The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given a $776,636 grant to the California Department of Public Health that will “provide technical assistance to general aviation airports in California in disadvantaged communities to support the transition from leaded aviation gasoline (avgas) to unleaded avgas.”
The move follows a recent determination by the EPA that “emissions of lead from aircraft that operate on leaded fuel cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act.”
The technical assistance California Department of Public Health will provide using the grant includes voluntary business roundtable discussions, training, and developing educational materials and case studies.
“The proposed project aims to improve human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities identified through the state’s CalEnviroScreen by reducing lead emissions that may harm them,” EPA officials said in a press release.
The grant is one of two pollution prevention grants in California that EPA will fund this year—the other going to the University of California at Los Angeles—and was made possible by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
EPA’s Pollution Prevention Grant Program advances President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which aims to deliver 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution, EPA officials explained.
Between 2011-2021, EPA’s Pollution Prevention program issued nearly 500 grants totaling more than $50 million, which have helped businesses identify, develop, and adopt pollution prevention approaches. These approaches have resulted in eliminating 19.8 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, saving 49 billion gallons of water, reducing 917 million pounds of hazardous materials and pollutants, and saving more than $2.2 billion for business.
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is boosting these efforts by providing $100 million to support the program’s continued efforts. Thanks to this federal investment, state and Tribal programs that are awarded grants will not be required to provide matching funds, which has helped expand access to these resources and broadened the applicant pool, EPA officials added.
Read more about P2 and the P2 Grant Program at EPA.gov.
What kind of circular logic is required to grant the federal government constitutional authority for this? The so-called “interstate commerce clause” is certainly NOT for providing funds for only poor neighborhoods, chock-a-block full of illegals.
Read into EPA grant as financial aid to close the airports. We need more “disadvantage neighborhoods”, what a closed airport can provide.
Both federal and state governments are well past their “best if used by” date. Time abolish and start over.
Hopefully this might be the start of the 2 tank solution where we can have UL 94 available to the 70% of aircraft that can use it and not pollute lead, reduce their maintenance costs, stop the lead fouled plugs, and no longer be hostage to the upcoming expense and danger of synthetic unleaded 100 octane fuel than has been promised for the last 30 years.
Here we go again. “disadvantaged communities”, what the heck are those? Why don’t they just say what they mean, “poor communities”. Every legal citizen in our country has equal opportunities, it all depends on what people make of them. No one is any more advantaged or disadvantaged than anyone else, and we all are born and die with nothing. But what is “poor” in America in 2023? Here is one report on this topic from the respected organization FEE, Foundation for Economic Education. “The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most European Nations”. Somewhere in the long, boring debate over the purported dangers of leaded fuel the preposterous claim was made that the exhaust from leaded fuel affects poor people more than it does the middle or upper classes, whatever those are these days. This is the usual setup to funnel government grants and other wealth redistribution schemes to targeted groups, which constitutes theft from those being taxed and a bribe to the recipients. Austrian Economics 101 The EPA is one of the worst perpetrators of this scam, the reason it should be utterly abolished. Every state has an environmental department. The constitution clearly states that the federal government has no authority to regulate our lives when such things already exist at the state and personal level. And environmental “protection” (aka Marxism) sure is not one of the enumerated powers of the federal government. The EPA should be near the top of the list of federal agencies that President Trump should terminate when he takes office again in January, 2025.
“These approaches have resulted in eliminating 19.8 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, saving 49 billion gallons of water, reducing 917 million pounds of hazardous materials and pollutants, and saving more than $2.2 billion for business.” All based on wild speculation, typical of government, just like all those phony airport economic impact “studies” airport authorities pay to engineering companies as a means to grease the skids when asking for money for airport “improvements”, like glitzy terminals at po-dunk airports few visit. They are all over my state of North Carolina, a huge waste of taxpayer money but a gift to airport engineering companies and contractors.