Stantec Inc, a Canadian engineering and environmental consulting firm, has agreed to pay $4m to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by submitting false certifications in applications for US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields Assessment Grants.
According to the US Department of Justice, between 2014 and 2022, Stantec, along with Cardno Consulting, either drafted or helped draft requests for proposals and statements of work for grant-funded projects and then bid on the same contracts, despite federal rules explicitly prohibiting this practice.
“The EPA’s Brownfields Grant Program aims to help communities around the country transform contaminated sites into community assets,” said Acting EPA Inspector General Nicole Murley. “Fair competition is critical to the integrity of this program, and the EPA Office of Inspector General will vigorously pursue allegations of false certifications to protect both the program and the taxpayer dollars that fund it.”
These rules are designed to prevent any firm involved in drafting project specifications from later competing for the resulting work, due to inherent conflict of interest.
Federal investigators allege that Stantec and Cardno false certified compliance with procurement requirements or caused local government applicants to submit those certifications on their behalf.
The misconduct affected multiple grants issued under the EPA’s Brownfields Program, which funds the assessment and cleanup of contaminated properties across the US. The settlement resolves civil claims brought by the DOJ’s Civil Division and the EPA’s Office of Inspector general but does not include any admission of liability by companies.
Procurement compliance breach
What makes the Stantec settlement particularly notable is the scale and systemic nature of the alleged violations. According to the DOJ, Stantec Consulting and Cardno Consulting assisted at least 75 different local entities in drafting procurement materials, such as statement of work and bid invitations, for EPA Brownfields Assessment Grant-funded projects, and then submitted bids for those same contracts.
Federal procurement law 2 CFR § 200.319(b)) prohibits any contractor who has contributed to the drafting of such materials from competing for the associated work, in order to preserve objective competition.
Yet the firms allegedly bypassed this restriction repeatedly over an eight-year span, falsely certifying compliance with the rule in dozens of applications submitted on behalf of local governments.
The result: Stantec and Cardno won contracts whose terms they themselves helped write.
“Fair competition is critical to the integrity of this program, and the EPA Office of Inspector General will vigorously pursue allegations of false certifications to protect both the program and the taxpayer dollars that fund it.”
Nicole Murley, Acting Inspector General, EPA
The compliance breach is unusual in its degree of embeddedness in the grant process. Because the EPA only awards Brownfields assessment grants to non-profit or governmental entities, not to private firms like Stantec, the companies’ alleged misrepresentation was indirect: they caused public grantees to submit grant applications that included false certifications.
This layered strategy complicated enforcement, as it obscured the source of the violation and spread responsibility across public-private boundaries. The $4m settlement, including over $2.6m in restitution, resolves the government’s civil claims without any admission of liability from the companies.
DOJ officials noted that Stantec and Cardno received cooperation credit under federal policy, a factor that likely helped limit the financial and reputational fallout.
Amid shifting regulatory priorities
While the EPA is scaling back major emissions rules for fossil fuel power plants and revisiting longstanding regulatory frameworks such as the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS), it continues to enforce procurement integrity in grant-funded programs like Brownfields.
The grant program, which supports local efforts to assess and revitalize contaminated properties, operates under strict procurement rules designed to ensure fair competition and prevent conflicts of interest.
The enforcement action against Stantec and Cardno demonstrates that these procedural safeguards continue to be treated as a compliance priority, despite shifts in the agency’s overall regulatory strategy.
At the same time, the EPA’s current agenda includes proposals to repeal greenhouse gas emission standards under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act and to eliminate certain amendments introduced in 2024 to MATS.
These proposed repeals are framed as efforts to reduce compliance costs for the power sector and promote energy reliability.