News Releases from Region 09
U.S. EPA Awards $900,000 to California Small Businesses to Commercialize Environmental Technologies
LOS ANGELES – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a combined $900,000 in funding to three small businesses in California to further develop and commercialize innovative technologies that protect the environment while growing the American economy. A total of $2.7 million was awarded to nine small businesses nationwide.
“Small businesses provide the foundation of our economy and are incubators of innovative ideas that create jobs, improve lives and protect the environment,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “With this funding, small businesses across the country will be able to help further EPA’s mission of protecting the environment and public health. I’m proud to support these important projects to address not only the challenges we face as a nation, but also the opportunities to be had through new and emerging technology.”
“California businesses are creating some of our best, cutting-edge technologies and fundamentally changing how we protect human health and the environment,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Mike Stoker.
The contracts are funded through EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which encourages the development and commercialization of novel technologies that support EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. The small businesses that are being funded are working on a wide range of topics including water quality, air quality, land revitalization, homeland security, manufacturing, and construction materials.
EPA is awarding phase II contracts of up to $300,000 each to nine small businesses. The recipients previously were awarded a phase I contract of up to $100,000 and applied for phase II funding to develop their technology for the marketplace.
The California SBIR Phase II recipients include:
- Seacoast Science, Inc., Carlsbad, Calif., to develop innovative broad-spectrum analytical methods for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) that will simplify analysis, reduce cost-per-sample, and allow portability to remediation sites.
- Altex Technologies Corporation, Sunnyvale, Calif., to create a process to produce renewable, low-energy, low cost bioplastics.
- Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., Torrance, Calif., to create degradable plastics with a high heat tolerance, produced from bio-based feedstock.
EPA’s SBIR funding boosts local economies by empowering small businesses to create jobs while developing novel technologies in areas such as cleaner manufacturing, greener materials, and improved infrastructure in communities.
EPA is one of 11 federal agencies that participate in the SBIR program, which was enacted in 1982 to strengthen the role of small businesses in federal research and development, create jobs, and promote U.S. technical innovation. To be eligible, a company must be an organized, for-profit U.S. business and have fewer than 500 employees.
For more information on EPA’s SBIR Phase II recipients, visit: https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/recipients.display/rfa_id/656.
Learn more about EPA’s SBIR program at www.epa.gov/sbir.
Learn more about SBIR across the federal government at www.SBIR.gov.
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