As Trump and DOGE Block Federal Grants, Wildfire Prevention Projects Are at Risk

CLIMATEWIRE | Efforts to limit wildfires in a conservative swath of northern Colorado are the latest casualty of the Trump administration’s on-and-off federal spending freeze.

The Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed won several million dollars in grants during the Biden administration to help reduce the intensity and likelihood of wildfires and modernize water distribution in the 1.2 million acre watershed. But now the nonprofit is among hundreds around the country in limbo as federal payments stop and start during President Donald Trump’s haphazard efforts to shrink the federal government.

“If the money comes back, I’m afraid to spend anything,” said Hally Strevey, the coalition’s executive director.

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Strevey’s predicament is representative of broader challenges facing nonprofits and small businesses as Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk try to dismantle federal agencies and slash the government workforce. While the administration has begun disbursing some previously blocked payments in response to court orders and public backlash, its initial moves have caused nonprofit executives to question whether their groups can bank on the federal grants they’ve been awarded.

Federal, state and local government grants and contracts account for 30 percent of the nonprofit sector’s revenue, with some groups entirely dependent on government funding, according to the National Council of Nonprofits, a trade association that is suing to block Trump’s spending freeze. Many small businesses work with nonprofits like the Poudre River coalition or rely on the federal government for loans, added the Main Street Alliance, a small business advocacy group that’s joined the litigation.

The Poudre River coalition was formed in 2013 in response to catastrophic wildfires the year before that had torn through the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. Climate scientists have found that global warming, mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is increasing the likelihood and damage of wildfires in the western U.S. while also making droughts and flooding more frequent.

The 2012 wildfire led massive quantities of ash and debris to flow into the Cache la Poudre River — French for “hide the powder” — and its tributaries, rending the water unusable for drinking or farming. The coalition works to restore the watershed, which includes two congressional districts represented by Republican lawmakers.

But soon after Trump took office, Strevey’s group found that water infrastructure grants it received from the Bureau of Reclamation were frozen. The Fort Collins-based coalition is also unable to access a wildfire defense grant from the Forest Service due to uncertainty about the status of the deal. All three grants were mainly funded through the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

The coalition can only access its grant funding once it has paid staffers or local contractors to do the engineering and forestry work — and Strevey is reluctant to do that because she’s not confident the Trump administration will reimburse her group for those expenses.

“That money can just disappear anytime, and the people who work there don’t even know,” said Strevey, who found Reclamation officials she spoke with were also surprised by the administration’s freeze of water infrastructure grants. “There’s no confidence in those funds for me at this point.”

Freshman Republican Rep. Gabe Evans, who represents a swing district north of Denver that’s within the Poudre watershed, said he was committed to getting “critical programs turned back on as quickly as possible” but couldn’t explain why they’d been halted in the first place.

“You’d have to take that one up with the administration,” he said.

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert stood by the administration’s actions — and blamed Democrats for neglecting timber and water resources in her deep-red district, which spans the rural eastern edge of Colorado.

“We need to be better stewards of our land and manager our forests, and I don’t see President Trump’s cuts or any of the employees that have been released that would negatively impact that,” she told POLITICO’s E&E News last week. “If anything, we could get our policies stronger and better so we can manage that.”

The White House dismissed concerns that its cuts had been indiscriminate and could harm conservative communities.

“President Trump was elected to cut wasteful spending and streamline the federal workforce, which includes dismissing probationary employees who are not mission-critical,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in an email. “His strategy to unleash economic growth will benefit American families and small businesses alike.”

Trump and Musk, the billionaire who the president has tapped to downsize the federal government, signaled at a cabinet meeting last week that further spending cuts and layoffs are coming. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has led an effort to pause federal funding and dismiss employees, including thousands of civil servants who were recently hired to help communities curtail wildfires and recover from natural disasters.

At the president’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump said he and Musk had found fraudulent government programs “and we’ve taken back the money.” Independent reviews of the administration’s efficiency effort have found that the savings it’s claimed are riddled with errors.

Trump also said “the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.” That pronouncement drew laughter from some Democratic lawmakers, who pointed to Musk sitting in the House balcony.

A federal court last week found that the Trump administration broke the law when its Office of Personnel Management directed other agencies to dismiss their probationary employees. Meanwhile, Trump’s cutbacks have pushed some environmental groups to the brink of insolvency.

Congressional Democrats broadly oppose the administration’s firing spree and moves to block climate-related spending that has been directed by law. But without control of the White House or either chamber of Congress, they are limited in what they can do for their constituents.

The best tool Democrats have to “restore funding is to shine a bright light, to have transparency, and illuminate the dangers that are coming,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), whose office collected information from wildfire-focused nonprofits in his state about the impacts of Trump’s cuts.

Another option is to “go home and get a pitchfork,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like [doing] that.”

The National Council of Nonprofits and Main Street Alliance succeeded in temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s spending freeze. But the litigation is ongoing, effectively suspending wildfire mitigation grants for the Poudre River coalition and other nonprofits.

“Preparation for the next wildfire season is on hold,” said Rick Cohen, the council’s chief operating officer. “It really isn’t hyperbole to say that lives are at stake with these pauses and these grant cancellations.”