The status of more than $50 million in federal grants to Washington’s Department of Ecology remained in doubt late Tuesday, halting projects on water quality, shoreline restoration and toxic site cleanup.
Casey Sixkiller, the department’s new director, outlined the stalled funding Wednesday morning as local, state and federal officials from Washington described fallout from President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to pause a range of federal spending.
The state Department of Transportation has seen money blocked for electric charger repairs, bridge work and court-mandated culvert replacement projects for fish passage, among other programs, said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The electric vehicle programs total $102 million, including $71 million for new chargers, $10 million to replace or repair chargers and $21 million for truck charging and hydrogen refueling stations along Interstate 5, according to the transportation department. The state hadn’t disbursed any of the money.
Murray also cited electric infrastructure projects at Washington’s ports and wildlife preservation work as programs on hold. Murray added that street safety projects in Richland and Spokane were also paused.
“And there are many other projects and organizations and people who are being harmed right now by the president’s reckless funding freeze,” Murray told reporters.
The information released Wednesday gave the fullest picture yet of what funding destined for Washington state the Trump administration halted in the opening weeks of his presidency.
Last week, the White House budget office released a memo that called for freezing an array of federal spending, resulting in confusion across the country among those who rely on the funds. The Trump administration later rescinded the memo and it remains tied up in court with multiple judges issuing preliminary rulings against it.
Separately, an executive order signed Jan. 20 targeted spending from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
At least some of the funding from those two laws was still blocked on Wednesday, including a $156 million solar power grant Washington was set to receive. For the most part, the state wasn’t planning to use that money until early next year.
On Tuesday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency reopened disbursements under the infrastructure law, but may have left frozen some Inflation Reduction Act grants, including the solar funding, said Sam Ricketts, a consultant who works with states and others on clean energy projects.
A spokesperson for Washington state’s Department of Commerce reported hearing “conflicting reports on this payment issue and whether it will be addressed.”
“We understand that this issue is affecting all Solar for All awardees,” spokesperson Penny Thomas said in an email Wednesday referring to the solar grant program.
Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson said Wednesday that Trump’s moves to stop the flow of federal funding raise significant concerns for the state. Speaking to reporters at an event, he said his office is in touch with Attorney General Nick Brown’s team on the issue. Brown is among the state attorneys general who joined one of the lawsuits against last week’s memo.
“It’s potentially very challenging, so we’ll have to see how things develop,” Ferguson said.
The state is already confronting a $12 billion to $14 billion budget deficit over four years. “Anything that adds to those budget challenges is, as you might imagine, not helping the situation,” the governor said. “So we are monitoring that very closely.”
Kids and the environment
Ecology has 22 active grants from the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA grants have been restored, but as of Tuesday night, Ecology was still locked out of 13 grants from the EPA totaling nearly $53 million, said Sixkiller, the former EPA administrator for the region that covers Washington.
Of that, $35 million had been awarded and disbursed, while the other $18 million hadn’t been disbursed yet.
“That is money that should be flowing into our communities, creating jobs, protecting public health and improving the environment,” Sixkiller said. “Instead, it is being delayed.”
Impacted projects include protecting streams from toxic chemicals in Seattle, restoring river habitat across the state and cleaning up contaminated land in the Tri-Cities that is slated to be redeveloped through the EPA’s Brownfields Program.
“Projects that are vital to our state are stalled,” Sixkiller said.
Sixkiller said the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act sent nearly $180 million to Ecology.
An Ecology spokesperson said around noon Wednesday that some of the frozen funding had apparently been unlocked but it wasn’t immediately clear how much.
Sixkiller noted that the EPA and Ecology work together closely and that apart from the funding disruptions, the Trump administration’s plans for sweeping layoffs at the agency could also hurt Washington.
The funding freeze also affected Head Start programs, which serve low-income families with young children.
While many have seen the funding spigot reopened, one program on the Olympic Peninsula still couldn’t access funding early Wednesday, said Joel Ryan, the executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and Early Childhood Education and Assistance programs.
Threat of tariffs
Meanwhile, a group of state treasurers, including Mike Pellicciotti of Washington, on Wednesday raised alarm about Trump’s plans for tariffs.
The president levied tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, but paused the import taxes on Canada and Mexico for 30 days after they pledged to boost resources for border enforcement. China retaliated with tariffs of its own.
Pellicciotti noted that in 2023 Washington exported around $10 billion worth of goods and services to Canada, while importing about $20 billion worth.
“You cannot at the same time you’re withholding federal dollars, at the same time you are dismantling a federal government and federal workers also then dismantle our economy and our trade relationships and expect things to work out well,” he said.
Washington State Standard editor Bill Lucia contributed to this report.
Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
