Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund (RLF)

Federal Agency

Sub-Department

Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization (OBLR)

Purpose

To provide seed money to capitalize a revolving loan fund program including loans and subgrants to clean up and remediate sites across a region or community. Revolving loan funds are used to provide no-interest or low-interest loans for eligible brownfield cleanups, subgrants for cleanups, and other eligible programmatic costs necessary to manage the loan fund.

Applicant and/or Project Eligibility Requirements

Recipients must have a strong understanding of real estate financing principles and approaches, including loan underwriting, loan servicing, and credit analysis. Recipients also need to have the ability to market the program on an on-going basis during the performance period of the grant and after the closeout of the RLF Grant. Recipients commit to properly manage funds and program income generated by their program until its official close. Only entities without open RLF cooperative agreements are eligible to apply.

Decarbonization Considerations

These funds are meant to be transformative in efficiently cleaning up multiple sites for reuse. Consider pursuing with intent to reuse and convert of multiple brownfields into brightfields with one bulk procurement, either on a single or multijurisdictional basis.

Equity Considerations

This is an opportunity for communities to take ownership of seed funding to accelerate the long-term revitalization of multiple brownfields. Consider creating regional partnerships to leverage financial, marketing, and program administration experience in order to build capacity for localized loans and subgrants. Using this funding to create new hubs for clean energy manufacturing and jobs and offer opportunities to improve distributional equity where communities were previously neglected.

Helpful Tips

These are highly competitive projects geared at communities with extensive brownfield sites. If structured correctly, these revolving loan fund programs can generate program income from repayment of loans to sustain programs from a few years to decades.

Other Notes

If selected, the lead entity will be the grant recipient and must administer the grant, be accountable to EPA for proper expenditure of the funds and be the point of contact for the other coalition members. In addition, a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) documenting the coalition’s site selection process must be in place prior to the expenditure of any funds that are awarded. The coalition members should identify and establish relationships necessary to achieve the project’s goal. A process for successful execution of the project’s goal, including a description and role of each coalition member, should be established along with the MOA. The purpose of the MOA is for coalition members to agree internally on the distribution of funds and the mechanisms for implementing the cleanup work. $60 million in supplemental funding is available for entities that have an open Brownfield Revolving Loan Fund grant. See here for application details: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/fy-2024-availability-supplemental-funds-eligible-brownfields-revolving-loan-fund-grants