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The Trump administration's attempt to impose a wide-ranging freeze on federal funds threw Western states and Tribal nations into chaos on Tuesday. The order from the Office of Management and Budget was broadly written and short on specifics, and included a 51-page spreadsheet that targeted thousands of federal grant programs for review.
In the hours between the freeze announcement Tuesday morning and a judge's order briefly halting the plan in the afternoon, Tribal leaders began to prepare for the impact to health care, agriculture, law enforcement and other programs. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has a $4.7 billion annual budget to fulfill the federal government's trust obligations.
“We prepaid for every penny we get with nearly 2 billion acres of land,” said Aaron A. Payment, former first vice president of the National Congress of American Indians. "Treaties do not expire when we change presidents so we expect the federal government to be good to their word and not interrupt our funding. Our funding should be fully funded, mandatory, and multiples of what it is today."
In Colorado, the Trump administration's attempt to pull funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act threw drought mitigation, wildfire prevention, and environmental cleanup plans into doubt. The Denver Post reported that a sanitation district in northern Colorado was supposed to receive a $96 million loan from the EPA to replace its wastewater infrastructure, which includes Rocky Mountain National Park. The district manager told the Post she made six calls on Tuesday to ask about the loan—and no one returned her calls.
Judge tosses Arizona monument challenge
A federal judge in Arizona threw out a lawsuit by state legislators who sued to overturn former President Joe Biden's designation of Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Judge Stephen McNamee said the state Senate president and former state House speaker didn't even have standing to bring a claim against the monument; the state's executive branch would have needed to file the lawsuit. “The Legislature is not authorized to bring claims on behalf of the state,” McNamee wrote. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs had urged President Biden to create the monument.
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The Tribal Nations in the Grand Canyon region have had to fight incredibly hard for protections in the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni region. Again and again, Tribal cultural needs and even the health of Native American people in the region have been sidelined in order to maximize corporate profits. Today’s decision cannot undo the damage that already has been done, but it leaves in place some long-sought protections going forward.”
