Types of Funding
EPA’s Brownfields Program provides competitive funding for brownfield projects:
The program also provides non-competitive funding:
- To State and Tribal Response Programs.
- For recapitalization of existing revolving loan funds.
Assessment Grants
Assessment Grants provide funding for brownfield inventories, planning, environmental assessments and community outreach.
Community-wide Assessment Grants
- Appropriate for communities that are beginning to address their brownfield challenges, as well as for communities that have ongoing efforts to bring sites into productive reuse.
- Applicants may request up to $500,000 to assess sites contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants or petroleum.
- Performance period is up to 4 years.
Assessment Coalition Grants
- Designed for one “lead” entity to partner with two to four entities that do not have the capacity to apply for and manage their own EPA cooperative agreement and otherwise would not have access to Brownfields Grant resources.
- EPA strongly encourages coalitions to include eligible community-based nonprofit organizations as non-lead members to help promote strong local engagement and to ensure that the community’s concerns and vision for revitalization are incorporated into the project.
- The lead entity of the coalition must be one of the following:
- State
- County government
- Federally recognized Indian tribe other than in Alaska
- Alaska Native Regional Corporation
- Alaska Native Village Corporation
- Metlakatla Indian Community
- Regional council established under a governmental authority (e.g., regional planning commissions)
- Group of general purpose units of local government established under federal, state or local law (e.g., councils of governments)
- Must function as a single legal entity with the authority to enter into binding agreements with the Federal Government.
- Applicants may request up to $1,200,000 to assess sites contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants or petroleum.
- Performance period is up to 4 years.
Community-wide Assessment Grants for States and Tribes
- Only available to states, Federally recognized Tribal Nations and eligible native corporations in Alaska to address brownfield sites in their jurisdiction.
- Applicants may request up to $2,000,000 to assess sites contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants or petroleum.
- Awards are funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Therefore, activities carried out at each approved, eligible site may exceed $200,000 per grant.
- Performance period is up to 5 years.
Cleanup Grants
Cleanup Grants provide funding to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites owned by the applicant.
- Performance period is up to 4 years.
- Sites may not receive this funding more than once.
- Applicants may request up to $500,000, up to $2 million or up to $4 million to address one or more brownfield sites contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants or petroleum.
- Applicants may submit only one Cleanup Grant application each competition cycle.
Statutory Cleanup Cost Share Requirement
- Grant recipients may be required to provide a 20 percent match in the form of a contribution of money, labor, materials or services for eligible activities. (Note: EPA has waived cost share requirements for ARC Grants in FY25 per the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.)
Multipurpose Grants
Multipurpose Grants are appropriate for communities that have identified through community engagement efforts a discrete area (such as a neighborhood, a number of neighboring towns, a district, a corridor, a shared planning area or a census tract) with one or more brownfield sites.
- Target area may not include communities in distinctly different geographic areas.
- Applicants must own the sites where cleanup activities would take place.
- Applicants can apply for up to $1,000,000 and should demonstrate how grant funds will result in at least one of the following:
- Phase II environmental site assessment
- Site cleanup
- Overall revitalization that includes a feasible reuse plan for one site
- Eligibility determinations for site-specific assessment and cleanup activities will be made after award and throughout the project period.
- Grant recipients may be required to provide a $40,000 match in the form of a contribution of money, labor, materials or services for eligible costs. (Note: EPA has waived cost share requirements for MAC Grants in FY24 per the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.)
- Performance period is up to 5 years.
Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Grants
Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Grants provide funding for a grant recipient to capitalize a revolving loan fund and to provide loans and subgrants to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites. Through these grants, EPA strengthens the marketplace and encourages stakeholders to leverage resources to clean up and redevelop brownfields. When loans are repaid, the loan amount is returned to the fund and re-lent to other borrowers, providing an ongoing source of capital within a community.
Job Training Grants
Job Training Grants provide environmental training for residents impacted by brownfield sites in their communities.
- Allows nonprofits, local governments and other organizations to recruit, train and place unemployed and underemployed residents of areas affected by the presence of brownfield sites.
- Graduates develop the skills needed to secure full-time, sustainable employment in various aspects of hazardous and solid waste management and within the larger environmental field, including sustainable cleanup and reuse and chemical safety.
Technical Assistance
EPA provides funding to organizations to provide training and technical assistance to communities to help address their brownfield challenges.
State and Tribal Response Program Funding
EPA’s Section 128(a) State and Tribal Response Program empowers states, Tribal Nations, communities and other stakeholders to build strong partnerships and local capacity to prevent, assess, safely clean up and sustainably reuse brownfields.