Biden's push for US funding justice yet to level playing field

• Biden presses forward with Justice40 initiative
• Pledges $3.3bn for communities split by infrastructure
• Smaller groups, rural areas frustrated over funding access

RICHMOND, Virginia - As her nonprofit organisation's only full-time staff member, Terra Burman barely has time to study housing and childcare needs in her rural corner of the western U.S. state of Montana - let alone fix them.

Burman, executive director of the Eastern Plains Economic Development Corporation, has tried to team up with other local groups to apply for federal money to assess the scale of such problems, but came up empty.

"We probably just don't always look as strong due to the fact that we are so rural and our impact isn't as great," she said, describing the eastern Montana area as a "rural desert" for vital community services.

Critics say groups like Burman's are disadvantaged by a federal funding system that favours more established, urban and wealthier groups - often shutting out those that need it most.

President Joe Biden wants to reverse that trend, and his administration aims to channel at least 40% of certain federal benefits in areas such as clean energy to disadvantaged communities in polluted areas - a push known as Justice40.

"Justice40 is fundamentally reshaping how the federal government ensures communities that have been left behind and have faced underinvestment are seeing the benefits of (Biden's agenda)," said Jalonne L. White-Newsome, federal chief environmental justice officer at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

The money is starting to filter down, but many community organisations have yet to benefit and some campaigners question whether the initiative will last long enough for them to see major improvements.

"There's no rhyme or reason and unified way that this money is being pushed out," said Anthony Diaz, executive director of the Newark Water Coalition advocacy group in New Jersey, adding that smaller groups remained at a disadvantage.

"If you're part of a larger organisation, (you) probably historically have been applying for these grants (for) a longer period of time, and so you automatically have a leg up," he added.

Disadvantaged Communities 

It is about three years since Biden established Justice40, which sets out to ensure grant cash reaches "disadvantaged communities that are marginalised by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution".

This month, he announced $3.3 billion in awards as part of the initiative to fund programmes in communities historically divided by infrastructure such as highways, many of which have a largely Black population.

For 2023, about 97% of the projects awarded funding through the "Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods" programme are in disadvantaged communities.

Justice40 now covers more than 500 programmes across more than a dozen federal agencies – from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Department of Homeland Security.

Advocates say the new focus on tackling funding inequality is transformative, but say it is too early to draw definitive conclusions about whether it is levelling the playing field.

"This is a new policy, so you can imagine - it's slow, people are trying to get their head around something that they're not used to thinking about," said Peggy Shepard, executive director of the advocacy group WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

Shepard also co-chairs the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council - a body established by Biden that advises the administration on Justice40 and other related issues - though she said she was not speaking in her capacity in that role.

To better equip small and short-staffed organisations like Burman's bid for grant cash, the federal government is also expanding technical assistance programmes.

The administration is "working aggressively" to help disadvantaged communities "navigate the federal grant process, build capacity where they live" and access investments flowing through Justice40 programmes, White-Newsome said.

As part of that effort, Blacks In Green, a Chicago-based nonprofit, won a $10 million grant from the EPA to help train other frontline groups on how to submit funding bids.

"We (now) know from practical experience how to help others get across that finish line," said Naomi Davis, the group's founder and CEO.

Rural impact

To identify "disadvantaged" areas, for example parts of the region that Burman's group covers in Montana, the Biden administration developed a screening tool that accounts for characteristics such as housing cost and proximity to hazardous waste sites among U.S. Census tracts.

But there are vulnerabilities unique to rural areas that the tool might not capture – for example, big fluctuations in revenue from mining or energy production due to global price changes, said Kristin Smith with Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research group based in Montana.

"(That) creates ... a level of economic vulnerability we don't often talk about and it's not really captured in the climate and economic justice screening tool," Smith said.

The tool will be updated and improved over time, according to the administration.

At the same time, expanded outreach work should give greater confidence to those who have historically been shut out of federal funding, said Harold Mitchell, another member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

"Justice40 is not the silver bullet – it is a springboard for us to do what we should have been doing all along - coalition-building, working with different sectors - be it public-private (partnerships), community groups," he said.

"It's just how we should do business."

(Reporting by David Sherfinski; Editing by Helen Popper)