Despite the Office of Management and Budget’s rescission of the federal funding freeze, for some programs funding is still paused. While most Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act (IIJA) funding has been released, Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) dollars are largely unreachable and confusion persists about what funding may become available to be outlaid, even after a judge ordered the Trump administration to properly unfreeze federal funding on Monday.
Two of the largest pots of remaining funding tracked on the Water Program Portal are the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) programs and the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) four climate-smart agriculture programs. The SRFs are partially funded by IIJA while these USDA programs — the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) — receive money from IRA. Altogether, these programs represent an investment of more than $43 billion through the EPA and of $18 billion through the USDA. What do we know about that money?
SRF funding is flowing again. On February 5th, the EPA’s funding freeze was lifted by a memo from the agency’s Office of Budget. The memo noted that the office would later release a detailed list of programs whose outlaying would restart; all federal agencies have received this direction. As of now, that list has not been circulated. However, the SRFs are all believed to be on the list. Yet some states remain unable to access funding.
SRFs aside, most of EPA’s IRA funded climate programs continue to be frozen. As a result, many awardees that have been promised obligated funds wait in limbo. Turning off the tap of federal funding threatens climate efforts without officially telling awardees to stop, particularly for projects sited in low-income areas.
Climate-smart ag funding at USDA is frozen. The situation is similar over at the USDA, where climate-smart agriculture payments to grantees have also been paused. Notably, a memo from the Trump Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had previously assured farmers that agricultural programs would not be impacted at the onset of the funding freeze. This has not been the case. Another OMB memo outlined 409 USDA programs and their overseers that the office is questioning.
Clarification may be on the way now that the Senate confirmed Brooke Rollins as the Secretary of Agriculture yesterday. Yet the harms of the pause in funding have already crystallized. One Missouri cattle producer purchased fencing, water lines, and a well after being obligated funding from EQIP. Now that the program’s disbursement of obligated funds has been paused, his operation is at risk. And with the OMB’s review of USDA programs persisting through March 15, it may be some time before what these grantees are owed is paid.
For the funding freeze to persist longer than 45 days, it will need Congressional approval. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is poised to begin breaching potentially thousands of contacts with grantees. We will continue to monitor this situation closely — sign up for the Water Program Portal for free to receive our bi-weekly digest.
