Assistance program
Geographic Programs - Chesapeake Bay Program Implementation, Regulatory/Accountability and Monitoring Grants
$204.5 Million committed in FY2021–FY2026
- Agency
- Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Protection Agency
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 66.964
- What it does
- The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure and unique as North America's largest and most biologically diverse estuary. The EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) awards annual grants to signatory jurisdictions of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement to support activities to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay. Current signatories of the Watershed Agreement include the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. These grants are generally awarded non-competitively to signatories through allocation formulas provided in program guidance. Under this program, EPA awards two types of grants: 1) jurisdiction implementation grants, which support a signatory jurisdiction’s efforts to advance progress toward meeting commitments under the Watershed Agreement and subsequent amendments; and 2) monitoring grants, which support assessment of changes to water quality and living resources over time. Ensuring that benefits are distributed equitably and increasing climate resiliency are special areas of focus for the program. More information regarding the Chesapeake Bay Program and the Watershed Agreement can be found at https://www.chesapeakebay.net/.
- Who benefits
- Not Applicable
- Who applies
- Funds are available to state and local governments and federally-recognized tribes that are signatories of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. As of the publication of this assistance listing, signatories include the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Non-profits, non-signatory governmental entities, interstate agencies, and institutions of higher education are not eligible for direct funding under this program but may receive pass-through funding from signatory jurisdictions as a subrecipient. For-profit organizations are not eligible for grant funding (either directly or as a subaward).
- Authorized by
- Clean Water Act
- Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)
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