Texas Southern’s Bullard Center Receives $50 Million Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency

In December 2023, The Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University (TSU) received a $50 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The grant comes from the EPA's Environmental Justice Thriving Communities (EJ TCGM) Grantmaking program. 

In collaboration with the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Bullard Center and the other grantmakers will award subgrants to small, community-based organizations engaged in environmental projects. These projects range from local clean ups, local emergency preparedness and disaster resiliency programs to fence line air quality and asthma related projects, among other activities.

Dr. Robert Bullard, Distinguished Professor, Founder and Center Director is proud that TSU will serve as a Regional Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaker. 

In a comment on the program, he shared “Our plan includes streamlining grant application and submission procedures, providing resources and technical assistance, improving the efficiency of the awards process, building in a more diverse pool of reviewers, and adopting a transparent tracking and reporting system, with the goal of ensuring communities that have long faced underinvestment can access the benefits of the IRA.” 

The IRA is the largest investment in clean energy and climate action in America’s history. 

Vice President Kamala Harris explains that the Biden-Harris administration has made equity central to the IRA. She explained, "For too long, low-income communities, immigrant communities, Native communities, and communities of color have endured disproportionate levels of air, water, and soil pollution." The allocations of funds through the Grantmaker program will allow for organizations that need the money most to be served.

The Bullard Center has a history of focusing its resources on Black communities across 19 states and the District of Columbia, where two-thirds of Black Americans live and where over 82 percent of 105 HBCUs are located. 

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