Hundreds of communities across the country will share more than $1 billion in federal money to help them plant and maintain trees under a federal program designed to reduce extreme heat, benefit health and improve access to nature.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will announce the $1.13 billion in funding for 385 projects Thursday morning at an event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The tree planting efforts will target marginalized areas in all fifty states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and some tribal states.
“We believe we can create more resilient communities in terms of climate impacts,” Vilsack told reporters in a preview of his announcement. “We think we can limit extreme heat incidents and events in many cities.”
In announcing the grants in Cedar Rapids, Vilsack will spotlight the eastern Iowa city of 135,000 residents, which lost thousands of trees during an extreme storm in the summer of 2020. Cedar Rapids has made canopy restoration a made a priority since that storm, called a derecho, and will receive $6 million in funding through the new grants.
Other grant recipients include some of the nation’s largest cities, such as New York, Houston and Los Angeles, and many smaller communities, such as Tarpon Springs, Florida, and Hutchinson, Kansas.
Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, planned to join Vilsack at the event in Iowa. She previously told reporters that many communities do not have access to nature and that any tree subsidies would benefit marginalized and underrepresented communities.
“Everyone should have access to nature,” Mallory said. “Urban forests can really play a key role in ensuring that access, but also in increasing the climate resilience of communities, helping to reduce extreme heat and making communities more livable.”
The federal money comes from the Inflation Reduction Act.