EPA Releases FY2011 Grant Guidelines
EPA has released the grant guidelines for Assessment, Cleanup, and Revolving Loan Fund grants for FY 2011. The FY2011 guidelines are similar to last year's, yet a few changes are noted below:
- Applicants may submit proposals electronically via www.grants.gov.
- 20 page limit for all attachments
- Under the assessment grant guidelines, incorporation of area-wide planning: "Grant funds may be used for conducting area-wide planning activities within a specific brownfields-impacted area." (Please note that under the FY2012 competitions, applicants who have completed area-wide plans may receive additional consideration under the evaluation factors).
- Clarified eligibility of hazardous substances funding: " Sites eligible for hazardous substance funding are those sites with presence or potential presence of hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants, sites that are contaminated with controlled substances, or that are mine-scarred lands".
- Under the cleanup grant guidelines, the Environmental Assessment Required Threshold Criteria requires that a phase II environmental assessment must be completed (a phase I assessment under this threshold criteria has been deleted).
- Under the Revolving Loan Fund guidelines, there will now be up to a 50/50 loan/subgrant split: "An RLF grant recipient must use at least 50 percent of the awarded funds to capitalize and implement a revolving loan fund. An RLF grant recipient may use no more than 50 percent of the awarded funds for subgrants and may not subgrant to itself."