Trump’s Order to Pause Federal Grants Causes Chaos in the Conservation World
While state and local governments scrambled today to learn how the Trump Administration’s freeze on federal grants affects programs like Medicaid and Head Start, the edict may also have immediate implications for wildlife management funding.
State wildlife grants administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are likely to be among federal funds affected by the pause. The USFWS in mid-January reported that nearly $1 billion in wildlife restoration funds and another $416 million in sport-fish restoration funds generated in fiscal year 2025 were being apportioned to state fish-and-game agencies to fund fish and wildlife management, habitat and access projects, and education and outreach initiatives. Those funds that haven’t yet been paid out are now apparently frozen, part of a government-wide “pause” in federal “grants, loans, or federal financial aid.”
Late this afternoon, a federal judge temporarily blocked the order from going into effect.
That USFWS funds might be paused caught many sources off guard. They had expected the funds — excise-tax revenue from the sale of guns, ammunition, archery gear, and fishing tackle known as Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson dollars — to be unaffected because they’re not U.S. Treasury revenues but rather specially earmarked pass-through funds.
Meanwhile, other conservation funding is likely to be paused. That includes unappropriated funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Congress during the Biden Administration. Large grants from those funds have been used by conservation non-profits, including the National Wild Turkey Federation and Mule Deer Foundation, for stewardship work historically performed by federal agencies. In other words, funds that aren’t already committed to specific habitat projects might be clawed back, according to the OMB memo.
“It’s our understanding that’s all being paused, at least the unobligated dollars,” said a source close to the administration who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn’t have authority to speak on the record. “Funds that have been spent, or have been transferred to NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and earmarked for specific projects, are not affected by the pause.”
It’s less clear if funds distributed through the Land and Water Conservation Fund, collected through a federal tax on off-shore oil and gas sales and distributed to states and local governments for outdoor recreation, open-space acquisition, and access projects, will be affected.
In a memo defining the terms of Trump’s executive order, the federal Office of Management and Budget noted that any pause could be as short as a day or somewhat longer, in order “to give agencies time to ensure that financial assistance conforms to the policies set out in the President’s Executive Orders, to the extent permitted by law.”
The OMB memo states that “Funds for small businesses, farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance, and other similar programs will not be paused.” Instead, the freeze would be “expressly limited to programs, projects, and activities implicated by the President’s Executive Orders, such as ending DEI, the green new deal, and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interest.”
The memo specifically notes that federal Medicaid reimbursements won’t be affected, but within an hour of the executive order, states reported that their portal to access Medicaid funds was frozen.
“Everything is so uncertain right now. This is an unprecedented situation and we are waiting for guidance just like everyone else,” says Ariel Alberti Wiegard, vice president of government affairs for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. “We haven’t yet gotten clarity from our agency partners and we also haven’t gotten clarity from Congress. We’re just in wait-and-see mode, like so many others in the conservation and hunting community who utilize these programs.”
When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, it included an additional $19.5 billion for Farm Bill conservation programs. As of Spring 2024, about $14 billion of that nearly $20 billion had not yet been spent. Monday’s executive order likely freezes those funds, since the IRA is widely considered by Republicans as part of the Green New Deal referenced in the memo.
“There are a couple possibilities for those IRA dollars. One, they could get cut or rolled back through the OMB effort,” says Wiegard, referring to the memo. Other possibilities include returning the funds to the Treasury, reallocating them, or leaving them to support another five-year Farm Bill.
Much of the habitat work being outsourced to conservation groups represents an important way to deliver vital stewardship while responsibly using public funds, says Katie McKalip, vice president of communications and marketing for the Ruffed Grouse and American Woodcock societies, which delivers some of that federally directed conservation work.
“Our work is the very definition of government efficiency, and outputs and outcomes from this work — and from our national forests — support communities all across the country,” says McKalip. “We’re committed to seeing this crucial habitat work advance, and we look forward to working with the administration to continue to create and build healthy forest landscapes.”
In addition to supporting key conservation projects, federal grant money also helps fund some staff salaries at organizations like the National Deer Association.
“People are wondering if they have jobs, if they don’t have jobs,” says NDA president and CEO Nick Pinizzotto. “Initially we had concerns [since] our state agencies get a certain amount of funding from Pittman-Robertson and [staff] positions that we would have are also tied to that money. So that would be a huge impact not only to us, but many of our partners.”
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Source: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/trump-freeze-federal-spending-conservation-hunting/
