FY 23 Guidelines for Brownfield Assessment Grants (Community-Wide Assessment Grants for States and Tribes) | EPA I OLEM OBLR 22 06

Opportunity Information: Apply for EPA I OLEM OBLR 22 06

The FY 23 Guidelines for Brownfield Assessment Grants (Community-Wide Assessment Grants for States and Tribes) is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discretionary funding opportunity designed to help states and tribal nations identify, inventory, and assess brownfield sites so they can be safely put back into productive use. Brownfields are typically properties where redevelopment or reuse is complicated by actual or perceived contamination. This grant category focuses on assessment work, which is often the critical first step that allows communities to understand environmental conditions, manage risk, plan reuse, and position sites for cleanup funding and private or public redevelopment.

The legal basis for the program comes from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), as amended by the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2002. Those amendments added CERCLA Section 104(k), which created federal financial assistance authorities specifically aimed at brownfields revitalization, including assessment grants, cleanup grants, and revolving loan fund support. The opportunity also reflects later statutory updates under the Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development (BUILD) Act of 2018, which reauthorized the EPA Brownfields Program and made additional changes affecting EPA grant authorities as well as ownership and liability provisions. For FY 23, the funding is supported through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which increased federal investment in infrastructure-related priorities, including environmental cleanup and community revitalization.

In practical terms, this opportunity provides Community-wide Assessment Grants tailored to states and tribes. Community-wide assessment funding is generally intended to let an eligible governmental entity look across multiple sites within its jurisdiction rather than limiting funding to a single, named property. That approach supports broader planning and prioritization, such as building an inventory of candidate sites, selecting high-impact locations for early assessment, and preparing a pipeline of redevelopment-ready properties. EPA characterizes its Brownfields Program as a way to empower states, tribal nations, communities, and nonprofits to prevent, inventory, assess, clean up, and reuse brownfield sites, and this specific guidance is meant to help state and tribal applicants understand how to apply for the community-wide assessment portion of that effort.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is issued by the Environmental Protection Agency under Funding Opportunity Number EPA I OLEM OBLR 22 06, with awards made as cooperative agreements. A cooperative agreement typically means EPA expects to have substantial involvement during the project period, such as participating in workplan discussions, providing technical direction, reviewing deliverables, or coordinating on reporting and compliance. The program is listed under CFDA (now commonly referenced as Assistance Listing) 66.818, which is associated with EPA Brownfields-related assistance.

The funding activity category is Environment and is explicitly tied to IIJA investments. The stated award ceiling is $35,000,000, with an expectation of 17 awards, indicating a competitive national process where EPA anticipates making a limited number of relatively large awards or a mix of awards that collectively fit within that ceiling figure. The posting shows a creation date of September 12, 2022, and an original closing date of November 22, 2022, which situates this as a FY 2023 competition cycle with a defined application window.

Eligibility is summarized in the posting as "Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification)," but the title and program framing make clear the target applicants are states and tribes seeking community-wide assessment funding. The core intent is to provide resources that can be used to conduct or manage brownfield site assessments and related pre-cleanup activities that unlock cleanup and redevelopment. In effect, EPA is investing in the front-end technical work that reduces uncertainty, clarifies contamination concerns, supports risk-informed decision-making, and helps communities move sites from stalled or underused conditions toward cleanup and reuse.

Overall, this grant opportunity sits at the intersection of environmental protection and economic and community development. By funding assessment activities under CERCLA authority, and leveraging expanded IIJA resources, EPA is aiming to accelerate the pipeline from identification of potential brownfields to actionable plans for cleanup and reinvestment, with states and tribal nations positioned as key leaders in organizing community-wide inventories and assessment strategies.

• The Environmental Protection Agency in the environment, infrastructure investment and jobs act (iija) sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY 23 Guidelines for Brownfield Assessment Grants (Community-Wide Assessment Grants for States and Tribes)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 66.818.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 12, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Nov 22, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $35,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 17 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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