The Ecology Action Center has led multiple successful grant proposals in the past few years, each with one or more community partners. Most of these grant projects are focused on environmental justice or climate related issues. In every case, these are larger scale projects that would not be possible with local funding alone.
On January 20, 2025 the new administration in Washington, DC issued an Executive Order suspending disbursements for Inflation Reduction Act funds for “DEI” or “green new deal” projects. No formal definition of these terms was given, resulting in a lot of confusion. EAC’s projects are not related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives but rather environmental justice. And to our knowledge, no funding anywhere is going towards “green new deal” projects, as the Green New Deal never was passed by Congress.
On January 27, 2025, a leaked memo from the United States Office of Management and Budget indicated that all federal grants would be frozen within 24 hours. A subsequent memo attempted to clarify the targets of that freeze, followed by a rescinding of the original memo on January 28, 2025.
Since then, multiple lawsuits have been filed to attempt to pause or halt any such freeze or termination of federal grants. EAC’s two current federal grants have intermittently been frozen or suspended multiple times since January 20, creating an unstable environment to conduct these important projects. It is not possible for EAC and its project partners to move forward with unreliable access to the grant funds. Loss of any of these grants will greatly impact our community’s ability to address climate change and environmental justice issues in our area.
The EAC’s existing federal grants include the following:
BNCARE, the Bloomington Normal Community Air Research and Education project, funded by USEPA under the Community Air Quality Monitoring Program. This is our local air quality monitoring project that is gathering data on disproportionate air pollution impacts on environmental justice areas of our community. The project is already one and a half years through the three-year project period. The grant award was for a $440,485 prime award to EAC including a subaward to Illinois State University for $80,758
STATUS AS OF MARCH 26, 2025: Currently have access to grant funds
BNCRC, the Bloomington Normal Climate Responsive Community project, funded by USEPA under the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Program. This project is still ramping up, but is intended to perform an assessment of climate related risks specific to residents in environmental justice neighborhoods in our community and develop a specific environmental justice climate adaptation plan to address these risks. The grant also provides funding to significantly ramp up tree planting projects in EJ areas, a concept known as “tree equity”, essentially, prioritizing tree plantings in areas where they are most needed. This grant award was for a $498,000 prime award to EAC including four subawards, Illinois State University for $143,566, Mid Central Community Action for $15,000, United Way of McLean County for $10,000, and McLean County Health Department for $69,960.
STATUS AS OF MARCH 26, 2025: no access to grant funds. Online account states “suspended Per OC Email dated 3/7/2025″. No email was received March 7 or anytime to communicate anything regarding this grant. Rumor is circulating that ALL grants under the Environmental Justice Cooperative Problems Solving Program will be terminated by Friday, March 28, 2025.
The EAC’s existing state grants include the following:
The McCESP, the McLean County Community Energy Strategic Plan, funded through Illinois EPA EECBG (Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant) program, with federal funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. This grant will allow EAC to complete a third greenhouse gas inventory and finally complete our long delayed Community Energy Strategic Plan aka Climate Action Plan. This EAC authored grant is for a $200,000 prime award to McLean County and a $100,000 subaward to the EAC.
STATUS AS OF MARCH 26, 2025: No known impact at this time
Other potentially impacted federal grants includes the following:
The Feasibility Study of Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) Production from Organic Wastes for Local Transportation in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois project was notified in early January 2025 by the US Department of Energy that it had been selected for a grant award. However, since January 20, 2025, communication has been extremely limited. Inquiries to the US DOE result in short, non-informative responses. This grant is for a $513,000 prime award to the EAC with subawardees including ISU ($160,017) , BNWRD ($11,017), Quasar Energy ($250,043), and Connect Transit.
STATUS AS OF MARCH 26, 2025: Unknown. Seems unlikely to be funded at this point.