Assistance program
Senior Environmental Employment Program
$281.9 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Protection Agency
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements
- CFDA number
- 66.508
- What it does
- To use the talents of Americans 55 years of age or older to provide technical assistance to Federal, State, and local environmental agencies for projects of pollution prevention, abatement, and control to achieve the Agency's goals of Clean Air; Clean and Safe Water; Land Preservation and Restoration; Healthy Communities and Ecosystems; and Compliance and Environmental Stewardship. The Environmental Programs Assistance Act of 1984 (Pub. L. 98-313) authorizes the Administrator of the EPA "to make grants to, or enter into cooperative agreements with private, nonprofit organizations designated by the Secretary of Labor under Title V of the Older Americans Act of 1965." In FY 2025, these cooperative agreements will continue to utilize the talents of older Americans in temporary, full time or part time positions "providing technical assistance to Federal, State, and local environmental agencies for projects of pollution prevention, abatement, and control." "Technical assistance" may include any activity performed for the EPA in support of its projects ranging from inspections of underground storage tanks, to support for a Headquarters staff office. This allows for the coverage of all types of SEE program positions from professional to clerical. Annual funding priorities are not established at the SEE program level. Rather, Senior Resource Officials from the participating 45 program offices establish priorities requiring SEE program support.
- Who benefits
- Federal, State, and local environmental agencies and individuals 55 years old or older.
- Who applies
- Private, nonprofit organizations designated by the Secretary of Labor under Title V of the Older Americans Act of 1965.
- Authorized by
- Environmental Programs Assistance Act of 1984
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments