Climate group that called for ‘free Palestine’ stripped of federal funding

A grassroots environmental alliance that called for a “free Palestine” has lost the more than $50 million it was supposed to receive under the Biden administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) became the target of conservative attacks after advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza, and a group of of federal workers wrote an open letter last year signaling that the CJA had been singled out as a result. The CJA was charged with distributing around $50 million in subgrants for locally led environmental projects as one of 11 “grantmakers” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) named in 2023.

This week, CJA announced that it would sunset its grantmaking program after not receiving the funds. Trump’s appointee to lead the EPA posted on X on Thursday that he cancelled the grant.

The cancelled program “would have channeled resources into projects that not only protect public health and safety but also create sustainable economic opportunities for jobs,” CJA executive director KD Chavez said in an emailed statement. “This program would have clearly benefited taxpayers and working-class families.”

The EPA’s grantmaking program was supposed to make it easier for funding to reach communities living with the most pollution

The EPA’s grantmaking program was supposed to make it easier for funding to reach communities living with the most pollution, which are often communities of color in the United States. The CJA includes around 100 grassroots organizations across the US including the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program and the Indigenous Environmental Network.

CJA was chosen to distribute subgrants to EPA regions 8–10, which includes most of the Western US. It was also the national grantmaker responsible for outreach to tribal communities. The CJA told The Verge last year that it had already spent $1.6 million from its own operational budget to get ready to start accepting applications for subgrants.

The Biden administration tried to release a majority of the funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) before Donald Trump, who said on the campaign trail that he would rescind unspent funds, stepped into office. The EPA under Joe Biden ultimately sent funding to every other EPA grantmaker in the program except for the CJA.

“The Biden Administration and the EPA did not heed the call of communities and their legacy is now one of broken promises to frontline communities,” CJA said in a statement this week.

Now, the Trump administration is working to dismantle programs that deal with climate change or the disproportionate health burdens many communities of color face from pollution. It placed around 170 employees in the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice on administrative leave. It’s also trying to block other pots of Biden-era climate and clean energy funding, including $20 billion for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund created by the IRA.