EPA Announces Cherokee Nation to Receive $69,770 for Air Monitoring Projects

 EPA News Release:

EPA Announces Cherokee Nation to Receive $69,770 for Air Monitoring Projects

Largest investment for community air monitoring in EPA history funded by President Biden’s Climate and Economic Plans

DALLAS, TEXAS (November 3rd, 2022) –The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the Oklahoma agency Cherokee Nation will receive $69,770 from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan to enhance air quality monitoring in marginalized communities. The project is focused on communities that are underserved, historically marginalized, and overburdened by pollution, supporting President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative.

“I’ve traveled across the country and visited communities who’ve suffered from unhealthy, polluted air for far too long. I pledged to change that by prioritizing underserved communities and ensuring they have the resources they need to confront longstanding pollution challenges,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “The air monitoring projects we are announcing today, which include the first EPA grants funded by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, will ensure dozens of overburdened communities have the tools they need to better understand air quality challenges in their neighborhoods and will help protect people from the dangers posed by air pollution.”

“EPA has prioritized cutting harmful pollution in communities and this announcement delivers on that promise,” said Regional Administrator Dr. Earthea Nance. “We are pleased to award these grants to the state, local, tribal agencies and community-based groups to monitor air pollution in their areas. “This funding will allow for vulnerable communities to have better data on toxic pollutants and allows for development on community led strategies that achieve healthy air quality.”

The Cherokee Nation will receive $69,770 to perform monitoring with sensors in the vicinity of the Pryor air monitoring site. This action addresses a potential concern with elevated air pollution levels emitted from the nearby MidAmerica Industrial Park. The sensor data will be compared against existing monitors in operation, and then can be set up in any community as needed or used for outreach in local schools as part of STEM curricula.

The air pollution monitoring projects are made possible by more than $30 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds, which supplemented $20 million from the American Rescue Plan and enabled EPA to support 77 additional projects, more than twice the number of projects initially proposed by community-based nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, and Tribal governments. More than $4 million will be awarded to communities visited by EPA Administrator Michael Regan during his first Journey to Justice tour.

These grant selections further the goals of President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative and Executive Order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, which directed that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to overburdened communities that face disproportionately high and adverse health and environmental impacts.  By enhancing air monitoring and encouraging partnerships with communities, EPA is investing in efforts to better protect people’s health, particularly those in underserved communities.

The amount of the anticipated grant funding ranges from $57,000 to $500,000, which will enhance air monitoring in communities and establish important partnerships to address air quality concerns.  More than half of the selected applications are from community and nonprofit organizations. Tribes are receiving 12 percent of the total funding for this competition. EPA will start the process to award the funding by the end of 2022, once the grant applicants have met all legal and administrative requirements. The grantees will have three years to spend the funds from the time EPA awards the grants.

The announcement today delivers on Administrator Regan’s commitment to action following his ongoing Journey to Justice tour. Following the first leg of the tour through Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas in November 2021, EPA encouraged communities to apply for the grants. Today’s selectees include eight projects in communities from the tour, totaling nearly $4 million from this grant program. These awards to communities from Journey to Justice and additional awards to underserved and overburdened communities reflect the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to deliver environmental justice and the whole-of-government approach to addressing these issues in communities that are historically marginalized.

See the list of applications selected for award.  

Background

In spring 2021, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan, providing EPA with a one-time supplemental appropriation of $100 million to address health outcome disparities from pollution and the COVID-19 pandemic. Half of that $100 million, was dedicated to air quality monitoring. EPA Regions began awarding nearly $22.5 million from this appropriation in 2022 as direct awards to state, tribal, and local air agencies for continuous monitoring of fine particle and other common pollutants.  In addition, EPA Regions are in the process of procuring monitoring equipment using $5 million in American Rescue Plan funding to advance the EPA Regional Offices’ mobile air monitoring capacity and establish air sensor loan programs. These investments will improve EPA's ability to support communities that need short-term monitoring and air quality information. 

In July 2021, EPA announced the $20 million American Rescue Plan Enhanced Air Quality Monitoring for Communities Grant Competition. The goal of this competition was to improve air quality monitoring in and near underserved communities across the United States, support community efforts to monitor their own air quality, and promote air quality monitoring partnerships between communities and tribal, state, and local governments.  EPA received more than 200 applications in response to the competition.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provides funding to EPA to deploy, integrate, support, and maintain fenceline air monitoring, screening air monitoring, national air toxics trend stations, and other air toxics and community monitoring. Specifically, the Inflation Reduction Act provides funding for grants and other activities under section 103 and section 105 of the Clean Air Act. EPA is using approximately $32.3 million of this funding to select 77 high-scoring community monitoring applications.

Connect with the Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 on Facebook, Twitter, or visit our homepage.