Rep. Matt Salmon has introduced the thirteenth and final bill in his 2016 Shrink our Spending Initiative, which would end the EPA’s “Environmental Justice” grants. The Environmental Justice Small Grants program was created by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1994 to address “environmental justice” issues in communities around the country.
Eliminating funding for the Environmental Justice Small Grant program in the EPA would save $12 million over 10 years, according to Salmon.
Since 1994, the mission of the program has grown to fund projects that are solely local in nature, such as neighborhood litter cleanups, urban gardening, composting, and the effects of urban sprawl and automobile dependence, totaling more than $24 million.
In 2014, Rep. Salmon began a program to identify and cut wasteful spending government-wide, because he knew every federal department, office, and agency has wasteful spending within their budgets. The program was called the “Shrink Our Spending” Initiative and aimed at finding $ 1.5 billion in wasteful spending. In 2015, the initiative identified and cut over $3 billion in government waste.
“I’m proposing we cut a grant program designed by environmental extremists that primarily serves as a pet slush fund for state and local environmental lobby projects—things that should not only be left to state and local governments, but also to citizens concerned for their neighborhoods. Litter cleanups and gardens are not an area requiring federal dollars borrowed on the backs of future generations of Americans. This has to stop,” stated Salmon.