Latest news with #WoonasquatucketRiverWatershedCouncil
Washington Post
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
EPA is now canceling all its environmental justice grants, court filing reveals
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to cancel a total of 781 grants issued under President Joe Biden, EPA lawyers wrote in a little-noticed court filing last week, nearly twice the number previously reported. The filing in the case Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council v. Department of Agriculture marks the first time the agency has publicly acknowledged the total number of grants set for termination, which includes all of its environmental justice grants. It comes amid ongoing court fights over whether the EPA has violated its legal obligations when clawing back the funds. 'EPA is in the process of sending out the formal termination/cancellation notices to all of the impacted grantees,' EPA career official Daniel Coogan wrote in the filing. 'EPA has already sent out formal notices to approximately 377 grantees. For the remaining approximately 404 grantees, EPA plans to issue notices within the next two weeks.' Prior to the filing, the EPA had not confirmed that 781 grants would be canceled, although a list obtained by The Washington Post had shown more than 450 terminated or frozen grants totaling more than $1.5 billion. The canceled grants would have funded a range of projects aimed at helping communities cope with the worsening impacts of climate change. Recipients planned to use the money to seal homes in Washington state against wildfire smoke and protect Alaska Native villages from coastal flooding, among other things. Most of the grants were issued by the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, which the Trump administration plans to shutter as part of its efforts to remake the agency. Trump officials last week informed more than 450 employees working on environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion that they will be fired or reassigned. A coalition of environmental nonprofits, including the Providence, Rhode Island-based Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, is challenging the Trump administration's move to freeze billions of dollars in funding under Biden's signature 2022 climate law and the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021. The watershed group has not been able to access a $1 million grant from the Forest Service since January. The lawsuit names as defendants the Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Housing departments, along with the EPA and the Office of Management and Budget. U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy issued a preliminary injunction on April 15 that required the agencies to release frozen funding while the litigation proceeds. McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that the nonprofit groups had shown the funding freeze was 'arbitrary and capricious.' Before canceling any grants, the EPA is required to conduct a detailed review of each grant award. Coogan wrote in the filing that the agency had complied with this mandate. 'EPA leadership conducted an individualized, grant-by-grant review to determine which grants should continue, which should be modified, and which should be terminated based on alignment with Administration priorities or the purposes for which the Federal award was made,' he wrote. Yet several lawyers and experts raised concerns that the EPA has not, in fact, conducted such a review and that the agency has misled the court. 'I can tell you from working with many, many of those grantees that the review has never happened,' said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit group that has provided free legal assistance to several grant recipients. 'They're claiming to the court that each one of those was done on an individualized basis, even though they haven't shown any evidence, and almost none of the grantees has received a termination notice,' Blanchard added. 'Now some of them are starting to get those termination notices, but that's well after the injunction order on April 15.' The EPA did not respond to a request for comment. Local officials say the terminations will undermine their ability to keep their constituents healthy. For residents in Hampden County, Massachusetts, unhealthy air quality is a regular occurrence, and more than 49,000 children and adults suffer from asthma. A three-year, nearly $1 million grant from the EPA was intended to support in-home environmental public health projects to reduce asthma risk. 'By canceling these grants for Hampden County, the Trump Administration is undermining our efforts to improve the health of the people of Western Massachusetts,' said Gov. Maura Healey (D) in a statement last week. 'This is just their latest attack on the health and well-being of communities across our country.' Zealan Hoover, a former senior adviser to Biden's EPA administrator, Michael Regan, said the canceled grants could have far-reaching consequences. 'EPA's attempts to terminate these grants not only violates their legal rights but abandons hundreds of communities across the country that were finally making progress reducing their energy costs and tackling polluted air and water,' he said.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rhode Island environmental nonprofits sue Trump administration over funding freeze
Downtown Providence is visible in the distance viewed from Neutaconkanut Hill. Urban tree plantings in the city have been impacted by the federal funding freeze, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island. (Photo by Dominique Sindayiganza/Providence Neighborhood Planting Program) Urban tree plantings, lead pipe education for landlords and local composting are already suffering from the Trump administration's federal funding freeze, a new lawsuit filed in federal court in Providence contends. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island on March 14, followed by an amended complaint filed Monday, is the latest legal dispute over federal grants and aid rendered inaccessible since mid-January. Led by a group of Rhode Island and national nonprofits, the lawsuit centers on federal funding under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act set aside for environmental, health and safety projects. Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District Childhood Lead Action Project Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation Green Infrastructure Center National Council of Nonprofits In the wake of Donald Trump's Jan. 20 order 'Unleashing American Energy' seeking to pause funding approved under a pair of spending packages, nonprofit recipients have been forced to halt projects and contemplate layoffs, the complaint states. 'The result of Defendants' unlawful funding freeze has been real and irreparable harm to the recipients of that funding in this District and across the country, as well as to the people and communities they serve,' states the complaint filed by D.C. nonprofit Democracy Forward and Providence firm DeLuca, Weizenbaum, Barry & Ravens. Just ask Alicia Lehrer, executive director of the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, which was suddenly unable to collect a $1 million subgrant authorized by Congress in 2022. The watershed council, one of the leading plaintiffs in the lawsuit, had already signed a contract to hire new staff, buy and plant trees and develop a stewardship training to serve the 7-mile Woonasquatucket Greenway. Now, Lehrer is stuck in limbo, unable to access the funds needed to start buying products and developing the training program in time for a spring tree planting. Even a fall start date looks uncertain. 'Everyone is pretty stressed,' Lehrer said in an interview on Tuesday. 'It's mostly about the uncertainty. We have been planning this for a year.' The abrupt halt to the project has created ripple effects for Watershed Council partners, including the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program, which collaborates with the Council on urban forestry projects in Providence, Lehrer said. 'This is not just about adding a tree to the greenway,' Lehrer said. 'We already have a lot of trees, but we need a team of people who can take care of them. Trees are critical especially as we face summers of extreme heat and can help with managing stormwater runoff.' The Providence Neighborhood Planting Program is not named in the lawsuit, even though $700,000 in federal funding for the PVD Tree Plan was abruptly halted two months ago, said Cassie Tharinger, executive director. 'We are a tiny organization with four staff, so we're just in scramble mode,' Tharinger said in an interview Tuesday. 'We're just trying to be like, how do we not lay anyone off and not let down people in the community who were poised to be community ambassadors and tree liaisons.' A separate U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant awarded to the Watershed Council just before the November election to create an environmental justice education program has also been pulled, Lehrer said. She has been unable to get more details since the EPA has put its environmental justice workers on leave and closed its D.C. offices in early February. 'Congress voted to support the work of nonprofits like the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council,' Miriam Weizenbaum, one of the lawyers for the nonprofits, said in a statement. 'Our Constitution gives our representatives and senators, and not the executive, the authority to do exactly that job.' Weizenbaum previously served as the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General's Civil Division Chief until April 2024. The Watershed Council has other projects and funding sources to stay afloat. But that's not the case for other nonprofits. Roughly 80% of the budget for Green Infrastructure Center comes from federal funding now in question, the complaint states. The Virginia-based tree planting and conservation group, which has offices and employees in Rhode Island, has already furloughed some of its new workers after funds dried up; if the funding freeze continues, they will have to lay off their entire staff, according to the complaint. Meanwhile, the Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District can't forge ahead with plans to set up the first municipal composting site in Bristol and Newport counties due to the on-again, off-again nature of a $350,000 federal grant, the complaint states. And Providence-based Childhood Lead Action Project can't access a $500,000 award for worker and landlord training about lead safety laws. Nationwide, consequences have hit nonprofit projects dealing with wildfire prevention, protecting national parks from invasive species, and weatherization training classes for low-income residents looking to lower their utility bills, the complaint states. 'Across the country, congressionally-approved infrastructure resources are being held up by this lawless Administration,' Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward said in a statement. 'This administration is literally taking money away from the communities who have been waiting for needed infrastructure improvement. We are fighting back on behalf of the nonprofit organizations and communities that rely on these critical investments to improve public health, create jobs, and protect our environment. The law is clear: these funds must be released, and we will hold this administration accountable in court.' Attorneys for the nonprofits have asked U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy to order federal cabinet agencies to unfreeze funds now as the case proceeds through court. The U.S. Department of Justice, which is representing the host of federal agencies named as defendants, has until March 27 to respond to the request for a preliminary injunction under court orders issued Tuesday. The DOJ did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment on Tuesday. Already in federal court in Providence, Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. has ordered federal agencies to make funding available to state governments, following a Jan. 28 lawsuit filed by 23 Democratic attorneys general, including Rhode Island's Peter Neronha. Despite McConnell's March 6 order, some federal funds, including 215 grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were inaccessible as of March 12, according to new court filings by the AGs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
