Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grants Program

Section 104(k)(5)(A)(iii) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to publish guidance to assist applicants in preparing proposals/applications for grants to provide environmental training to facilitate the management, assessment, and cleanup of sites contaminated by solid and hazardous waste.

EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) provides funds to empower States, communities, Tribes and nonprofits to prevent, inventory, assess, clean up and reuse sites where real or perceived contamination exists and does so by working through OSWER's Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization (OBLR); Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery; Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation; Office of Underground Storage Tanks; Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office; Center for Program Analysis; the Innovations, Partnerships, and Communication Office; and Office of Emergency Management.

In 2010, OBLR undertook an effort to more closely collaborate on workforce development and job training with other programs within OSWER to develop a job training cooperative agreement opportunity that includes expanded training in other environmental media outside the traditional scope of just brownfields.

As a result of this collaboration, the former "Brownfields Job Training Grants Program" was expanded and will now be referred to as the "Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT) Grants Program."

Through a notice in the September 1, 2010 FEDERAL REGISTER, EPA is soliciting comments on the new FY 2011 Application Guidelines proposed for the Program.

Comments will be accepted through September 13, 2010. EPA expects to release a Request for Applications (RFA) based on these revised application guidelines in October 2010 with an anticipated deadline for submission of applications in January 2011.

The draft application guidelines/RFA can be downloaded at http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/. If you do not have Internet access and require hard copies of the draft guidelines, please contact Joseph Bruss at (202) 566-2772. Please send any comments to Joseph Bruss no later than September 13, 2010.