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Yahoo
12-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
This Alaska Native fishing village was trying to power their town. Then came Trump's funding cuts.
For the fewer than a hundred people that make up the entire population of Port Heiden, Alaska, fishing provides both a paycheck and a full dinner plate. Every summer, residents of the Alutiiq village set out on commercial boats to catch salmon swimming upstream in the nearby rivers of Bristol Bay. John Christensen, Port Heiden's tribal president, is currently making preparations for the annual trek. In a week's time, he and his 17-year-old son will charter Queen Ann, the family's 32-foot boat, eight hours north to brave some of the planet's highest tides, extreme weather risks, and other treacherous conditions. The two will keep at it until August, hauling in thousands of pounds of fish each day that they later sell to seafood processing companies. It's grueling work that burns a considerable amount of costly fossil fuel energy, and there are scarcely any other options. Because of their location, diesel costs almost four times the national average — the Alaska Native community spent $900,000 on fuel in 2024 alone. Even Port Heiden's diesel storage tanks are posing challenges. Coastal erosion has created a growing threat of leaks in the structures, which are damaging to the environment and expensive to repair, and forced the tribe to relocate them further inland. On top of it all, of course, diesel generators contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and are notoriously noisy. 'Everything costs more. Electricity goes up, diesel goes up, every year. And wages don't,' Christensen said. 'We live on the edge of the world. And it's just tough.' In 2015, the community built a fish processing plant that the tribe collectively owns; they envisioned a scenario in which tribal members would not need to share revenue with processing companies, would bring home considerably more money, and wouldn't have to spend months at a time away from their families. But the building has remained nonoperational for an entire decade, because they simply can't afford to power it. Enormous amounts of diesel are needed, says Christensen, to run the filleting and gutting machines, separators and grinders, washing and scaling equipment, and even to store the sheer amount of fish the village catches every summer in freezers and refrigerators. They can already barely scrape together the budget needed to pay for the diesel that powers their boats, institutions, homes, and airport. The onslaught of energy challenges that Port Heiden is facing, Christensen says, is linked to a corresponding population decline. Their fight for energy independence is a byproduct of colonial policies that have limited the resources and recourse that Alaska Native tribes like theirs have. 'Power is 90 percent of the problem,' said Christensen. 'Lack of people is the rest. But cheaper power would bring in more people.' In 2023, Climate United, a national investment fund and coalition, submitted a proposal to participate in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or GGRF — a $27 billion investment from the Inflation Reduction Act and administered by the Environmental Protection Agency to 'mobilize financing and private capital to address the climate crisis.' Last April, the EPA announced it had chosen three organizations to disseminate the program's funding; $6.97 billion was designated to go to Climate United. Then, in the course of President Donald Trump's sweeping federal disinvestment campaign, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was singled out as a poster child for what Trump's EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed was 'criminal.' 'The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,' Zeldin said in February. He then endeavored on a crusade to get the money back. As the financial manager for GGRF, Citibank, the country's third-largest financial institution, got caught in the middle. The New York Times reported that investigations into Biden officials' actions in creating the program and disbursing the funds had not found any 'meaningful evidence' of criminal wrongdoing. On March 4, Zeldin announced that the GGRF funding intended to go to Climate United and seven other organizations had been frozen. The following week, Climate United filed a joint lawsuit against the EPA, which they followed with a motion for a temporary restraining order against Zeldin, the EPA and Citibank from taking actions to implement the termination of the grants. On March 11, the EPA sent Climate United a letter of funding termination. In April, a federal D.C. district judge ruled that the EPA had terminated the grants unlawfully and blocked the EPA from clawing them back. The Trump administration then appealed the decision. Climate United is still awaiting the outcome of that appeal. While they do, the $6.97 billion remains inaccessible. Climate United's money was intended to support a range of projects from Hawai'i to the East Coast, everything from utility-scale solar to energy-efficient community centers — and a renewable energy initiative in Port Heiden. The coalition had earmarked $6 million for the first round of a pre-development grant program aimed at nearly two dozen Native communities looking to adopt or expand renewable energy power sources. 'We made investments in those communities, and we don't have the capital to support those projects,' said Climate United's Chief Community Officer Krystal Langholz. In response to an inquiry from Grist, an EPA spokesperson noted that 'Unlike the Biden-Haris administration, this EPA is committed to being an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars.' The spokesperson said that Zeldin had terminated $20 billion in grant agreements because of 'substantial concerns regarding the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program integrity, the award process, and programmatic waste and abuse, which collectively undermine the fundamental goals and statutory objectives of the award.' A representative of Citibank declined to comment. The Bureau of the Fiscal Service did not respond to requests for comment. Long before most others recognized climate change as an urgent existential crisis, the Alutiiq peoples of what is now known as Port Heiden, but was once called Meshik, were forced to relocate because of rising seawater. With its pumice-rich volcanic soils and exposed location on the peninsula that divides Bristol Bay from the Gulf of Alaska, the area is unusually vulnerable to tidal forces that erode land rapidly during storms. Beginning in 1981, disappearing sea ice engulfed buildings and homes. The community eventually moved their village about a ten-minute drive further inland. No one lives at the old site anymore, but important structures still remain, including safe harbor for fishing boats. The seas, of course, are still rising, creeping up to steal the land from right below the community's feet. In a region that's warming faster than just about any other place on the planet, much of the land is on the precipice of being swallowed by water. From 2017 to 2018, the old site lost between 35 and 65 feet of shoreline, as reported by the Bristol Bay Times. Even the local school situated on the newer site is affected by the shrinking shoreline — the institution and surrounding Alutiiq village, increasingly threatened by the encroaching sea. Before the Trump administration moved to terminate their funding, Christensen's dream of transitioning the Port Heiden community to renewable sources of energy, consequential for both maintaining its traditional lifestyle and ensuring its future, had briefly seemed within reach. He also saw it as a way to contribute to global solutions to the climate crisis. 'I don't think [we are] the biggest contributor to global pollution, but if we could do our part and not pollute, maybe we won't erode as fast,' he said. 'I know we're not very many people, but to us, that's our community.' The tribe planned to use a $300,000 grant from Climate United to pay for the topographic and waterway studies needed to design two run-of-the-river hydropower plants. In theory, the systems, which divert a portion of flowing water through turbines, would generate enough clean energy to power the entirety of Port Heiden, including the idle fish-processing facility. The community also envisioned channeling hydropower to run a local greenhouse, where they could expand what crops they raise and the growing season, further boosting local food access and sovereignty. In even that short period of whiplash — from being awarded the grant to watching it vanish — the village's needs have become increasingly urgent. Meeting the skyrocketing cost of diesel, according to Christensen, is no longer feasible. The community's energy crisis and ensuing cost of living struggle have already started prompting an exodus, with the population declining at a rate of little over 3 percent every year — a noticeable loss when the town's number rarely exceeds a hundred residents to begin with. 'It's really expensive to live out here. And I don't plan on moving anytime soon. And my kids, they don't want to go either. So I have to make it better, make it easier to live here,' Christensen said. Janine Bloomfield, grants specialist at 10Power, the organization that Port Heiden partnered with to help write their grant application, said they are currently waiting for a decision to be made in the lawsuit 'that may lead to the money being unfrozen.' In the interim, she said, recipients have been asked to work with Climate United on paperwork 'to be able to react quickly in the event that the funds are released.' For its part, Climate United is also now exploring other funding strategies. The coalition is rehauling the structure of the money going to Port Heiden and other Native communities. Rather than awarding it as a grant, where recipients would have to pay the costs upfront and be reimbursed later, Climate United will now issue loans to the communities originally selected for the pre-development grants that don't require upfront costs and will be forgiven upon completion of the agreed-upon deliverables. Their reason for the transition, according to Langholz, was 'to increase security, decrease administrative burden on our partners, and create credit-building opportunities while still providing strong programmatic oversight.' Still, there are downsides to consider with any loan, including being stuck with debt. In many cases, said Chéri Smith, a Mi'Kmaq descendant who founded and leads the nonprofit Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, replacing a federal grant with a loan, even a forgivable one, 'adds complexity and risk for Tribal governments.' Forgivable loans 'become a better option' in later stages of development or for income-generating infrastructure, said Smith, who is on the advisory board of Climate United, but are 'rarely suitable for common pre-development needs.' That's because pre-feasibility work, such as Port Heiden's hydropower project, 'is inherently speculative, and Tribes should not be expected to risk even conditional debt to validate whether their own resources can be developed.' This is especially true in Alaska, she added, where costs and logistical challenges are exponentially higher for the 229 federally recognized tribes than in the lower 48, and outcomes much less predictable. Raina Thiele, Dena'ina Athabascan and Yup'ik, who formerly served in the Biden administration as senior adviser for Alaska affairs to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and former tribal liaison to President Obama, said the lending situation is particularly unique when it comes to Alaska Native communities, because of how Congress historically wrote legislation relating to a land claim settlement which saw tribes deprived of control over resources and land. Because of that, it's been incredibly difficult for communities to build capacity, she noted, making even a forgivable loan 'a bit of a high-risk endeavor.' The question of trust also shows up — the promise of loan forgiveness, in particular, is understandably difficult for communities who have long faced exploitation and discrimination in public and privatized lending programs. 'Grant programs are a lot more familiar,' she said. Even so, the loan from Climate United would only be possible if the court rules in its favor and compels the EPA to release the money. If the court rules against Climate United, Langholz told Grist, the organization plans to pursue damage claims in another court and may seek philanthropic fundraising to help Port Heiden come up with the $300,000, in addition to the rest of the $6 million promised to the nearly two dozen Native communities originally selected for the grant program. 'These cuts can be a matter of life or death for many of these communities being able to heat their homes, essentially,' said Thiele. While many different stakeholders wait to see how the federal funding crisis will play out, Christensen doesn't know what to make of the proposed grant-to-loan shift for Port Heiden's hydropower project. The landscape has changed so quickly and drastically, it has, however, prompted him to lose what little faith he had left in federal funding. He has already begun to brainstorm other ways to ditch diesel. 'We'll figure it out,' he said. 'I'll find the money, if I have to. I'll win the lottery, and spend the money on cheaper power.' This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This Alaska Native fishing village was trying to power their town. Then came Trump's funding cuts. on Jun 12, 2025.
E&E News
05-06-2025
- Business
- E&E News
House Republicans see ‘massive grift' in EPA climate grants
Republicans tore into the EPA green bank program Wednesday as part of a 'massive grift' and 'revolving door' that directs taxpayer money to Democratic causes and groups. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $27 billion program created by the Inflation Reduction Act, was a main focus of a hearing meant to example nonprofit organizations that get federal money. It was in the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, the panel formed to further the causes of the Elon Musk-founded U.S. DOGE Service, also known as the 'Department of Government Efficiency.' Advertisement Musk's relationship with Republicans is now strained over his criticism of the party's tax megabill, a fact Democrats pointed out frequently in Wednesday's hearing.
Business Insider
19-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
How Trump's EPA wrecking ball could also damage new housing
President Donald Trump has dismantled federal agencies and slashed spending as he's pledged to " gut the weaponized deep state." He has also vowed to ease the housing shortage across the nation. One promise may come at the expense of the other in the case of one agency's retrenchment. In February, his administration sought to take back $20 billion awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency during Joe Biden's presidency to fund decarbonization projects around the country. The head of the EPA has justified the clawback attempt with unproven accusations that the grants were marred by "programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse." As a result, tens of thousands of new apartments and houses that were expected to be financed with a portion of the EPA money are now in danger of not being built, nonprofit groups who were granted the funding say. Climate United, a coalition that received roughly $7 billion of the money — known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — is suing the EPA along with other awardees over the withheld funding. The nonprofit estimates that about 30,000 single-family homes and another 30,000 apartment units were to be built with some of the funds that it and another group were set to administer. "There's a significant part of the strategy focused on building not only new housing but new affordable and workforce housing," Beth Bafford, the CEO of Climate United, said. There are varied estimates on how many new homes are needed in the US. Freddie Mac, a mortgage lending agency, calculated recently that the country is short about 3.7 million units. While the tens of thousands of homes that might be built with money from the GGRF would be just a small contribution toward that huge need, the fund's proponents say the money would go to a particularly impactful segment of the market. Bafford said that the focus of the GGRF money was on housing development projects in a part of the market with a lack of private sector financing options: affordable projects using energy-efficient systems and materials that are environmentally sustainable while helping mitigate utility costs for residents. "We see massive gaps in the financial markets, and this program was built to address some of those gaps," Bafford said. A spokesperson for Climate United said it had "disbursed $25 million in loans and committed over $500 million in loans before the EPA terminated our grant agreement without warning." "Unlike the Biden-Haris administration, this EPA is committed to being an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars," an unnamed spokesperson from the EPA responded in an email. The spokesperson said the GGRF's termination was "based on substantial concerns" over its "integrity, the award process, and programmatic waste and abuse, which collectively undermine the fundamental goals and statutory objectives of the award." Some developers are already feeling the impact The impacts of the freeze have already been felt by some developers. Megan Lasch, the chief executive of O-SDA Industries, a for-profit builder of affordable housing based in Austin, said the EPA's clawback attempt made her reshuffle a portion of the financing package she had been arranging for a 90-unit affordable apartment project her firm is developing in Fort Worth, Texas. The roughly $37 million development involves renovating 801 West Shaw St., a historic building with 45 rental apartments, erecting an additional 45 units on land adjacent to the property, and building a pre-K facility. Lasch said she had arranged to use some $3 million of GGRF money for the project from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a member of Power Forward Communities, a coalition that received $2 billion of the EPA money. When the GGRF money was held up, Lasch said that she found a replacement loan but that the new funding is more costly, carrying a roughly 4.5% interest rate versus the GGRF loan's roughly 1% rate. "The patch was not pretty," Lasch said, adding that affordable housing projects often have thin margins and require deeply discounted financing to work. "There's going to be ultimately a lot of projects that will just go by the wayside because they're not able to come up with a patch." The 801 West Shaw St. building is set to offer rents that are affordable for residents who earn between 30% and 60% of the area's median income, Lasch said. Damon Burns, the CEO of Finance New Orleans, a public trust that helps fund and develop affordable housing in its namesake city, said that his organization had been allocated $5 million from the Coalition for Green Capital, which received $5 billion of GGRF money from the EPA. Finance New Orleans was seeking to use about $1 million of that $5 million it was to receive in combination with $1.5 million of other funds it holds to build six or seven new homes with net-zero emissions. Using GGRF money to augment his organization's funding pipeline to build more housing was a model that Burns said he had hoped to scale. He said the prospect of having the GGRF money withdrawn was daunting because New Orleans is "already a financially constrained city." "There is a huge concern that the disinvestment of the federal government will have an impact on all of our communities," Burns said. "It means less mortgages for homeowners. It means less capital for developers." A climate-focused financing initiative The GGRF was created with $27 billion of federal funds from the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed in 2022. Some $20 billion of that amount was awarded to Climate United, Power Forward Communities, the Coalition for Green Capital, and other groups for various climate-focused financing initiatives. The remaining $7 billion went toward a federal program to fund residential solar energy installation projects. In December, Project Veritas, a conservative media organization, published a video that showed a former EPA official suggesting that the agency, under Biden, had fast-tracked its award of the money in anticipation that the incoming Trump administration might seek to scuttle the program. In the video, the official said: "It truly feels like we're on the Titanic and we're throwing gold bars off the edge." Lee Zeldin, a former Long Island, New York, congressman whom Trump appointed as the head of the EPA in January, cited the video as evidence of misconduct in the allocation of the funds. "One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars," Zeldin said in a video posted on his X account in February. "The 'gold bars' were your tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it." Zeldin has ordered the termination of the GGRF. In March, Climate United sued the EPA and Citibank, the financial intermediary for the $20 billion, in the federal district court in Washington, DC, over their refusal to release the money. Power Forward and the Coalition for Green Capital have joined the suit. The EPA lost the initial argument for the case but has brought its complaint to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where it won a preliminary order in April to freeze the money as its appeal is being considered. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday. 'Every single project in the country is looking for gap funding' While Climate United estimated that terminating the GGRF would put roughly 60,000 homes at risk, other parties involved in the financing program say that number could be even greater. There has been a sharp increase in the number of housing developers interested in tapping financing from the GGRF, said Shaun Donovan, the president and CEO of the nonprofit housing lender Enterprise Community Partners. He was a secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration. Donovan attributed that interest to growing construction costs from inflation and tariffs, which have driven up the price of building materials. Those overruns have punched holes in the budgets of a host of development projects that builders have scrambled to fill. "Every single project in the country is looking for gap funding," Donovan said. "What this GGRF money can do is to be that last dollar in, right? So even if it's only 5% or 10% of the project." A spokesperson for Enterprise said that it had received inquiries for about $1.2 billion of financing in recent months for a collection of projects totaling 18,426 units. "My concern is that what this and other efforts to cut housing programs will do is make it impossible for the president to meet his goal of reducing housing costs," Donovan said.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SCOOP: Biden-era grant program described as 'gold bar' scheme by Trump EPA administrator under scrutiny
FIRST ON FOX: Republicans in Congress are launching a probe into a Biden-era green energy grant program that sent billions in funding to climate groups tied to Democrats and former President Joe Biden's allies. GOP leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to the eight nonprofits awarded grants from the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), seeking answers to ensure the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed proper ethics and conflict of interest protocols in distributing the funds. In February, the Trump administration's EPA announced it would take steps to get the money back, citing concerns over a lack of oversight related to how the money was being disbursed. In the announcement, new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin cited comments from a former Biden EPA political appointee, who described disbursements made through GGRF as akin to "tossing gold bars off the Titanic," because Biden officials were allegedly trying to get money out the door before Trump took over. Epa Administrator Rolls Back 31 Biden-era Regulations It was also revealed that $2 billion from GGRF went to a Stacy Abrams-linked group, Power Forward Communities, which had not been established until after the Biden administration announced the GGRF application process. Meanwhile, during Power Forward's first few months of operations — prior to receiving the funding — the group reported just $100 in revenue. Climate United, another group that received the most money from the GGRF, roughly $7 billion, currently staffs a former Biden climate advisor who worked during the last two years of the former president's term. The same group is also run by a CEO with ties to the Obama administration and a board member who was among those invited to Biden's signing ceremony for his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021. Read On The Fox News App Several GGRF grant recipients have ties to Democrats and Biden advisors, and some were reportedly founded shortly before or after the Biden administration announced the program. Meanwhile, these groups, according to Zeldin, had sole discretion on how to use the funds. Comer Probes Ngos That Received $20B In Biden Epa Grants Despite Almost No Revenue: 'Shady Deal' House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., alongside fellow committee members Reps. Gary Palmer of Alabama and Morgan Griffith of Virginia, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that their investigation into the GGRF recipients will be "key" to understanding whether these funds were allocated "fairly and impartially to qualified applicants," while also helping to determine the manner in which the money has been used. "The Committee has had concerns about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program since its creation—including concerns about the program's unusual structure, a potential lack of due diligence in selecting award recipients, and the recipients' ability to manage the large influx of federal dollars they received from the EPA," the lawmakers said in their statement. "A recent Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing that examined these concerns coupled with the speed with which money was pushed out the door by the Biden Administration's EPA heightened the Committee's concerns and raised additional questions about certain Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund recipients." Lee Zeldin Stands Firm On Efforts To Claw Back Biden-era Epa Funding: 'I'm Not Going To Apologize' Several of the groups that were recipients of GGRF money sued the Trump administration in March over its attempts to rake back the funds. Subsequently, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order preventing the EPA from freezing $14 billion in GGRF funds awarded to three of the climate article source: SCOOP: Biden-era grant program described as 'gold bar' scheme by Trump EPA administrator under scrutiny
Fox News
11-04-2025
- Business
- Fox News
SCOOP: Biden-era grant program described as 'gold bar' scheme by Trump EPA administrator under scrutiny
FIRST ON FOX: Republicans in Congress are launching a probe into a Biden-era green energy grant program that sent billions in funding to climate groups tied to Democrats and former President Joe Biden's allies. GOP leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to the eight nonprofits awarded grants from the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), seeking answers to ensure the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed proper ethics and conflict of interest protocols in distributing the funds. In February, the Trump administration's EPA announced it would take steps to get the money back, citing concerns over a lack of oversight related to how the money was being disbursed. In the announcement, new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin cited comments from a former Biden EPA political appointee, who described disbursements made through GGRF as akin to "tossing gold bars off the Titanic," because Biden officials were allegedly trying to get money out the door before Trump took over. It was also revealed that $2 billion from GGRF went to a Stacy Abrams-linked group, Power Forward Communities, which had not been established until after the Biden administration announced the GGRF application process. Meanwhile, during Power Forward's first few months of operations – prior to receiving the funding – the group reported just $100 in revenue. Climate United, another group that received the most money from the GGRF, roughly $7 billion, currently staffs a former Biden climate advisor who worked during the last two years of the former president's term. The same group is also run by a CEO with ties to the Obama administration and a board member who was among those invited to Biden's signing ceremony for his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021. Several GGRF grant recipients have ties to Democrats and Biden advisors, and some were reportedly founded shortly before or after the Biden administration announced the program. Meanwhile, these groups, according to Zeldin, had sole discretion on how to use the funds. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., alongside fellow committee members Reps. Gary Palmer of Alabama and Morgan Griffith of Virginia, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that their investigation into the GGRF recipients will be "key" to understanding whether these funds were allocated "fairly and impartially to qualified applicants," while also helping to determine the manner in which the money has been used. "The Committee has had concerns about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program since its creation—including concerns about the program's unusual structure, a potential lack of due diligence in selecting award recipients, and the recipients' ability to manage the large influx of federal dollars they received from the EPA," the lawmakers said in their statement. "A recent Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing that examined these concerns coupled with the speed with which money was pushed out the door by the Biden Administration's EPA heightened the Committee's concerns and raised additional questions about certain Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund recipients." Several of the groups that were recipients of GGRF money sued the Trump administration in March over its attempts to rake back the funds. Subsequently, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order preventing the EPA from freezing $14 billion in GGRF funds awarded to three of the climate groups.
