The Center for Community Energy and Environmental Justice (CCEEJ), one of 16 Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers in the United States, was well aware that President Trump’s executive orders froze up to $3 trillion in federal funds. How could they not be, when the freeze included grants and loans for programs and projects combatting the impacts of global warming in economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color? Still, they thought their existing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) award was safe.
“Maybe that was naïve, but we believed our congressionally allocated resources to be secure,” says Rebecca Lewison, PhD, biology professor at San Diego State University, who serves as CCEEJ’s Executive Director. So “it was business as usual” in early 2025 as CCEEJ continued their work assisting community clients with grant applications, holding grant-writing trainings, developing programming on extreme heat, and more.
Then wham, EPA delivered a knockout blow on February 21, when they terminated CCEEJ’s award.
“The [EPA] letter stated that the award ‘no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities’ because of the focus on environmental justice which ‘is not in the interest of the United States,’” Lewison wrote in a letter to CCEEJ partners on March 4.
CCEEJ couldn’t disagree more.
“We spent two and a half years creating a thriving center that was making an impact for [our] communities,” says Lewison.
Tell Congress: Freezing Federal Funding Hurts Children
Technical assistance strengthens capacity in impacted communities
In 2023, EPA and the Department of Energy awarded CCEEJ and its partners $10 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds to serve historically excluded communities in California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawai’i, Guam, and American Samoa through October 2028. SDSU also committed $100,000 to support the initial launch of the center.
With the federal funding, CCEEJ could offer a lot of guidance to local communities, including how to conduct environmental assessments and analyses, how to clean up polluted areas and otherwise improve environmental quality, how to interpret energy policy and law, and how to navigate government systems and grant opportunities to gain access to needed resources. They even created a detailed online CCEEJ Community Hub.
“This was a ‘teaching people how to fish’ approach. No handouts, no quick fixes,” Lewison explains. “It was giving community orgs, municipalities, faith-based groups, and Tribal governments the tools and skills they needed to make their communities safer, cleaner, economically vibrant, and healthy.”
And “learn to fish” they did: since 2023, 250-plus participants have completed grant-writing courses; submitted more than $6 million in grant applications; held community conversations and webinars on extreme heat, land reuse, recycling, and sustainable energy futures; and gained direct access to experts in resource management, brownfields, energy assessments, and more.
With this momentum, CCEEJ had a “clear path forward” and ideas for what they wanted to do with the remaining funding through 2028, including “strengthening connections among communities working toward similar goals,” says Lewison. Instead, they are now scrambling to secure alternative sources of cash while also disputing the termination of their federal funds.
Federal judge weighs in but uncertainty remains
Legal challenges to Trump’s executive orders could help restart CCEEJ’s federal funding. On February 21, the U.S. District Court of Maryland blocked the Trump Administration from enforcing a majority of two January 2025 executive orders that seek to eliminate initiatives aimed at addressing systemic racism in government agencies, educational institutions, and the private sector.
Under the court’s preliminary injunction, the provision that all executive agencies terminate equity-related grants or contracts is no longer enforceable because it violates freedom of speech and due process rights under the First and Fifth Amendments. With an appeal likely, however, uncertainty remains about whether federal funds will start to flow again to CCEEJ and the 15 other Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers.
How to support Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers
“There shouldn’t be anything partisan about helping local governments, faith-based organizations, or community groups,” Lewison says. “Technical assistance centers, like CCEEJ, represent what really makes America great: a willingness to work together toward a common goal that benefits all.”
Without continued federal funding, Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers across the nation are significantly limited in helping historically impacted communities with guidance and access to resources for needed remedies.
Communities can support technical assistance centers like CCEEJ by contacting their elected officials and demanding the release of congressionally mandated funding. The IRA was unprecedented in jumpstarting significant local and state initiatives to support clean air, cleaner energy, and zero-emission transportation projects. We all need continued federal funding to ensure this critical work continues—for the health of our families.