Development of a Priority Climate Action Plan under EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program

Under the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administers the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, which offers nearly $5 billion in grants to states, local governments, tribes, and territories to develop and implement climate action plans aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. Planning grants (Phase 1) are non-competitive, while implementation grants (Phase 2) are competitive. In 2023, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC), a sovereign tribe located in the Phoenix metropolitan area, received a Phase 1 planning grant and subsequently contracted ERG to support the development of a Priority Climate Action Plan—an important first step of the planning phase.

With an interdisciplinary team drawn from multiple ERG service areas, ERG helped SRPMIC complete its Priority Climate Action Plan in just two months. Our work included a review of SRPMIC’s most recent greenhouse gas emissions inventory and a detailed analysis of ten priority GHG reduction measures. Our team worked with SRPMIC to identify the most viable and impactful reduction measures from the transportation, buildings, electric power, solid waste, and land management sectors. For each measure, we quantified its potential to reduce GHG and criteria air pollutant emissions, reviewed SRPMIC’s authority to implement the measure, estimated the implementation cost, and identified potential funding sources. The resulting Priority Climate Action Plan established the groundwork for developing a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan—the next step under Phase 1 of the CPRG program—and strongly positioned SRPMIC to apply for competitive implementation grants under Phase 2. In September 2024, EPA announced the award of nearly $10 million in Phase 2 funding to SRPMIC to implement most of the measures identified in their PCAP.