Keeping the state accountable on environmental investments
New interactive map tracks spending in frontline communities and beyond
Getting EV chargers into communities bearing the brunt of climate change. Recruiting community members to help design grant programs that will benefit their community and compensating them for their time. Providing safe drinking water to residents relying on contaminated wells. These are all real-world results of the Healthy Environment for All Act (also known as the HEAL Act), and they can be seen in a new interactive map tracking where state money is flowing.
The HEAL Act, passed in 2021, is a groundbreaking law that transforms how certain state agencies systemically incorporate environmental justice into how they make decisions on budgets and funding — including focusing investments to improve environmental health for vulnerable populations in overburdened communities. These are people who face combined environmental harms and impacts to their health. They are also often from racial or ethnic minorities and earn lower incomes.
Communities overburdened by pollution
Communities of color and low-income neighborhoods have historically faced higher rates of air, noise, and water pollution. They’re living closer to sources such as highways with car exhaust and noise, toxic waste, or power plants. More than 1.2 million Washingtonians live in communities “overburdened” by air pollution alone. They live sicker and die younger as a result.
In the past, state projects and programs didn’t purposefully focus on these frontline communities when it came to addressing environmental harms. But the HEAL Act now directs key state agencies to incorporate environmental justice into its funding decisions and strive to invest 40% of funding for environmental projects toward benefiting vulnerable populations in overburdened communities.
An important feature of the HEAL Act is transparency and accountability. The interactive map published this week gives communities, lawmakers, and others a way to track Washington state’s progress towards these goals.
What the first year of data shows
Created by the Office of Financial Management from data supplied by seven state agencies, the map shows where and how agencies have directed funding to create environmental benefits, reduce pollution, and reduce environmental health disparities. The map shows how and where agencies have directed funds towards projects in the 2023–25 biennium, and actual funds spent in FY 2024 (July 2023–June 2024) that create environmental benefits.
The HEAL Act budget and funding map can be viewed on the OFM website.
Across the seven agencies covered by the HEAL Act, nearly 55% of funding to create environmental benefits has been allocated toward projects that will benefit vulnerable populations in overburdened communities. This exceeds the HEAL Act target of 40%.
Agencies use a common approach to identifying overburdened communities and vulnerable populations, based on state and federal data. The approach was developed in response to a directive issued by Gov. Jay Inslee.
This is the first year that state agencies have reported the data. Now with a baseline, agencies will be able to measure their progress and also refine how they collect and report data to ensure it’s as accurate and consistent as possible.
Keeping state government accountable by tracking and reporting agency investments was something that environmental justice advocates pushed for as a key part of the HEAL Act. Front and Centered, a coalition of groups led by communities of color, were instrumental to the passage of the law.
“During Governor Inslee’s term, Washington’s climate and environmental justice movement has expanded significantly,” noted Davin Diaz, environmental justice program manager for Front and Centered. “By engaging communities on the frontlines of climate change, laws like the HEAL Act have been enacted. Accountability tools, such as this dashboard, bridge the gap between promises and action by tracking whether the state meets the HEAL Act and CCA goal of directing 40% of funds to frontline communities, and by showing us where funds are allocated in an effort to create direct and meaningful benefits to reduce environmental harms.”
Reporting from agencies goes beyond just the dollar investment in overburdened communities — it shows that the HEAL Act is also changing the way that agencies integrate environmental justice principles into how they do business. Agencies are creating opportunities for co-governance alongside communities, giving more voice and representation into the design and funding of grant opportunities by and for the communities they serve. Here are some examples from the past year:
Listening to community on where the needs are greatest
A key part of the HEAL Act is building relationships between the covered state agencies and the communities they serve. Community advisory committees can help design grant programs to make sure they’re focused on the needs of the people living in overburdened communities.
In one example, the Department of Health convened a community advisory committee to help design a grant program that would channel $10 million to provide health and safety supplies to workers in overburdened communities who are disproportionately impacted by climate change, with 20% of the funds set aside specifically for Tribes. Extreme heat and cold, wildfire smoke, drought, and flooding are all risks to these communities, and the advisory committee identified what supplies would be most helpful. Community input also went into procurement and planned distribution of supplies.
In another example, the state Department of Transportation is contracting with a community-based organization partner to design and implement a grant program for community-driven carbon reduction strategies. They brought together people from organizations that work with vulnerable populations to help define goals for the grant program.
WSDOT is also including the public in decision-making in the Sandy Williams Connecting Communities Program, which is improving active transportation connectivity for people walking, biking, and rolling along and across current and former highways. The program focuses on communities most affected by barriers to opportunity and environmental health disparities.
One of those communities is Airway Heights, near Fairchild Air Force Base, home to a large Marshallese population. The city is divided both physically by US 2, a busy five-lane highway. The road creates a barrier that makes it difficult to access grocery stores, health care, parks, and schools, especially for pedestrians, bicyclists, or people using transit. The road has seen a high number of crashes, including many involving people walking or on bicycles.
A city project funded by WSDOT’s program is planning better sidewalks, congestion and speed calming measures, improved pedestrian crossings, and transit stations. Public engagement has been a key part of the project, with outreach at community meetings gathering feedback on the plans.
Future grant awards from the program will be guided by the goals set by a community advisory council made up of members from across the state. Many of the council members are from communities that aren’t historically involved in decision-making around transportation projects.
To Clara Cheeves, the Sandy Williams Connecting Communities Program lead, it’s important that both WSDOT and the grant awardees hear from those who haven’t been able to participate in transportation planning in the past.
“Our goal is to make sure we’re speaking with community members and bring their perspectives into the work,” Cheeves said. “The goal is to support partnerships with community, whom we recognize as experts in what it’s like to try and cross or walk along this roadway.”
Removing barriers to make grants more equitable
When it came to funding clean energy projects in communities most impacted by carbon pollution, the Energy Programs in Communities (EPIC) unit in the state’s Department of Commerce launched a new type of funding opportunity that would make it easier for community organizations to apply.
The department sought feedback from communities, Tribal representatives, and other agencies in designing a new streamlined approach to the grants. Communities could submit one application for a range of funding opportunities, and Commerce staff took on the work of matching their applications and ideas to a funding source. This saved time in weeding through complex administrative and bureaucratic language, reduced the risk of error, and allowed the funding team to be more flexible in matching the funding source to the community need.
The program also did not require nonprofit entities to come up with matching funds to be able to get grants, which boosted the opportunities for community organizations that had previously been left out of funding.
An advisory committee made up of community members reviewed applications, bringing a range of backgrounds and experiences to the table.
“In Washington state the HEAL Act has helped to create equality and fairness in terms of environmental justice in a very diverse state geographically,” noted Monica Lowery of Spokane, a committee member that reviewed applications. “Taking cumulative environmental impacts with socioeconomic conditions into consideration helped to spread grant funds more evenly throughout the state of Washington. Community-based grant projects helping those in need located in lower-income areas with higher environmental risks were given the opportunity to receive funds to positively impact their communities”.
Getting clean energy infrastructure in the communities most impacted by climate change
Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Washington, and a key part of the state’s plan in reducing these emissions is making it easier for people to drive electric vehicles. But many people are wary of committing to an electric vehicle if they don’t think there are enough charging stations available. While the private sector is installing chargers in areas with many electric vehicles, communities that have historically faced environmental harm are at risk of lower levels of access to chargers without state investment.
Through the Washington Electric Vehicle Charging program, the Department of Commerce awarded close to $100 million in 2024 to install more than 5,000 EV chargers across the state, including public, multi-family, workplace, and fleet depot sites. The department set a goal to allocate 40% of funding and total charging ports to overburdened communities and surpassed this target by allocating 54%. Metrics showing where these chargers were funded are on the EV Charging Program funding dashboard.
Getting funding to the right place can take sustained engagement and outreach, especially when organizations are required to apply for grant funding. In the case of the EV Charging program, the Department of Commerce engaged with overburdened communities and vulnerable populations by connecting with over 700 organizations and individuals through targeted emails, phone calls, virtual meetings, and training sessions.
Community input sessions helped shape the direction of the grant program and provided feedback to better address community needs in future funding rounds. The program also prioritized projects located in overburdened communities by linking its scoring criteria with its mapping tool.
One grantee, Women of Wisdom (WOW) Tri-Cities, has an EV car share program, providing a transportation option to those in low-mobility areas, while also making EVs more accessible and visible to people in rural communities who may not have considered EVs. Their three public charging sites serve Yakima, College Place, and Walla Walla.
“WOW Carshare program is a visionary initiative that tackles emission issues head-on, while also addressing the critical EV charging demand,” said Chauné Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of WOW Tri-Cities. “By bridging the gap of resources, WOW not only helps reduce emissions but also empowers communities that have historically been marginalized, creating a more inclusive and equitable future for all.”
What’s next
The 2023–25 supplemental budget invests in many more projects and programs with funding yet to be distributed this fiscal year, and this will be tracked in the next version of the interactive map in October 2025.
Through the first year of reporting, state agencies are also learning the best ways to collect and track this information. Over the next year, the Governor’s Office and OFM plan to work with the Environmental Justice Council, community advocates, and HEAL Act agencies to examine their tracking methods to ensure HEAL Act reporting is truly reflecting projects and investments that are making a difference in people’s lives.
