The $1.5 million in Brownfields Grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to pay for Missouri environmental workers is part of President Joe Biden's administration's drive to clean up the nation's polluted areas, EPA deputy administrator Janet McCabe said in a news release.
In its Dec. 14 news release, the EPA announced the grants, funded through last year's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to pay for environmental job training programs in Missouri.
"President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is supercharging EPA's Brownfields program, which is transforming blighted sites, protecting public health and creating economic opportunities in more overburdened communities than ever before," McCabe said in the news release.
"The investments announced today will not only support the cleanup of some of our nation's most polluted areas but they will also equip a new generation of workers to take on the significant environmental challenges that plague overburdened neighborhoods, and jump-start sustainable, long-term careers in the communities that need these jobs the most," she said.
The grants in Missouri, through EPA's Brownfields Jobs Training Program, are intended to recruit, train and place workers into jobs for community revitalization and cleanup projects, according to the news release.
Support from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law means that total funding for the brownfields program has more than tripled for fiscal 2023, "ensuring stronger environmental benefits and more economic opportunities in overburdened and underserved areas," the news release said.
"With these brownfields job training grants, three Missouri organizations plan to train a total of 260 students and place over 170 deserving individuals in environmental jobs," said EPA Region 7 Administrator Meg McCollister in the news release. "Missourians across the state will feel the economic and community benefits of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through the opportunities this funding will create."
The grants' announcement came a few months after McCabe's visit to the Hardesty Federal Complex, a brownfields site in Kansas City, Missouri, to announce $5.75 million from EPA to help remediate the World War II-era warehouse complex and pay for other projects. During that visit late last summer, McCabe met with U.S. House Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) and other officials.
"I proudly supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to ensure that critical federal investments were made right here in communities throughout Kansas City, and that's exactly what we are seeing happen today," Cleaver said in a news release. "I was thrilled to join EPA deputy administrator McCabe and regional administrator McCollister to highlight the funding for necessary work to address Kansas City’s brownfields and revitalize communities."
