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Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies

The Subcommittee will only consider Community Project Funding requests in the following accounts:

Department of the Interior

Land Acquisition Through the Land and Water Conservation Fund

Federal acquisition of lands and water and interests therein must be for the purpose of land and habitat conservation and the encouragement of outdoor recreation, as established by the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act of 1965. Land acquisition project requests funded from the LWCF should be requested through the agency that would manage the land being acquired. The four land management agencies are: within the Department of the Interior, (1) the Bureau of Land Management, (2) the Fish and Wildlife Service, (3) the National Park Service; and within the Department of Agriculture, (4) the Forest Service.

Third party organizations (i.e. The Nature Conservancy, Trust for Public Land, etc.) frequently participate in the federal acquisition process by coordinating the negotiation and purchase of tracts. If the project you are requesting involves a third-party organization, please be mindful that funding for a land acquisition project goes to the agency that will manage the land.

The Great American Outdoors Act of (Public Law 116-152) and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Public Law 116-260) mandates that the president submit, along with the upcoming fiscal year's budget request, proposed and supplemental project lists. The Committee will look favorably upon requests for projects that appear in either of these lists. When submitting your request, please indicate whether the project is on these lists.

Environmental Protection Agency

State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STAG)

The vast majority of requests made to the Interior Subcommittee are for STAG infrastructure grants. These grants fund local wastewater and drinking water infrastructure projects. This includes construction of and modifications to municipal sewage treatment plants and drinking water treatment plants. Similar to past practice, the Committee will be limiting STAG infrastructure grants only to projects that are publicly-owned or owned by a non-profit entity and that are otherwise eligible for the funding from that state's Clean Water or Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRF) loan programs. Privately-owned projects are NOT eligible for infrastructure grants, even if they are otherwise eligible for assistance under a SRF program. The Committee will look favorably upon requests for projects that are listed on a state's most recent Intended Use Plan.

There is a minimum 20% cost share requirement for any portion of a project funded through a STAG infrastructure grant. For example, a $1 million project could receive a maximum of $800,000 from the Federal government, with the remaining $200,000 the responsibility of the grantee. In almost all cases, other federal funds cannot be used to meet this 20% cost share. Ability to fund the 20% cost share is required before EPA can award a STAG grant. Please note that only the non-federal portion of assistance provided by a SRF can be applied towards a project's matching requirement.

STAG projects have very specific eligibility requirements, and the Committee will not consider projects that do not meet those requirements.

Projects that generally ARE NOT eligible for STAG Grants:

Clean Water / Waste Water

  1. Land (except for projects described in the subsequent list under eligibility #11)
  2. Operations and maintenance costs
  3. Non‐municipal point source control
  4. Acid rain drainage correction
  5. Ambient water quality monitoring
  6. Flood Control Projects (unless the project is otherwise managing, reducing, treating, or recapturing stormwater)
  7. Privately owned sewer pipes

Drinking Water

  1. Dams or rehabilitation of dams
  2. Operations and maintenance costs
  3. Water rights (except if the water rights are owned by a system that is being purchased through consolidation as part of a capacity development strategy or if the water rights purchase is covered by EPA's DWSRF Class Deviation for Water Rights 2019)
  4. Reservoirs (except for finished water reservoirs and those reservoirs that are 8 part of the treatment process and are located on the property where the treatment facility is located)
  5. Laboratory fees for monitoring
  6. Projects needed mainly for fire protection
  7. Projects for systems that lack adequate technical, managerial, and financial capability (unless assistance will ensure compliance)
  8. Projects for systems in significant noncompliance (unless funding will ensure compliance)
  9. Projects primarily intended to serve future growth

Projects that generally ARE eligible for STAG grants:

Clean Water / Waste Water

  1. Wastewater treatment plants, including sludge handling facilities: New, upgraded (increase in treatment level) or expanded (increase in treatment capacity) facilities, including biological facilities, mechanical, a lagoon system, a land treatment system, or individual on‐site systems.
  2. Collector Sewers: Small sewers that convey wastewater from residences, commercial establishments, and industrial sites to larger interceptor sewers.
  3. Interceptor Sewers: Large sewers that convey wastewater from collector sewers directly to a wastewater treatment facility.
  4. Sewer Pipes: Rehabilitation is eligible only if pipes are publicly owned.
  5. Outfall Sewer: A sewer that conveys treated wastewater from a wastewater treatment facility to the receiving waters (i.e., a river, stream, lake, ocean, etc.).
  6. Storm Water Management: Measures to manage, reduce, treat, or recapture stormwater or subsurface drainage water (i.e. storm sewers, green infrastructure, etc.).
  7. Combined sewer overflow (CSO) control and sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) control: Combined sewers are sewers that convey both wastewater and storm water and may overflow during periods of heavy rain. The costs to correct CSO and SSO overflow problems are eligible.
  8. Infiltration/Inflow Correction: Construction activities that prevent surface water or groundwater from entering the sewer system.
  9. Water Security: These projects include installation or upgrade of physical security infrastructure such as lighting, fencing, monitoring and access control. Also, cybersecurity measures, installation of safer treatment technologies, and more secure storage of on‐site treatment.
  10. Septic Tanks: Remediation, rehabilitation, removal and replacement of failing tanks are eligible, as well as installation of new tanks where none had previously existed.
  11. Land: The leasing and fee‐simple purchase of land, including surface and subsurface easements, needed to locate eligible municipal or tribal projects, and land integral to the treatment process (e.g., land for effluent application or recharge basins), and a place to store equipment and material during POTW construction. Municipal purchase of land and/or conservation easements for source water protection are also eligible.
  12. Water Reuse: Projects involving the municipal reuse or recycling of wastewater, stormwater, or subsurface drainage water. This includes but is not limited to the purchase and installation of treatment equipment sufficient to meet reuse standards, distribution systems to support effluent reuse, recharge transmission lines, injection wells, and equipment to reuse effluent (e.g., gray water, condensate, and wastewater effluent reuse systems).
  13. Capital Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Projects: E.g., river or streambank restoration, agricultural best management practices (i.e., buffer strips, manure containment structures), wetlands restoration, etc.

Drinking Water

  1. Facilitate compliance with national primary drinking water regulations or address serious risks to public health including non-regulated contaminants (i.e. PFAS)
  2. Rehabilitate or develop water sources (excluding reservoirs, dams, dam rehabilitation and water rights) to replace contaminated sources
  3. Install or upgrade treatment facilities
  4. Install or upgrade storage facilities, including finished water reservoirs, to prevent microbiological contaminants from entering the water system
  5. Install or replace transmission and distribution pipes to prevent contamination caused by leaks or breaks in the pipe, or improve water pressure to safe levels
  6. Projects to consolidate water supplies — for example, when individual homes or other public water supplies have a water supply that is contaminated, or the system is unable to maintain compliance for financial or managerial reasons — are eligible for DWSRF assistance
  7. Land is eligible only if it is integral to a project that is needed to meet or maintain compliance and further public health protection
  8. Project planning, design and other related costs

U.S. Forest Service

State and Private Forestry

The Forest Service is an agency within the Department of Agriculture. Requests that do not fit into the described categories below are unlikely to be eligible for funding under the Forest Service.

The State and Private Forestry account provides technical and financial assistance, usually through the network of State Foresters, to improve the management, protection, and utilization of the Nation's forests. Community Projects are usually limited and include various specific urban and community forestry projects and specific forest disease or pest treatment areas. Community Project Funding requests may also include specific state fire assistance projects or specific forestry assistance projects in this account. Inclusion of projects listed on any federal or state ordinal list, or that are clearly demonstrated to meet the goals of a State Forest Act Plan, are encouraged.