Evansville staff: EPA freezes Community Change grant; city adopted 2025 climate action plan and will build an online dashboard

Lauren Norvell, staff, told the Evansville Climate Collaborative Board on April 15 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a termination notice for the city—s Community Change grant and later rescinded that termination, but the grant funds remain frozen.

The freeze has prevented the city from starting work on the grant project, Norvell said: "we were supposed to start our project March 17 and we still haven't gotten any funds released, so we can't enter contracts or hire the staff we need to implement the grant project, so we're just kind of in a holding pattern until we know more." She said staff are working with congressional representatives and federal lobbyists to try to have funds released and are also looking for alternative funding to begin parts of the work.

The staff update also noted the Evansville City Council on March 31 adopted the 2025 Climate Action Plan by resolution. Sarah Pritchett, introduced at the meeting as the city—s new climate action coordinator, said she will help implement the plan; Pritchett described her background, saying she holds a bachelor—s degree in environmental and sustainability studies with a concentration in climate change and resources and a Master of Public Affairs with a concentration in community economic development from Indiana University.

Norvell said staff have contracted with a consultant, Climate Nav, to build an interactive Climate Action Dashboard for the city website. The dashboard will list each action from the climate plan, provide descriptions and implementation updates, and include suggested actions for residents and businesses. "We're beginning our project to create a Climate Action Dashboard and so that'll be on our website... We hope to roll it out late fall," Norvell said.

On greenhouse gas accounting, Norvell said the city completed a 2023 greenhouse gas inventory and plans to update inventories every other year rather than annually to balance workload and cost. She said the inventory work is data-intensive and that biennial updates should be enough to show progress without excessive expense.

Board members expressed support for the adopted climate plan and for staff work on dashboard and inventories; Norvell said the staff report will continue to track federal developments on the Community Change grant and to pursue other funding options.

Ending: The board did not take a formal vote on the Community Change grant or the dashboard at the April 15 meeting; Norvell—s update was provided as part of the staff report.