Tribal Environmental and Natural Resource Assistance Handbook

ABOUT THIS HANDBOOK

Development

This handbook was developed by the Domestic Policy Council Working Group on American Indians and Alaska Natives (Working Group). The first draft of this document was possible thanks to the significant contributions of the Native American Fish & Wildlife Society. Previous drafts of the handbook were reviewed by each federal contributor and also went through the interagency review process at the Office of Management and Budget. The result is a compilation of the federal sources of financial and/or technical assistance programs available for Tribal environmental management.

Purpose

The handbook is intended to provide a central location for federal sources of both technical and financial assistance available to Tribes for environmental management. Many Tribes have limited environmental staffs that are faced with the challenge of addressing a broad range of environmental issues. Unlike State environmental programs that have received annual federal funding for many years, Tribal environmental programs generally must compete annually for their funds. With 554 federally recognized Tribes, there simply is not enough money to go around. Therefore, Tribal environmental staffs spend a large part of their time applying for grants and searching for sources of federal assistance. This document is an effort to assist Tribal staff in their search and hopefully save them valuable time. The handbook can also assist federal, regional, State and Local government employees in becoming better informed about the sources of environmental assistance available in order to improve customer service to the Tribes.

The Working Group recognizes that this document does not contain every federal resource available to Tribes. This is an evolving document and will be updated periodically. Future versions of this document will be available on the Internet.

Organization

The information is arranged alphabetically by governmental departments and agencies. Each entry provides specific categories of information:

• Available Assistance (technical and/or financial);
• Purpose of Assistance;
• Eligible Recipients (federally recognized Tribes, State recognized
Tribes, Tribal members, Tribal environmental managers, etc.);
• Application Process (required forms, deadlines, evaluation criteria, etc.); and
• Contact (phone, fax, address, e-mail, web sites).

The Appendix contains additional contact information for both government agencies and Tribal organizations. To make the document more user-friendly, the entries also are keyed according to the following environmental categories:

  Air

  Water

  Plants and Animals (includes forestry)

  Toxics/Hazardous Waste

  Solid Waste

  Pollution Prevention

 Emergency Preparedness and Response

 Environmental Education

 Cross-Cutting (i.e., addresses more than one category)

Comments

Please send comments or edits to:
Tribal Environmental and Natural Resource Assistance Handbook from Contact Us page
or e-mail: fish.tonya@epa.gov

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Disclaimer: The information contained in the Tribal Environmental and Natural Resource Assistance Handbook was contributed by numerous Federal Departments and Agencies. The American Indian Environmental Office is not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in the Handbook. The information appears and is edited based on instructions from the Federal contributors.