EPA is seeking to cancel almost 800 grants awarded during the Biden administration, a much higher total than previously known, according to a recent court filing.
As of last week, the agency had formally notified about 377 recipients that their grants were being ended, with similar notices set to go out by early May to approximately another 404 grantees, Daniel Coogan, deputy assistant administrator for infrastructure and extramural resources in EPA’s Office of Mission Support, said in the April 23 filing.
The total is almost twice the number detailed early last month in an EPA news release. The cancellations affect grants awarded to reduce disparities in pollution exposure under the umbrella of environmental justice as well as to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the construction sector, Coogan’s statement indicated.
The statement, which was first reported by The Washington Post, was attached to an EPA status report responding to a lawsuit brought last month in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. In the suit, the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council and other challengers contest the Trump administration’s “blanket freeze” on grants awarded with money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
