$50 Million for Environmental Justice in New England: Gone.
July 22, 2025
by Dwaign Tyndal
The federal government just pulled $50 million in funding for environmental justice work in New England. Congress authorized this money in 2022, and my organization, Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE), fought to bring it to New England.
Many organizations throughout the region had already submitted proposals, and were preparing to use this funding to counter historical disinvestment in their communities—cleaning up environmental hazards, growing climate resiliency and energy justice, and building livable and healthy communities.
Instead, it seems like none of that money will show up.
Right-of-center political leaders have been undermining the legal tools we use to fight for clean air and water for the Black, Brown, immigrant, and low-income people who suffer from the worst air. With this latest move, they’re also hoping to defund our movement and our organizations.
$50 million matters a lot. Losing this money will make it harder for communities to hire and train staff, to install air and water monitoring, to organize events, to file lawsuits, and so much more.
This is a big loss, but here’s how we’ll respond:
No amount of crackdown, auditing, or blacklisting can undo the real source of our movement’s power: the people in our community know that we’re not getting justice. Our people know what it’s like to be ignored, defunded, and even targeted by the state — and we know how to respond, organize, and push for justice. You can try to defund our organizations, but you can’t make our people blind to injustice.
When we fight back, we can win.
We won’t forget that Black Americans get asthma 44% more frequently than white Americans. We won’t forget that life expectancy drops by 23 years between Back Bay and Roxbury. That extreme heat in Boston injures and kills people disproportionately in low-income neighborhoods.
With that said, $50 million matters a lot in our fight to correct these injustices. Losing this money will make it harder for communities to hire and train staff, to install air and water monitoring, to organize events, to file lawsuits, and so much more.
ACE calls on the federal government to immediately reverse the suspension of grants under the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program.
Today, tomorrow, and in 10 years, you can be sure that we’ll be fighting hard to keep organizing residents and building power for environmental justice. I’m as fired up as ever. But this is a devastating reversal — and that means more people will suffer from environmental injustice like extreme heat, polluted air, and climate-driven flooding and wildfires.
