Under Trump, environmental projects in low-income places are unlikely to get funded

‘We just feel like we’re in the dark,’ one environmental nonprofit leader said.

Dozens of electric school buses in Boston. Solar panels atop a grocery store in Dorchester. And in Chelsea, community gardens, open spaces, and reflective roofs to deflect summer heat.

Those are just a few of the dozens of environmental projects planned in low-income areas and communities of color in Massachusetts that are being underwritten by the multibillion dollar climate and infrastructure bills passed during the Biden administration. As much as tens of millions of dollars in federal grants and tax credits are slated to go to the Commonwealth’s historically disadvantaged neighborhoods to build clean energy, transportation, and climate infrastructure.

However, under President-elect Donald Trump, it’s unlikely that such projects will ultimately get funded — and many worry that even those already under contract are at risk since the federal government allocates the money only after the projects are built at local expense. Trump promised to slash spending, block distribution of any unspent federal funds related to climate initiatives, hollow out tax initiatives for clean energy, and roll back environmental regulations.

Some also worry that dramatic federal funding cuts could jeopardize jobs or possibly shutter local environmental organizations.

“Not getting one grant could have a major impact,” said Roseann Bongiovanni, a longtime environmental justice advocate who is the executive director of the Chelsea-based nonprofit GreenRoots. One of the grants her organization won is to renovate an urban agriculture and community garden in Chelsea. They have an award letter from the US Department of Agriculture for $60,000, about equivalent to a full-time salary at the nonprofit. The group plans to start the work in February ahead of the growing season, but she doesn’t feel entirely confident that it will ever get the money.

“We just feel like we’re in the dark,” she said. “There’s a lot of anxiety about what this looks like for the next four years.”

President Biden directed federal agencies to ensure 40 percent of the benefits from his administration’s signature infrastructure and climate packages, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, go to what are known as environmental justice communities. The federal government defines those broadly as areas that either are low income, have historically received little investment, are highly exposed to pollution, or are particularly vulnerable to climate disasters.

Massachusetts has won more than $8.9 billion from spending packages passed under Biden, according to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. The state does not currently have an estimate of how much went to environmental justice communities.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, did not respond specifically to whether the president-elect plans to eliminate Justice40, as the Biden directive is called, saying only that he would deliver on his campaign promises. One of those promises is to block unspent federal funds from being distributed (although, whether he can actually do so through “impoundment,” an old and mostly constrained presidential power, is a big question likely to be answered in a court).

Due to the uncertainty, Boston is working to expedite signing of contracts with the federal government, said Oliver Sellers-Garcia, green new deal director for the city. Still, “it doesn’t mean that the incoming administration won’t try to use unprecedented tactics to slow [grant disbursement] down.”

“We really don’t know what to expect,” Sellers-Garcia said.

That the Biden administration even made environmental justice a major priority of its climate policy was “a wonderful relief,” said Bongiovanni, of GreenRoots. Across the country, neighborhoods that border polluting facilities — often communities of color due to the history of discriminatory housing policies — have long pushed the climate movement for such a focus.

Under Biden’s Justice40 policy, organizations were able to attract more funding for environmental projects in low-income and historically polluted communities than ever before, Bongiovanni said.

In Chelsea, which has long suffered from air pollution and lead paint exposure, GreenRoots is vying for a $14 million grant to fund open spaces along the Malden River and install white roofs to reduce heat. It would also help retrofit a senior center in Everett with an energy-efficient HVAC system and battery storage to power the building during emergencies.

At the same time, she isn’t sure what would come next. Those could be “dead in the water,” if the incoming administration successfully blocks such projects. And that threat makes it incredibly difficult for the nonprofit to plan: It pays for projects upfront and relies on the federal grants for reimbursement. What if they get stiffed?

“That could essentially shut our organization down permanently,” Bongiovanni said. “That’s a significant concern.”

In Boston, the city has already been approved for approximately $100 million in grants for transportation, clean energy, and climate adaptation projects. Many of those are planned for environmental justice communities, including $15 million for electric vehicle charging stations and $1 million to replace dozens of gas stoves with electric.

But those grants, too, work through reimbursement: The city finances the work, proves it complied with the grant, and then gets the money from the federal government.

“We really want to hope for the best that a signed contract is a signed contract,” said Sellers-Garcia, the Boston green new deal director. “But it’s definitely not money in the bank.”

The city has another $100 million outstanding in applications for federal climate and transportation grants.

In Dorchester, a group called Boston Community Solar Cooperative is planning to build an array of solar panels on the roof of the Dorchester Food Co-Op store next year. Under the IRA, solar developers can sell tax credits on an open market to finance the project instead of borrowing money.

Greg King, a clean energy consultant and one of the lead organizers for the cooperative, said the federal clean energy tax credits made the project financially possible. “They are the reason Boston Community Solar Cooperative exists.”

That project has already acquired financing and will go forward even if those credits are repealed, King said. However, it’s hard to see how any similar projects will be built in the future: Without the loosened solar tax credits, it’s much more costly in upfront expenses. Only a tiny fraction of solar panels in Massachusetts are currently located in low-income communities, according to King’s analysis of state data.

“We have a bunch of projects in our pipeline that — and this is part of the reason they haven’t been built — are not financially viable without those tax credits,” King said. “Those are at risk.”

Zeyneb Magavi, executive director of Home Energy Efficiency Team, a nonprofit that aims to transition gas heating to renewable geothermal energy sources, said she’s hopeful some of the changes prompted by the Biden administration can outlast the next president.

For example, she’s watched several people find jobs in renewable energy after graduating from training programs. “I don’t think we’re going to undo that outreach and that education,” Magavi said.

“The federal government is not the only change lever,” she said, pointing out that cities, states, and community advocates can also push for an equitable clean energy transition. Still, “it is a powerful one, and it has mattered. It will matter not to have it there.”

Erin Douglas can be reached at erin.douglas@globe.com. Follow her @erinmdouglas23.