Fall River Joint Unified School District’s March 12 Board meeting began with business as usual, including an announcement from student representatives praising a recent art fair and the athletic teams’ triumphs. 

The room’s atmosphere shifted, though, when Teresea Spooner, Fall River’s longtime Chief Business Officer (CBO), segued to a more consequential matter. In statements to the Board, Spooner cautiously yet firmly announced a looming financial predicament that, according to her calculations, simply cannot be ignored: an approximate operating deficit of $2.5 million in the next academic year. 

Her statements prefaced a Board agenda item that could have resulted in the elimination of approximately eight staff positions for cost savings, a recommendation made by Spooner and District Superintendent, Morgan Nugent. Their recommendation to cut positions was voted down by the Board. It’s a decision which leaves Fall River staffing intact but doesn’t address the District’s looming fiscal crisis.

In a recent interview with Shasta Scout, Spooner explained the series of events that have brought Fall River to its current financial dilemma. They include an end to one-time pandemic funding and decreasing enrollment, which together have posed a serious challenge for the District’s ability to maintain its current staffing levels. 

According to Spooner, the District added 17 full-time employees as extra support staff, using federal funds using pandemic funding administered to schools throughout the nation. Now, with the discontinuation of federal pandemic revenue, she said, the District is struggling to rebalance its budget.

“No one likes to cut, no one likes to reduce,” Spooner said to those in attendance at the District’s March 12 Board meeting. “You can add programs and add people, but you have to be able to recover from it when you need to.” 

Concurrently, the Fall River District has been adjusting to declining enrollment. The District lost approximately 53 students between the 2019-2024 school years, a result of parents choosing charter or homeschooling instead of traditional public schools, as well as a relatively low population of full-time home-owner residents in Fall River, according to staff members who spoke at the meeting and afterwards.

The drop in enrollment significantly impacts revenue. That’s because, across California, the Department of Education (CDE) uses each school’s average daily attendance (ADA) data to calculate a significant portion of school funding. 

“If I did a quick calculation of funds received that are ADA driven, I would say we would get around $16,000 per student which would equate to approximately $848,000 loss (from declining enrollment),” Spooner said. “A broad projection would lend to a loss of 4.38% (from loss of) attendance in five years.”

According to the District’s profile, Fall River, located in rural area within eastern Shasta County, serves approximately 1,160 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. According to the District’s website, Fall River comprises two elementary schools, two junior-senior high schools, two continuation high schools and one community day school. 

Both during the March 12 meeting and later in an interview with Shasta Scout, Spooner said she had urged former leadership to think past the pandemic years while stimulus funds were still flowing. Since no changes were made earlier, she explained, the District is now faced with significant cuts to rebalance the budget as COVID funds halt.

“And there was the missing link. We didn’t have a recovery plan,” Spooner continued. “We kept thinking, ‘well, we’ll just do a little here and a little there and then we’ll get there’, but we haven’t done really much of anything to get there. And that’s where we are.”

During the Board’s March 12 discussion on whether to cut staff, Board members offered few comments, only chiming in at times to elaborate upon statements by Spooner and respond to school staff. 

The staff report suggested cutting approximately seven teachers as well as a campus groundskeeper and potentially an administrator, the latter of which would assume a teaching role instead. The Board declined to cut any of the positions but without offering any real comment as to why, or what alternatives they had in mind to mitigate the pending budget crisis. 

Superintendent Nugent, who only assumed his role in July spoke to Shasta Scout after the meeting. He highlighted the lack of sustainability in one-time federal funds, specifically addressing COVID dollars provided to the state’s public school system at large.

“Some schools decided to use those funds on different projects, some schools spent a lot of money on personnel, and unfortunately one-time money is unsustainable, especially if you have a declining enrollment across California,” he said. “It’s almost a double-whammy for districts having a declining enrollment and hiring staff with one-time funds, so we’re having to go ahead and get those rebalanced.”

“There are times anywhere you’re not going to have everyone on board,” Nugent continued, addressing community pushback to reduction in forces. “This time they [the Board] decided to go ahead and not take away those positions.”

March 15 was the final deadline for districts statewide to notify staff members of layoffs, meaning the Board’ vote on the 12th closed the door to additional terminations this year. The only exception, according to Nugent, would be staff termination resulting from disciplinary issues which could occur later. 

At this month’s Apr. 9 meeting, which a reporter from Shasta Scout attended virtually, no notes were shared regarding how the District would proceed to navigate its looming fiscal crisis. To put the approximately $2.5 million pending deficit into perspective, Fall River’s 2024-2025 budget is only about $16 million according to the District’s First and Second Interim Budget Report.

According to Nugent, District staff are looking to modify school transportation, technology purchases and curriculum to try to shrink the budget as much as possible.

“There’s still some [bus] routes that are not full,” Nugent said. “Basically for a mile of driving a bus is $5.50. So for us if we can go ahead and use vans for sporting trips or some of those other ones, that cost drops all the way down to $0.90.”

Nugent also stated that Fall River, like most school Districts, purchases different sources of curriculum for a variety of subjects and grade-levels. 

“Some of those [curricula] are not being utilized,” he said. “So we’re making decisions based on similar programs that we already have in place to minimize duplication or replication.”

Fall River’s financial predicament appears to reflect a larger trend regarding the effect of declining enrollment and loss of COVID funding on the nation’s public schools. Several districts within Shasta County are reportedly struggling to rebalance their budgets amid decreasing student enrollment and a halt to COVID funds. Layoffs have also been reported across the state – including in Oakland, San Francisco and Pasadena.

In addition, Nugent addressed how a lack of affordable housing for those who reside in Shasta County, and California at large, has contributed to declining enrollment in the state’s public schools, saying many local homes in the Fall River area are being bought up as vacation properties.

“A lot of our homes are also second or third homes for people who don’t reside in the community. It makes it hard for people to raise a family up here,” he said. “It’s a (losing) situation for us when we have such a beautiful place to be and have amazing teachers and programs, but it’s harder for families to stay in California or in our community… and then we have to make cuts.”

Spooner, the District’s Chief Business officer, is also retiring at the end of the 2024-2025 school year. In a recent interview with Shasta Scout, Spooner stated the District recently hired her replacement, however she fears they will lack the experience to face Fall River’s finances alone.

Despite these obstacles, both Nugent and Spooner expressed a deep desire to achieve a balanced budget as soon as possible, without external interference from the county or state, and without shedding personnel.

“We’re going to continue to do the best we can for our students and continue to develop a plan on how we address the budget shortfalls,” Nugent stated. “We will work tirelessly to do the best for our community, students and staff.”

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.

MENDOCINO CO., 4/20/25 – The Trump tariffs have been a hot-button topic among Mendocino County small business owners in recent weeks. The ups and downs of the tariffs have made it hard for businesses to plan, but one thing we do know – if you import anything from outside the country, you are going to be paying more for it.  

That tasty guacamole you get from your favorite Mexican restaurant? It likely consists of avocados, chili peppers and tomatoes from Mexico and onions from China.  

“The price increase of chocolate, vanilla, coffee, eggs, avocados, just to name a few things have gotten and are crazy scary expensive for us,” shared one restaurant owner in the Mendocino County Foodies group on Facebook. Business is definitely down from last year, and I don’t think we will have as busy of a summer if people don’t travel from other countries to vacation here, so yeah, definitely scary times ahead,” she posted.  

And those eco-friendly, compostable take-out cups and packages? Those are made in China, including the Rohnert Park-based World Centric brand. According to a sales representative for the product, the price of World Centric products increased 25% effective April 1.  

The Trump administration placed baseline tariffs of 145% on all Chinese imports early this month.  

The owner of a cooking store in Ukiah shared that her vendors have increased pricing already and cited tariffs as the reason – and more increases could take place. “We’ve always tried to focus on U.S. [made] goods, but their cost has also increased exponentially over the last few months,” she wrote. “I suspect due to the supply chain and anticipation of what transpired over the last couple weeks.” 

Coffee enthusiasts are already being impacted by the tariffs, according to one Fort Bragg entrepreneur who imports coffee. They received word from a distributor last week that a one-pound bag of coffee is increasing by $1.20. That’s about a four-cent increase per cup even before retail mark-up.  

Coffee prices hit an all-time high in March at $7.38 a pound. That’s an 84% increase from January 2020. Given that 99% of the coffee we drink is imported, expect more records to be broken.

One local caterer reported that wedding clients are already reducing their commitments. She shared that the current economic situation “smells like 2020,” referring to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the economy. 

“I am not optimistic about this whole situation. The wedding and event industry is predicated on disposable income,” she wrote. “That is evaporating for our clients at the same time costs are spiking.” 

In contrast, a local rancher in Covelo who raises grass-fed, grain-finished lamb, goat and pork shares that the tariffs “shouldn’t affect my business at all, and besides I firmly believe that when everything settles down [the tariffs] won’t be an issue.” 

But no matter what your political leaning, there is no doubt that many of the local restaurants and food businesses we cherish will be impacted by the tariffs. 

And for consumers, that means it all comes down to supporting local businesses. 

If you have the means, consider dining out at least once a week at a local restaurant. Tip generously, too. A downturn in the economy means working-class folks, the servers and back-of-house staff, will be hit hard and even a few extra bucks in the tip jar can make a difference.  

Consider joining a local community-supported agriculture program (CSA) like the Mendo Lake Food Hub. The weekly deliveries of fresh produce you’ll receive can benefit your body, mind and the farmers that grow the produce. 

Visit a local farmers’ market and pick up groceries from locally owned markets, co-ops, fishermen, fishmongers and butcher shops. Don’t forget locally owned shops and boutiques for cookware and foodie gifts.  

Be sure to share dining, shopping and eating experiences on social media. Heck, it might even warrant a Yelp or Google review. Your kind words can make a huge difference for a small business.  

The post How will Trump’s tariffs impact local restaurants and food businesses? Owners share their thoughts appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

Daniel Herrera Carbajal
ICT

In March, Gila River took out 10,000 acre-feet of their allotted water from Lake Mead after the Trump administration’s Unleashing American Energy executive order froze money for any program related to the Inflation Reduction Act. The act, which Congress passed during the Biden Administration in 2022, allocated money for tribes and states in exchange for giving up some of their shares of Colorado River water.

The Trump administration later unfroze the Inflation Reduction Act funds that would be used for water conservation projects and to build canals. The act allocated around $4 billion to compensate tribes, states and other organizations to not take water out of the Colorado River to use to generate revenue like crops.

Gila River Governor Stephen Roe Lewis wrote a letter to the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Feb. 11 before removing Colorado River water from Lake Mead.

“We have given the department every opportunity to avoid what could be a calamitous break in our longstanding partnership, with terrible consequences for the entire basin,” he said.

If water levels continue dropping, hydroelectric dams on the Colorado River will not be able to generate electricity. But the compensation to not take water out of the river has been seen as a short-term solution by many experts, including Mark Squillace, a professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder who specializes in natural resource law.

“My concern is that the Biden administration seemed to be focused on short-term buyouts of water consumption,” he said. “I just don’t think that kind of approach is sustainable. What we need on the Colorado River are permanent reductions in consumption, and so spending a lot of money to temporarily buy out the rights of people to use all of their water, right, is just not something that is going to solve the problem.”

Thirty tribes have rights to the Colorado River. The river is a resource, but for the Zuni Pueblo it is the source of life.

“For the Zuni people, the Colorado River is really important because the river and the Grand Canyon are our homeland. That’s where the Zunis emerged,” said Councilman of Zuni Pueblo Edward Wemytewa.

The Colorado River has important cultural significance to each tribe that has water rights to it, but the Colorado River compact that outlined how the river would be divided was not drafted in consultation with tribes.

“Laws were created by the US governments, by the US agencies, and during those times, the federal government, in the name of public interest, they started delineating territories. They start creating laws about water usage, water compacts,” said Wemytewa. “Well, in those earlier years, when the laws were being developed and implemented, the Zuni was not at the table. Many Native peoples weren’t at the table.

“Under federal law, those tribes have the right to take their water, usually in priority over everybody else, because the date of priority for Indian water rights is the date of their reservations, which is typically within the 19th century,” said Squillace. “So those water rights tended to date back before other non-Indian users.

“Those are legal rights that they are entitled to. And so one of the things I’ve suggested in my article is that maybe we should think about closing down the river to new appropriations. Why are we continuing to appropriate new water rights when we have this crisis and we have early water rights from Native American tribes that are currently legal but not being utilized for a number of different reasons?” he said.

The current compact being used was created in 1922, and it divided the river into two basins – upper and lower.

Each basin was allotted no more than 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year, equaling 15 million acre-feet of water each year. Mexico was also allocated 1.5 million acre-feet a year. The amount of water the river produces was vastly overestimated at the time of the compact’s creation.

“At the time that they negotiated the compact, it was thought that there was maybe 18 million acre feet of water on an annual basis in the river, which turned out not to be true,” said Squillace.

Currently, the Colorado River is producing about 12.5 million acre-feet a year. A vast over-allocation of water has led to states battling over water and how to use it.

Squillace proposed a new Colorado River compact. It proposes to update states’ water usage laws and to bring tribal nations into the conversation.

“I’ve suggested that maybe we could come up with a new compact, which would look very different from the current compact, but would basically be an agreement among the states to modernize their water laws,” he said. “Right now we have a number of principles in the various state water laws that I think allow for, I don’t want to call them wasteful, but at least inefficient uses. We could increase our efficiency in terms of the amount of water that we use if we sort of refined what we call beneficial use. There’s a principle in western water law that you only get as much water as can be beneficially used.”

For the Zuni Pueblo, a history of strong-handed negotiations and a lack of knowledge of a government system that is not their own led to signing deals that did not benefit them.

“When there were any land settlements or water settlements, tribes were never provided attorneys.Tribes were never given a heads up, They were never given funding to educate ourselves as Indigenous peoples,” Wemytewa said. “We are stewards of the water. We find the corn seed central. The corn seed is central. In fact, our abstract name is Children of Corn because we’re farmers, we’re agricultural people. What agricultural people would give up their water rights? What agricultural people would give up their watershed? We didn’t have much choice.”

Tribes have priority over everyone else when it comes to their water rights pertaining to the Colorado River, which means they must have a voice in the conversation.

“There are 30 Native American tribes with water rights along the Colorado River. And it may be impractical to basically have all 30 tribes represented during negotiations. We’ve got seven states, two countries, 30 tribes. That would be a very difficult kind of negotiation,” he said.

“But you could certainly have some representatives. The reason it’s tricky is that not all tribes agree on the best approach here. And so it’s important that we treat individual Native American tribes as people who can have their own views that might be different from other tribes. And so how do you ensure fair representation of all the tribal views without actually putting all those tribes at the table during negotiation?”

For Wemytewa, a new compact with tribes involved is necessary.

“Today, as a tribal leader, I submit comments to federal agencies, whether it’s the National Park Service or the Bureau of Land Management or (U.S. Geological Survey). We submit our comments trying to provide guidance to the federal agencies that you have to consider that you can’t continue to open up the lands. You cannot continue to give away water, because by doing so, you continue to remove Indigenous peoples from their aboriginal lands to make room for other people, other cultures.” 

Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute $5 or $10 today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT’s free newsletter!

When an outbreak of deadly tornadoes tore through the small town of Mayfield, Kentucky, in December 2021, one family was slow to act, not because they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know that they should do anything.

The family of Guatemalan immigrants only spoke Spanish, so they didn’t understand the tornado alert that appeared on their cell phones in English. “I was not looking at [an information source] that told me it was going to get ugly,” Rosa, identified only by her first name, told researchers for a study on how immigrant communities responded to the warnings. 

Another alert popped up in Spanish, and Rosa and her family rushed downstairs to shelter. Ten minutes later, a tornado destroyed the second floor where they’d been. 

For at least 30 years, the National Weather Service had been providing time- and labor-intensive manual translations into Spanish. Researchers have found that even delayed translations have contributed to missed evacuations, injuries, and preventable deaths. These kinds of tragedies prompted efforts to improve the speed and scope of translating weather alerts at local, state, and national levels.

Early into the Biden administration, the agency began a series of experimental pilot projects to improve language translations of extreme weather alerts across the country. The AI translating company Lilt was behind one of them. By the end of 2023, the agency had rolled out a product using Lilt’s artificial intelligence software to automate translations of weather forecasts and warnings in Spanish and Chinese.

“By providing weather forecasts and warnings in multiple languages, NWS will improve community and individual readiness and resilience as climate change drives more extreme weather events,” Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said in a press release announcing the 2023 launch. Since then, the service also added automatic translations into Vietnamese, French, and Samoan. The machine learning system could translate alerts in just two to three minutes — what might take a human translator an hour — said Joseph Trujillo Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose work supported the program. 

And now those alerts are gone. The National Weather Service has indefinitely suspended its automated language translations because its contract with Lilt has lapsed, according to an April 1 administrative message issued by the agency. The sudden change has left experts concerned for the nearly 71 million people in the U.S. who speak a language other than English at home. As climate change supercharges calamities like hurricanes, heat waves, and floods, the stakes have never been higher — or deadlier. 

“Because these translations are no longer available, communities who do not understand English are significantly less safe and less aware of the hazardous weather that might be happening in their area,” said a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee familiar with the translation project, whom Grist granted anonymity to protect them from retaliation. Hundreds of thousands of alerts were translated by the Lilt AI language model, the employee said.

An internal memo reviewed by Grist showed that the National Weather Service has stopped radio translations for offices in its southern region, where 77 million people live, and does not plan to revert to a previous method of translation — meaning that its broadcasts will no longer contain Spanish translations of forecasts and warnings. The move enraged some workers at local NWS offices, according to conversations relayed to the employee, as the decision not to restart radio translations was due to the workload burden as the service’s workforce faces cuts under the Trump administration.

No clear reason was given as to why the contract lapsed and the agency has discontinued its translations, the employee said. “Due to a contract lapse, NWS paused the automated language translation services for our products until further notice,” NOAA weather service spokesperson Michael Musher told Grist in a statement. Musher did not address whether the NWS plans to resume translations, nor did he address Grist’s additional requests for clarification. Lilt did not respond to a request for comment.

Fernando Rivera, a disaster sociologist at the University of Central Florida who has studied language-equity issues in emergency response, told Grist the move by the administration “is not surprising” as it’s in “the same trajectory in terms of [Trump] making English the official language.” Rivera also pointed to how, within hours of the president’s inauguration, the Trump administration shut down the Spanish-language version of the White House website. Trump’s mandate rescinded a decades-old order enacted by former President Bill Clinton that federal agencies and recipients of federal money must provide language aid to non-English speakers. 

“At the end of the day, there’s things that shouldn’t be politicized,” Rivera said.

Read Next

‘People would die’: As summer approaches, Trump is jeopardizing funding for AC

Naveena Sadasivam

Of the millions of people living in the U.S. who don’t speak English at home, the vast majority speak Spanish, followed by Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic. Now that the contract with Lilt has lapsed, it’ll be difficult to fulfill the Federal Communications Commission’s pre-Trump ruling on January 8 that wireless providers support emergency alerts in the 13 most common languages spoken in the U.S., said Trujillo Falcón, the researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

The gap will have to be filled by doing translations by hand, or by using less accurate automated translations that can lead to confusion. Google Translate, for example, has been known to use “tornado clock” for “tornado watch” and grab the word for “hairbrush” for “brush fires” when translating English warnings to Spanish. Lilt, by contrast, trained its model specifically on weather-related terminologies to improve its accuracy.

While urban areas might have news outlets like Telemundo or Univision that could help reach Spanish-speaking audiences, rural areas don’t typically have these resources, Trujillo Falcón said: “That’s often where a lot of multilingual communities go to work in factories and on farms. They won’t have access to this life-saving information whatsoever. And so that’s what truly worries me.” 

It’s an issue even in states with a large population of Spanish speakers, like California. “It’s assumed that automatic translations of emergency information is commonplace and ubiquitous throughout California, but that’s not the case, particularly in our rural, agricultural areas where we have farmworkers and a large migrant population,” said Michael Méndez, a professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine. 

Méndez said that Spanish speakers have been targeted by misinformation during extreme weather. A study in November found that Latinos who use Spanish-language social media for news were more susceptible to false political narratives pertaining to natural disaster relief and other issues than those who use English-language media. The National Weather Service alerts were “an important tool for people to get the correct information, particularly now, from a trusted source that’s vetted,” Méndez said.

Amy Liebman, chief program officer at the nonprofit Migrant Clinicians Network, sees it only placing a “deeper burden” on local communities and states to fill in the gaps. In the days since the weather service contract news first broke, a smattering of local organizations across the country have already announced they will be doubling down on their work offering non-English emergency information. 

But local and state disaster systems also tend to be riddled with issues concerning language access services. A Natural Hazards Center report released last year found that in hurricane hotspots like Florida, state- and county-level emergency management resources for those with limited English proficiency are scarce and inconsistent. All told, the lack of national multilingual emergency weather alerts “will have pretty deep ripple effects,” said Liebman. “It’s a life or death impact.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Millions of Americans don’t speak English. Now they won’t be warned before weather disasters. on Apr 14, 2025.

UKIAH, CA., 4/12/25 —A new partnership between three organizations will explore options for raising the dam at Lake Mendocino to boost the water supply supporting agriculture and recreation. 

State and local politicians, tribal officials and representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers met Friday at Lake Mendocino to formalize a cost-sharing agreement for the Coyote Valley Dam General Investigation Study.  

According to the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Lake Mendocino provides drinking water for over 650,000 people in Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties and plays a role in flood control.  

The study, led by a partnership between the commission, the Lytton Rancheria and the Corps of Engineers will assess the prospects of greater water supply and potential federal interest in reducing flood risks. 

The cost of the study is estimated at $3 million, with funding coming from federal sources secured by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, the Corps of Engineers, the commission and other potential partners. 

The study will begin by evaluating water storage options in the watershed and explore upgrades to Coyote Valley Dam infrastructure. It will also examine ways to restore aquatic species, like the local salmon and steelhead population.  

“We are going to look at a lot, and one of the most obvious options is a dam raise,” said Allison Conn, project manager for the San Francisco District of the Corps of Engineers. “Raising this dam to the originally authorized height would increase the conservation and the body of water that can be stored.”  

Conn said the study will also explore how to make the water supply less “turbid,” meaning murky. She added that the study will investigate a different dam outlet, which refers to a location inside the dam that allows water to exit the reservoir.  

“We will look for a different location of an outlet that would allow for cleaner water in the reservoir,” Conn said. She said that cleaner water will allow for a better environment for the native fish population. “The less turbid the water, the better for the fish.”  

Huffman said the project will enhance a plan to improve water supply by coordinating transfers between the Eel and Russian rivers. 

“If this reservoir is enlarged, it’s going to work even better,” Huffman said in an interview. “We are going to be able to store more water and not have to dump it for flood control purposes. That will help people in the North Bay get through droughts better, and the fisheries in the Russian River will benefit.”  

As PG&E moves ahead with plans to decommission the Potter Valley Project—a historic system that has transferred water from the Eel River to the Russian River for years—concerns about water supply are increasing among local politicians and residents. 

For Ukiah City Councilmember and commission representative Mari Rodin, it’s more important than ever for regional and state agencies to adopt new approaches to water supply. 

“The dam and the region’s entire water system must evolve,” said Rodin. “The climate is changing, the infrastructure is outdated, and PG&E’s exit means we need a new, coordinated approach.”

The post New study by three organizations could boost water supply at Lake Mendocino  appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

A harmonious, almost jubilant tone pervaded the crowd on April 5 as more than 1,000 community members rallied in downtown Redding to show their opposition to the policies of President Donald Trump. The event was one of at least 1,200 “Hands Off” protests held across the United States. 

Friends greeted friends, coworkers mingled, and faith families caught up as they joined in solidarity against the policies of the new federal administration. Many said they were encouraged by the number of people who attended. Shasta Scout’s count estimated the crowd at 1,200, which is three times the number who showed up to a similar protest in February. 

A woman who asked to be identified only by her first name and last initial said she found the size of the crowd “very heartening”. Katy R explained that her perspective has been influenced by being raised by parents in the legal profession.

“Dinnertime conversations were about no one being above the law,” Katy R said, “whenever a situation came up (they told us) to make sure we relied on the facts and to be very careful about passing judgment and again that no one is above the law, even the president.”

She said she was surprised and encouraged to see so many she recognizes in the community including doctors, nurses and lawyers.

“So for those that like to think that the only people out here are rabble rousers,” Katy continued, “I am seeing lots of people who truly care about this country.”

Protester Demetrius Dumdum helped lead chants during Shasta County’s 2020 protest over George Floyd’s murder. He was out again yesterday with a megaphone, rallying the crowd. In a conversation with Shasta Scout, Dumdum said he and others were protesting against threats to jobs, Social Security, other government programs, and the well-being of veterans, immigrants and people of color.

“I personally feel that they are doing this on purpose”, Dumdum said, referring to recent actions by President Trump and others in the federal administration that have affected the economy. “They want to collapse and crash the economy… it makes it easier for them to get a deeper grip on America.”

But Dumdum also emphasized how proud he felt of the community, especially older residents, for coming out to protest. 

“I know we live in MAGA country”, he continued, “but it’s okay to come outta your houses and say how you feel. Stand on business. Because it’s going to affect everybody. Even those people who are MAGA. A lot of people are already regretting their vote.”

While Dumdum did not choose to obscure his identity at the protest, he said he was concerned about the possible effects that speaking out could have on his professional life. Other protesters who spoke with Shasta Scout did so only on the condition of anonymity.

Some, including a woman who asked to use the pseudonym Ms. Patriot, also wore a mask. Patriot said she’s been impacted by seeing videos of American residents who have been arrested by immigration police.

“I’ve been following closely the stories of doctoral students who have been absconded from their homes and the streets by people who are hiding their identities and it is terrifying to me that the rule of law has been overridden in this country.”

Patriot said she thinks many Americans are currently experiencing something called “betrayal blindness,” a psychological phenomenon which involves choosing to “not know” something you’re aware of, in an attempt to maintain loyalty to an individual or institution. 

“This nation knows that masked people are stealing folks from the streets,” Patriot continued, “but everyone is moving around as if that’s not happening.”

While these kinds of arrests by the federal government have focused so far primarily on those who support Palestinian liberation, Patriot said, she believes it’s only a matter of time before the administration broadens its net to arrest those who protest Trump and his unofficial right-hand man Elon Musk.

“Right now I think we are very close to massive amounts of people, Patriot continued, “who are protesting against this administration… being called terrorists and being absconded by this administration. It’s just a matter of time… I am very frightened.”

A single counter-protester provided the only counter-narrative. Ken Michaud, who applied to become Shasta County’s top election official last year, said he believes within a few years his fellow community members will see what Trump’s done for them.

“I’m just here to support the Trump administration,” Michaud said. “You know it’s not a short-term thing, obviously people are going to take hits, but in the long run the policies are good. Two or three years from now everyone is going to say ‘oh yea, I see what he’s doing.’”

Global tariffs implemented by Trump earlier this week, Michaud said, are “negotiation tactics” that are “for the good of everyone”.

Despite being outnumbered 1,000 to 1 at the protest Michaud said he felt safe and did not experience harassment.

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.

MENDOCINO CO., 4/5/25 – Protests took place across Mendocino County on Saturday, including in Fort Bragg, Gualala, Point Arena and Ukiah as part of an orchestrated day of protest called Hands Off!  

The event was organized by Indivisible, a progressive movement generated in response to the 2016 election of Donald Trump, MoveOn, a grassroots political action group formed in 1998, and other activist groups.  

The protests in Mendocino County were meant to demonstrate opposition to the Trump Administration, Elon Musk, recent tariffs that have touched off a trade war, mass layoffs of federal workers, and other actions of the new administration.  

Two reporters from The Mendocino Voice covered the protests, Susan Nash in Fort Bragg and Sydney Fishman in Ukiah. 

In Fort Bragg, a noisy crowd took off on an unplanned march

The crowd in Fort Bragg was estimated at nearly a thousand people, with dozens more drivers honking their horns in support as they drove by the city’s Town Hall. Wandering musicians and a moving street play of masked men taking Lady Liberty away in chains created a festive atmosphere alongside heartfelt demands for action. 

Fort Bragg resident Bob Kelsey came out with a “Hands Off Our Democracy” sign because he is “pretty upset with the government right now,” he said. That sentiment, and some creative sign-making, were evident along the crowded sidewalks and street corners, with some protesters picking their pet issue (“Hands Off Libraries”) and others using a broader brush (“Hands Off Every Damn Thing”). 

“Don’t blame me, I voted for the prosecutor, not the felon,” said one sign. Another was more predictive: “American will be Trump’s 7^th bankruptcy.”  

Even penguins made it into the mix. “Send Trump to Heard Island,” said one sign, referring to an uninhabited Australian territory that is a marine reserve for penguins and other wildlife that was included in Trump’s tariff announcements earlier this week. 

Well-known local artist John Hewitt worked on a new watercolor from the vantage point of the Fort Bragg Town Hall green. “I’m capturing the mood,” Hewitt said. 

And the mood was patriotic. American flags were everywhere, from big ones on the back of pickup trucks to the upside-down version that is the universal sign of distress. Although Mendocino’s voting population is far from monolithic (of 62,651 registered voters, 25,483 are registered Democrat, 12,577 Republican, and 22,688 people decline to state), no counter-protesters appeared, and only a few drivers yelled out obscenities.  

The crowd finished the event by transforming itself into a march around a two-block radius, behind a banner reading, “The Future is in our Hands.”   

In Ukiah, demonstrators leaned on music and signs to signal their displeasure 

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Mendocino County Courthouse in downtown Ukiah.  

The sidewalks along South State and East Perkins streets were packed with people holding signs, flags, and other colorful emblems to show their displeasure with the Trump administration.  

Attendees included teachers, veterans, medical professionals, high school students and other activists. Some older demonstrators, drawing on their experience protesting during the 1960s and ’70s, wore colorful outfits and peace sign necklaces.  

One elderly protester held a sign reading, “Keep your tiny, filthy hands off the American people.”  

Cars drove past the event honking in solidarity, with some drivers displaying signs in the rear windows of their vehicles.  

At the height of the event, as many as a thousand protesters crowded the streets surrounding the courthouse, with some sitting on chairs and blankets, playing instruments and treating the demonstration like a festival. 

“My husband is a veteran — they are at the top of my list,” said Buffy Edwards. Edwards has lived in Mendocino County for about 45 years. “If veteran benefits have not been cut, then they are going to be cut. Trump is not for the veterans; he doesn’t have a clue when it comes to that stuff. He is firing generals, and no one in his family has served.”  

Another protester, whose husband was also a veteran, noted that going to the protest was one of the only ways to make her feel like she was creating change.  

“This was one way I could try to help,” said Clare, who declined to give her last name due to possible backlash. She moved to Mendocino County from Georgia 50 years ago. “My husband was a Vietnam veteran, and right now, jobs that would have helped veterans are being cut.” 

She said she feels hopeful that young activists will be able to bring about change in Mendocino County and beyond.  

“I feel like the whole situation is unreal, but I do feel hope, that somehow things will get better,” she said. “Young people just need to keep their eyes open and listen to whatever is going to be beneficial.”  

Lynda McClure, a member of the Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition, a group dedicated to getting more women engaged in politics and policymaking, and an activist for several decades who has attended many rallies, said this was one of the largest demonstrations she had witnessed in Ukiah. 

She said without continued activism, there will be no change in how the government operates. “As it’s always been, it takes the people of this country to make our government get back on track. We have to do it,” she explained. “We are in a monumental time, and I am very encouraged today by people coming out.”  

She added that she’s particularly hopeful because of the actions she’s seeing in other states in the Midwest and South. 

“I am encouraged by the vote in Wisconsin for the liberal woman judge,” she noted. “There’s a shift going on in Florida, with marches going on there. I am encouraged by the direction that some parts of the country seem to be moving.”  

A small group of counter protesters showed up at the beginning of the event, including one Trump supporter holding a sign reading “Let’s Go Brandon,” an anti-President Joe Biden slogan.  

Demonstrations were held all over Northern California, including Eureka, Oakland, San Francisco, and Santa Rosa. According to the Associated Press, more than 1,200 events took place across the country.  

Lin Due and Sarah Stierch contributed to this story.

The post ‘Hands Off!’ protests draw hundreds across Mendocino County to oppose Trump, Musk   appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

On January 27, 2025, the White House issued a late-night directive that paused federal grants and funding in order to locate and eliminate “woke” government spending. The pause seemingly included funding for public schools, such as the Farm to School Program that provided schools with locally-sourced food.

It wasn’t long before Jared Cordon, superintendent of a rural school district in Roseburg, Oregon, started receiving calls from concerned community members. “If kids can’t eat, where can I drop a check off?” they asked.

On January 29, the White House rescinded the sweeping pause, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration’s order. 

One funding crisis was temporarily averted. But with mounting uncertainty and anticipated cuts on the horizon, rural school administrators are working tirelessly to balance next year’s budget. They do so for the students, families, and faculty who rely on strong public schools — and for their rural communities at large, whose well-being is closely tied to the fate of their local schools.

The Perils of Public School Funding

In addition to the Trump Administration’s chaotic management of federal grants, other funding challenges loom. 

Some rural districts are already facing steep funding cliffs, as Covid-19 emergency funds phase out over the next few years. Other rural districts are set to lose over $200 million of annual federal funding due to Congress’s failure to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act (SRS), which helps support school districts in counties with public lands exempt from local property taxes. 

Some states experienced underperforming returns on their Public Employees Retirement System, which will require school districts to make higher payments to the system. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled states continue to push for universal school voucher programs, further diverting critical funds away from rural public schools.

Beyond these immediate funding challenges, even more drastic shifts in federal education policy are unfolding. On March 20, the President signed an executive order to facilitate the eventual closure of the Department of Education. 

Congressional action is required to legally close the department or relocate key programs like Title I funding for low-income students or IDEA funding for special education to other departments. However, the administration already took some actions to slow the department’s ability to distribute these funds by firing half of its staff. It remains unclear what additional actions Education Secretary Linda McMahon will take to further dissolve the department.

A major role of many employees at the education department is to make sure federal dollars reach the right students, said Will Ragland, a former rural public school teacher and former Department of Education employee who now researches for the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy institute.

“[Federal funding] is intended to target, by-and-large, low-income students and students with disabilities. There are also programs that directly target rural areas, including grants to ensure their transportation needs are met and that rural kids can make it to school.”

Ragland said he worries that programs could meet the same fate as USAID funding, which the White House continues to block, despite numerous federal court orders. The administration has continued to follow the conservative Project 2025 playbook, according to Ragland, which outlines a 10-year phase-out of Title I funding.

“Even though [Trump] said that [legally-protected education] funding is not going to be touched, I worry they’re going to start to phase out this funding,” Ragland said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “I worry that they say what they need to say at any given moment, but the larger plan is to eliminate the federal role in education altogether, including the funding.”

Rural Administrators Working Overtime

This growing uncertainty puts rural school districts, which often rely more heavily on federal funding and whose smaller budgets are hit harder by reductions, at greater risk.

Rural school leaders, already working at a high capacity, are facing unpredictable finances by working overtime to create multiple contingency budgets.

Jamie Green is a superintendent at Trinity Alps Unified School District in rural northern California, which is at risk of losing $3.5 million in SRS funding. He and other rural superintendents he’s connected with put in 12- to 16-hour days when creating budgets or filling out federal grant paperwork.

“During the day you have to support your kids, your parents, your teachers, and your principals. [Budgets and grant paperwork] have to be worked on after hours,” he told the Daily Yonder. “It’s difficult, but you signed up to lead, you didn’t sign up to be a victim. You don’t make excuses to your community. We won’t make excuses.”

Oftentimes, the only way to balance the budget is by delaying essential maintenance or cutting teachers in art, vocational, or special education programs. In states like Oregon and California, this challenge is compounded by the fact that the final budget deadline arrives before schools have a clear picture of the funding they’ll have for the upcoming year.

Superintendent Cordon highlighted the importance of federal funding at a crowded February school board meeting in Roseburg, Oregon. About 12 to 13% of the district’s budget comes from the federal government, Cordon told the crowd.

“Not having federal funding would dramatically impact our ability to serve children,” he said.

Micki Hall, a former Roseburg teacher and school board member who now sits on the board’s budget committee was in attendance. For Hall, budget cuts dredge up memories from her time as an educator.

“Back in 2001 we faced a lot of budget crunches. The French teacher was laid off and they cut one of the German teachers,” she said in an interview. “It’s just frightening because it also has a chilling effect in the building. If you’re not cut, you might be moved into a different, unfamiliar position.”

Across the country, rural districts are grappling with similar challenges, forced to make tough decisions that affect not just budgets but the very education and well-being of students and their communities. 

It’s clear that the need for adequate and reliable support from state and federal governments is urgent, but superintendents like Cordon and Green — and the communities they serve — can’t afford to focus solely on problems or delay action. The buck, Green said, stops with them. The only option they have is to do the work, put in the time, and find solutions.

“Rural schools will not fail,” Green said. “We’re working as hard as we can for our students. We cannot fail.”

The post Amid Threat of Massive Funding Cuts, Rural School Administrators Work Overtime to Balance Uncertain Budgets appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Fresno County officials notified nearly a dozen nonprofits this week that $11 million in federal grants for community health have been canceled, according to a county memo acquired by Fresnoland.

The immediate cuts – effective March 24 – are a result of the Trump Administration’s move this week to cancel more than $12 billion in funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Across Fresno County, a nascent network of about 120 community health workers for rural communities, farmworkers, and some of Fresno’s poorest neighborhoods took direct hits.

“I’m devastated,” said Yolanda Randles, executive director for the West Family Fresno Resource Center, who had to lay off seven community health workers in southwest Fresno on Friday, due to the funding cuts.

“I feel sorry for the government. They’re so naive,” said Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers’ League, whose $340,000 grant to deliver testing kits and education materials to farmworkers was cut short.

Fresno County’s community health worker network was built with federal funds during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Community health workers don’t just link residents with information about vaccines and disease prevention, they also help them navigate healthcare enrollment, get them transportation to appointments, and link them to food and housing resources.

UCSF Fresno received some of the funds to launch 200 mobile health clinics in rural parts of the community, providing early detection and treatment for chronic disease, in addition to routine vaccinations.

The network has been essential for the county to build relationships in communities that have language, transportation and information barriers – especially rural parts of the county, according to Joe Prado, assistant director of public health for Fresno County.

“When we see issues brewing in the emergency room, we communicate with our community health worker network to get the word out,” he said, referring to recent measles and avian bird flu outbreaks.

Fresno County has been recognized for its innovative approach to making sure people with the highest risk factors for chronic disease in the region – the disabled, the elderly, farmworkers and people of color – are connected with more preventative resources, rather than just relying on emergency care.

“For someone in Huron to get to their doctors’ appointment in Fresno, it can cost $100 for a taxi. So we’re making sure people can get support,” said Sarait Martinez, executive director of Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño, an organization that serves indigenous communities in the valley.

Community health workers are often residents from the community who can more easily build trust with those who need it.

Martinez’ organization is often providing interpretation support for a variety of indigenous and Mixtec dialects rarely found in the county’s healthcare system.

“They’re the frontline workers that actually help to carry out prevention, because they’re connecting people to the immediate resources where they’re not getting stressed and their mental health is being preserved because they found food or got their utility turned on and paid,” said Genoveva Islas, executive director of Cultiva La Salud. 

Cultiva had two grants – one to address health disparities, another as part of the Fresno Community Health Innovation Partnership – or FCHIP – hub, that funded 12 community health workers in Parlier, Orange Cove, Easton, Sanger, and south Fresno neighborhoods.

Each community worker had a caseload of about 30 residents per month.

Islas said she’s trying to find additional resources to keep the workers on staff, even if their hours are reduced, for the next few months, because she’s afraid to lose a critical workforce that’s been trained for the last five years.

“My staff knows much more than I could ever hope to know about the application processes for MediCal, food delivery programs, the utility payment supports that exist in the community, right? All of that is a huge loss,” said Genoveva Islas, executive director of Cultiva La Salud. 

The goal was always to use the federal funds for community health workers as startup capital – Prado said they just didn’t expect the resources to dissipate so quickly.

“When you lose this type of significant public health infrastructure over a short period, yes, there’s going to be more risk. At the same time, I’m very hopeful that as a community, we can come together and find other resources and reach out to other groups to be able to keep some of this infrastructure in place,” said Prado.

Some of the community organizations have had luck negotiating with healthcare plans to reimburse some of the support community health workers provide, as they divert people away from emergency rooms towards preventative care, like Exceptional Parents Unlimited, who work with families that have children with disabilities, whose community workers are also supported through CalAIM, a program of MediCal.

Not all organizations that have community health workers can rely on CalAIM, at least in the short term, said Islas. 

She said that her organization, and other small nonprofits, don’t have readily trained staff to navigate the complexities of MediCal billing.

Not to mention that the state’s MediCal program – which 53% of Fresno County residents rely on for health care – is facing potential cuts from both the state and federal government. 

Prado said that the county is working on bringing a contract to the Board of Supervisors in April for additional funding through national and local private philanthropy to help plug some of the gaps created through the loss of federal funds.

Supervisor Luis Chavez said he’s working to bring community organizations and county leaders together to triage the situation.

“At the county we’ve built a great public health system. The progress they’re making is in jeopardy. People will get hurt, and this will cost them their lives,” Chavez said.

“We would be so much better off as a society if we just simply invested in caring for people to stay well instead of caring for people when they’re sick, right? And that’s the beauty of the community health worker,” emphasized Islas.

Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela contributed to this report.

The post ‘I’m devastated.’ Trump administration guts millions from health programs in Fresno County appeared first on Fresnoland.

The billions of dollars approved by Congress to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells have been frozen as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to government spending, creating concerns that the cleanup will be halted just as it’s getting started.

President Trump’s barrage of executive orders included a January directive called “Unleashing American Energy,” which, among other provisions, ordered that federal agencies stop distributing money appropriated by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

The Trump administration titled this section of the order “Terminating the Green New Deal.” But in freezing this congressionally approved spending, the administration halted a program that paid for plugging and reclaiming so-called “orphaned” or abandoned oil and gas wells. The order stated that agencies should “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” from those two Biden laws. It set a 90-day deadline, upcoming in April, for agencies to review their spending programs and make sure that they align with the Trump administration’s goal of increasing U.S. energy production.

The orphaned well program, which was modeled on a North Dakota initiative, had been widely used by oil states, including several in the West.

The program — which set aside $4.7 billion, a historically large sum, for plugging wells — was distributed to states via grants from the Department of the Interior. In January, days before Trump took office, New Mexico announced that it would be receiving $5.5 million to clean up abandoned wells in the state. California also received a $9 million grant.

California, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico had each plugged over 100 orphaned wells using the Biden funds, according to an Interior Department report in 2024. Wyoming alone plugged 1,021 wells in just one year using federal grants.

As of last fall, the U.S. government had released over half a billion dollars in grants. Wells have been plugged in the people’s front yards, in national park areas and deep in the remote Alaskan wilderness. More than $3 billion are still left to be distributed, but previously available information about the grants appears to have been removed from the Interior Department’s website.

In response to questions from High Country News, an Interior Department spokesperson said that the grant program is “under review.”

“President Trump’s decisive actions are necessary steps to eliminate bureaucratic waste and refocus our agency on its core mission: serving the American people and managing our nation’s natural resources with integrity and efficiency,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Orphaned wells negatively impact current and future oil and gas development activities and pose significant risk to national energy security and public safety.”

In addition to supporting jobs that address oil patch pollution, these federal dollars are used on wells that lack any owner to pay for reclamation. Left unplugged, such orphaned oil and gas wells leak huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere and can contaminate local water sources with salty water and benzene.

Now the future of that work is uncertain, in legal limbo alongside many of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting policies. The funding in question had already been appropriated by Congress, making it unclear that the Trump administration can indefinitely cancel it.

On March 20, more than 30 House Democrats sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, asking him to clear up the lingering confusion surrounding orphaned well funding and restart the grant program.

The funding “protects our communities, cleans up our environment, and builds our economy.”

“We have already begun to hear from IIJA funding recipients impacted by this pause who now face an uncertain future after DOI issued a stop work order on their orphaned well remediation projects,” the letter states.

The letter goes on to say that the Interior Department has issued no guidance on the funds’ status.

“We urge you to resume distribution of this Congressionally directed funding immediately,” the letter stated. “It protects our communities, cleans up our environment, and builds our economy.”

ORPHANED WELLS represent the final stage in what ProPublica recently described as the oil industry’s “ playbook”: When oil wells are no longer productive, large companies sell them off to smaller companies and thereby shed their obligation to plug those wells.

The increasingly marginal wells change hands, eventually landing with operators who lack the financial means to plug them. And when these companies go bankrupt, the wells become orphaned, meaning that the plugging costs then fall on American taxpayers.

The Biden administration’s infrastructure law was the first significant federal attempt to address the growing problem of orphaned wells across the United States, although the funding it provided paled in comparison to the scale of the problem.

The Interior Department estimates that there are about 157,000 documented orphaned oil and gas wells nationwide. This figure is likely a dramatic undercount: The Environmental Protection Agency stated in an April 2021 report that there could be as many as 3.4 million abandoned wells nationally.

“Undocumented orphaned wells may emit nearly 63 million grams of methane per hour into the atmosphere,” according to a November 2024 report, “the equivalent of over 3.6 million gasoline-powered passenger cars driven per year.”

Many state regulators are aware that their financial requirements for oil and gas operators are are aware of this pattern and struggle to prevent it.

Several state oil regulators stated this explicitly in a 2024 survey conducted by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a quasi-governmental body that represents dozens of oil states. The documents were obtained via a records request by Fieldnotes, an industry watchdog, and shared with High Country News.

“Yes, this is the common life of a well,” regulators from Louisiana said, referring to the pattern of marginal wells being passed along to smaller companies.

Utah regulators agreed: “It is definitely a problem when wells are transferred to ‘poor’ operators.”

The plugging program was supposed to address these dysfunctional state programs, primarily by providing money. The Interior Department released its first round of grants in 2023, offering up $658 million to 26 states, including most of the oil states in the West.

The subsequent grants were intended to actually push states to fix their well-plugging programs and require that operators submit more money up front — enough to ensure that the industry and not the public ends up paying for the cost of plugging.

Known as regulatory improvement grants, these pools of funding required that states demonstrate higher financial assurance standards, increase scrutiny on well transfers, improve their plugging standards or show other reforms to their orphaned well regulatory regimes.

These grants essentially became the sole tool for the federal government to incentivize tougher state regulations. But the attempt immediately ran into headwinds: Oil states pushed back on these conditions. Some of this occurred via the IOGCC, which collaborated with the federal government on the rollout of the infrastructure law. This included initiatives to reduce orphaned well numbers, program implementation and data collection. Public documents show the inter-state commission lobbied to keep the federal guidelines as weak as possible. 

“Undocumented orphaned wells may emit nearly 63 million grams of methane per hour into the atmosphere.”

In a meeting of the Texas Railroad Commission in May 2022, Commissioner Wayne Christian – also an appointee to the IOGCC – said that he was working to remove the requirements from the federal grants.

“I’m part of the negotiation with IOGCC on the dollars coming down,” Christian said. “The Interior Department kind of have slowed things down, because all of a sudden, surprise, surprise, they decided they wanted to tell us how to do our work. And so we’re kind of fighting back on that.”

Regulatory improvement grants would have made available an additional $40 million per state. Now the future of those grants and the improvement incentives are in jeopardy, though some groups are challenging the legality of Trump’s decision to freeze funds that had already been appropriated by Congress and passed into law.

Several environmental groups and many Democratic states have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, seeking to release the unspent funds from the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction acts, the Biden administration’s landmark spending bills.

“The Trump Administration has continued to block funds needed for our domestic energy security, transportation, and infrastructure provided under the IRA and IIJA,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement in February, after filing an injunction alongside 23 Democratic attorney generals, attempting to halt the administration’s funding cuts.

Bonta’s statement noted that the administration was blocking funding that “creates well-paying jobs while simultaneously reducing harmful pollution.”

The post Trump halts historic orphaned well-plugging program appeared first on High Country News.