criteria for grant funding.