Biden EPA Using Grants As A Blank Check For Politically Safe Patronage Projects
As Long Delayed And Fatally Flawed EJ Rules Are About To Be Adopted, The Murphy DEP Is Using Grant Funds To Dampen And Co-Opt Criticism
Lots Of Slogans – Lack Of Enforceable Technical Standards
My email inbox is overwhelmed today by press releases from US EPA and NJ DEP announcing a firehose of billions of government funding to support various “safe” climate and environmental justice projects.
Let’s first examine the US EPA press release and then the NJ DEP release. There are similarities (e.g. funding for politically safe, non-regulatory projects that can be used to co-opt recipients, etc) and contrasts (i.e. DEP is distancing Gov. Murphy from the “historic” EJ policy and funding, while EPA is touting Biden).
In their press release, US EPA overtly politicizes the funding, and is sure to prominently feature and tout the “Biden” administration for the credit.
Here is US EPA’s press release headline:
… President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act includes historic funding to combat climate change while creating good-paying jobs and advancing environmental justice. Today’s announcement builds on $550 million announced last week for EPA’s new Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking program and $100 million announced earlier this year for environmental justice grants to support underserved and overburdened communities. Additionally, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will award nearly $27 billion to leverage private capital for clean energy and clean air investments across the country.
The so called “Innovative Projects” that EPA will fund are the same old same old politically safe projects that are used to essentially buy the support of friendly groups and dampen and co-opt both activism and criticism.
Those political objectives of these grant programs are masked by allocating the funds to governmental bodies (who then, due to broad and vague eligible uses and in the absence of EPA performance standards and use restrictions, then re-allocate it politically, e.g. see NJ DEP below):
About the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program
The CPRG planning grants will support states, territories, Tribes, municipalities and air agencies, in the creation of comprehensive, innovative strategies for reducing pollution and ensuring that investments maximize benefits, especially for low-income and disadvantaged communities. These climate plans will include:
- Greenhouse gas emissions inventories;
- Emissions projections and reduction targets;
- Economic, health, and social benefits, including to low-income and disadvantaged communities;
- Plans to leverage other sources of federal funding including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act;
- Workforce needs to support decarbonization and a clean energy economy; and
- Future government staffing and budget needs.
These are all very soft and fuzzy eligible purposes.
Note that not one “politically safe” funding category actually requires quantitative reductions in actual pollution and/or greenhouse gas emissions.
Not one is linked to or would advance any form of EPA or State regulation of the private sector or impose requirements or compliance costs on corporate polluters. (read the EPA Guidance Documents).
Getting deep into the weeds, we must note that the EPA “Climate Pollution” Grant requirements for States are generic and financial in nature and are not linked to EPA clean air or climate regulations:
Grant recipients shall follow the framework for grants management, requirements, and reporting using the Uniform Grants Guidance (UGG) under 2 CFR Part 200 and EPA regulations under 2 CFR Part 1500. Some of the statutory provisions described in this document contain legally binding requirements. However, this document does not substitute for those provisions or regulations, nor is it a regulation itself. Thus, the document cannot impose legally binding requirements on EPA, states, or the regulated community, and it may not apply to all situations.
The EPA grant guidance does not contain performance measures! Instead, EPA allows the States to select their own: (see page 26)
10.4. Performance Measures
The applicant should develop performance measures and metrics they expect to use to track progress of the proposed activities. These measures and metrics must be described in their application. Such performance measures will help gather insights and will be the mechanism to track progress concerning successful processes and output and outcome strategies and will provide the basis for developing the Status Report deliverable. The description of the performance measures should directly relate to the project’s outputs and outcomes, including but not limited to:
Repeat:
The applicant should develop performance measures and metrics they expect to use to track progress of the proposed activities.
Are you kidding me? That’s literally a blank check.
The Environmental Justice requirements also are based exclusively on non-enforceable and financial criteria and include no technical standards or regulatory linkages to actual EPA clean air and climate programs:
The CPRG program will advance the goals of the Justice40 Initiative set forth in Executive Order 14008, which aims to deliver 40 percent of the overall benefits of relevant federal investments to disadvantaged communities. More information on Justice40 at the EPA can be found at: https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/justice40-epa.
This is a patronage program and not a serious climate program.
When we look at the NJ DEP funding, we observe that the NJ DEP grant program press release shares the EPA blank check and politically safe patronage characteristics.
But in contrast to EPA’s overt politicization, very surprisingly, in a sharp departure from almost all prior DEP press releases, the NJ DEP headline does not include Gov. Murphy:
This funding is described as exclusively a DEP project:
TRENTON – The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is seeking to partner with up to five community-based organizations to continue its award-winning Youth Inclusion Initiative to help youth in overburdened communities become part of the next generation of diverse environmental professionals, Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced today.
Why would DEP distance Governor Murphy from this EJ initiative?
DEP recently excluded Governor Murphy in this February 22 “Outside Together” EJ oriented press release and in this February 22 urban parks EJ funding press release as well
Gov. Murphy is prominently missing. The exclusion of Gov. Murphy from DEP press releases seems to be selectively applied to the controversial “historic” DEP EJ policy.
In contrast, DEP made sure to credit the Governor is almost all prior DEP press releases, most recently these examples:
I strongly suspect that this has a lot to do with the upcoming DEP adoption of the long delayed and fatally flawed DEP EJ regulations.
It seems very likely that environmental groups and EJ activists will strongly criticize DEP and the Gov. for those weak and ineffective regulations, which have been exposed as sham already due to massive loopholes.
By distancing Gov. Murphy – who touted the EJ law he signed as “historic” – from the EJ program, DEP is seeking to insulate the Gov. from this upcoming firestorm of criticism.
By announcing the grant program PRIOR to the adoption of these EJ regulations, DEP is holding out a carrot and sending a blunt and transparent message to EJ activists and organizations: play ball with us and we will fund you.
Word.
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