There’s an interesting story out of AP. The headline is
Trump wants states to clean up forests to stop wildfires. But his administration cut off funds
So I wondered what was going on, it sounds like S&PF funds from the headline, which may have already been dispersed to the States.
Here’s the story:
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is holding up money for wildfire mitigation projects funded through legislation championed by his Democratic predecessor, threatening efforts to prevent catastrophic blazes like the ones that recently ripped through Southern California.
The decision undermines Trump’s repeated insistence that communities need to clear combustible materials like fallen branches and undergrowth — “it’s called management of the floor,” he said while visiting Los Angeles last month — to guard against wildfires.
Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, said via email that mitigation work is “currently undergoing review to ensure consistency” with Trump’s executive orders.
The scrutiny is being applied only to projects using money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, two centerpieces of former President Joe Biden’s administration. They included roughly $3 billion for wildfire mitigation efforts, often known as hazardous fuels reduction programs.
Peace said those programs are continuing if funded by other congressional appropriations.
So the story is that BIL and IRA funding is being reviewed. Technically speaking, I wouldn’t say that was “cutting off funds.” I know many of us have been involved in projects that required WO review, including Roadless projects, which ultimately went through. It will be interesting to see what ultimately happens.
If anyone has experience of grants or contracts at the Forest Service being shut down, it would be helpful to know. Is the story that they are being reviewed or stopped? Is there a pattern to which ones are stopped. I’ve contacted various grantees, and people I know there, but so far have received no answer from them. I also have received no replies from the FS medial folks. I’m sure they are overwhelmed at this point.
I’ve heard that there’s a pause on new agreements, and a pause in spending BIL (and possibly IRA?). Is this consistently applied, or are wildfire suppression related grants and contracts exempt?
Here is what I have been told from sources. All contracts are on hold, including timber contracts, presumably for some kind of review. I don’t believe they have been canceled, but there is the feeling that some could be in the near future. The Forest Service is not allowed to talk with the press and even Congressional Staff. They are limited on Social media to things that are safety-related.
I’m part of a collaborative effort that is conducting large scale fuel treatments, fuel breaks, thinning, and prescribed fire. This is incredibly important work that is keeping communities safe and that has very broad support. We have substantial funding for this work through BIL/IRA that has been frozen. We have received no information on how long the freeze is in effect nor any other real information. If the freeze isn’t lifted soon, it could have bring our entire effort to a halt.
The AP is not known for accuracy or precision.
Then why does it show up at the top of the media bias chart as neutral and best for “overall quality?” https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Media-Bias-Chart-2018_fig1_326557348
There is credible information from other grant applicants in other departments that the administration is looking for words like climate change, diversity, equity, inclusion and environmental justice and requiring that those be removed before considering applications, so that is probably also being done here.
Well that would be tough, because the last Admin pretty much required groups to write in the same words, and so they did even when it was a bit of a stretch. I hope the new Admin can see the utility of the project through the necessary (at the time) wording.
“We want to do fuel treatments here because …”. vs. “Due to the increasing threat of climate change, and the risk of increased carbon in the atmosphere from climate-fueled megafires, plus pollution from wildfires which unjustly impacts diverse communities, in the interests of environmental justice, we want to do fuel treatments here.”
All of the agreements I’m working with that have BIL or IRA funds are stalled out. These are signed and executed agreements for fuels work. The partner orgs have issued their own stop work orders and we have been instructed to “play dumb” to any questions from the partners or externals. Pretty easy to do since we have no info on the reasoning behind or potential duration of the review/freeze/whatever you want to call it.
This is going to have knock on effects as we miss critical pre-field season planning and wildlife survey windows.
Thanks!
“The scrutiny is being applied only to projects using money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, two centerpieces of former President Joe Biden’s administration.” This makes it obvious this mess has nothing to do with making government better – it’s just simple-minded retribution.
I would say it isn’t retribution. Some of what I’ve seen suggests that buzzwords like “climate resilience” and suchlike were covers for giving large sums of funding to a certain Admin/parties’ friends.
Not sure why that isn’t retribution against those friends. And you are insinuating that there are reasons the funding should not have gone to these friends and/or should have gone to someone else – can you elaborate?
I don’t see that taking funding away is “retribution.” Imagine the opposite. Suppose that Trump 1.0 let a non-competitive contract to O&GR’US consulting firm. Then the Biden Admin came in and said “we don’t trust those folks to do a good job because of their bias, let’s cancel that one and have a non=competitive contract with .. the our own friends’ company. Would we say that was “retribution” against the O&GR’US firm? We’d probably say something like “elections have consequences” or “federal funding shouldn’t go to those bad people.”
Pork of all cuts and dimensions is what the federal government provides, in all kinds of ways.
We are more likely to say it’s retribution if the president as candidate swore he would seek retribution. But I did veer off my original point: that this particular president swore retribution against anything that Biden was associated with – so the same actions, if they were not funded through high profile Biden initiatives, would be left alone. That would indicate simple-minded retribution.
I agree. He wants to remove everything associated with the BIL/IRA package, regardless of who it hurts. I wonder how many Veterans have been fired, already.
Within BLM, it was first all grants and contracts frozen, then just BIL/IRA grants and contracts frozen, now as of yesterday BIL/IRA related to wildfire and orphaned wells are unfrozen. All other BIL/IRA grants and contracts remain frozen.
We have been directed to NOT order stop work on those contracts, continue receiving invoices, but not approve invoices for payment. And we are directed not to communicate any of this outside of the agency. Invoices are just sitting and accumulating interest as a consequence.
It is very hard from where I sit to see whether this is a reasonable taking-stock or a blunt swing at cost savings where the new admin thinks they might not like what they’re buying. In any event, the communication from above has been disorganized and aggressive.
Thanks for this. If I understand correctly the “not approve invoices” are for grants not related to wildfire and orphan wells.? Do fuel treatment contracts and grants count as “related to wildfire.”?
Correct. Mostly yes, fuel treatments count as related to wildfire, but it’s not a very clean line since each contract or grant may include several activities. There was a rushed data call from HQ last week to get info on all contracts and grants. Mainly they were hunting for DEI but I think they may have ended up using that same list to identify “wildfire-related” based on functional area from the budget codes.
Thanks! It would be hard to remove DEI from all the related SPAs, especially since that was an argument for not needing a match.. for example NWTF R-2 SPA
Darned if you don’t; darned (possibly) if you do…
As far as I know, awarded contracts for fuels reduction/thinning/stand improvement activities that are funded with BIL/IRA monies are untouched in the FS, have not heard of any stop work orders going out for these. But, all contracts that are planned/programmed in Workplan to use those funds are currently on pause as the funds are frozen by the EO. Doesn’t mean that the contract prep work has stopped.
Does that apply to grants as well as contracts?
I know of several agreements that have been terminated, primarily for professional or support activities (Surveys/GIS/NEPA writing). No idea on grants.