Funds for climate justice flow to groups around the U.S.

Fourteen environmental justice organizations from around the United States have begun to receive money under the Justice40 initiative, a business accelerator announced Wednesday. Both groups wrangled the funding with help from the Justice40 Accelerator, created by a coalition of environmental and climate nonprofits led by The Solutions Project to help smaller community organizations navigate the federal funding process. “There’s an expectation that some communities get resources and some communities don’t,” Sekita Grant, vice president of programs at The Solutions Project, told the AP when the groups first entered the program. The Shelterwood Collective, an LGBTQ-led environmental group in Oakland, hasn’t received federal funding, Lewis said, but did get a $4.5 million grant from CalFire for a forest restoration project in nearby Sonoma County using application materials they created while participating in the accelerator. Sarah Shanley Hope, vice president of narrative strategies with The Solutions Project, said the failure to win environmental justice funding in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better bill, which could not pass the Senate late last year, was a “setback” and made the Justice40 promise “confusing.” The administration also said in May that it had requested $45 billion in discretionary climate and environmental justice spending for the fiscal year 2023 budget.