Jeff Merkley Goes Back And Forth With EPA Head Lee Zeldin Over Cancelled EPA Grants

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During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) questioned EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin about specific grants for Oregon that were cancelled.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Madam Chair. And I have four letters from communities in Oregon that I'd like to enter into the record.

00:06Without objection?

00:07Thank you so much. So the city of Chiloquin is a city of under 1,000 people in rural Oregon.

00:16And they had remediated a brownfield site, winning the award for the Oregon Brownfield Project of the Year.

00:25And had worked very hard and realized when you only have 1,000 people, it's pretty hard to even write grants, let alone win one.

00:32So they were very excited about their grant for a municipal center.

00:35Not only would it have been city offices, but also emergency shelter.

00:40It's a community that's affected by wildfire smoke more years than not.

00:47And emergency readiness center to respond to emergency with upgraded communications.

00:53So they had a grant awarded and obligated that you canceled.

00:57And can you explain to the people of Chiloquin why this grant was canceled?

01:02Senator, I know Senator Murray asked about a specific grant.

01:07Senator Ossoff asked about a specific grant.

01:08You're asking about a specific grant.

01:10I don't have all of the details on every single grant in front of me.

01:13However, I would have no hesitation whatsoever to be able to have a follow-up conversation to the extent you're interested,

01:22that Senator Murray's interested, that Senator Ossoff is interested, to go through all of those individual details.

01:27And it's possible that the issue that might be present on a particular request is something that can get fixed,

01:34that can get addressed as it relates to difference of administrative policy priorities from one administration to the next.

01:40I went through a bunch of different Alaska grants before we were here today.

01:45And I found that the grants might have an aspect that isn't consistent with this administration's policy priorities,

01:54but other aspects of it were.

01:56So we can work through that.

01:58So this is a grant that was both awarded and obligated.

02:02How does a community proceed to plan, because they're contracting for design, they're contracting for construction,

02:11the grants have already been awarded, you unawarded it.

02:14It seems to me like once it's been obligated, that should be kind of like, okay, well, we'll take those priorities to the next set of grants

02:21rather than undoing the existing ones.

02:23So I think that's particularly upsetting to the rhythm of how communities can proceed with confidence

02:31if a grant that's already been awarded and obligated can be snatched back.

02:37Yeah, Senator, I would encourage, and I'm going to be, you know, in front of House approves tomorrow

02:42and next week Senate EPW, which you serve on, and House E&C subcommittee.

02:48And my message would be for all of your colleagues, that if anybody wants to ask about a specific grant,

02:54I would encourage them to reach out to us right now, as opposed to waiting until we're here for a Q&A

03:01and I'm getting asked about a very specific grant, as opposed to your office contacting us and say,

03:05hey, by the way, when we're at the hearing, I would like to ask you all sorts of very detailed questions about this one specific grant.

03:12If you wouldn't mind bringing it, because in that case, Senator, I'd be standing here ready to answer a thousand questions

03:17about every individual grant.

03:20Well, there was a kind of a procedural question embedded in that,

03:24which is if a grant has been already obligated, and so here the community has contracted for design,

03:31perhaps for construction, isn't it kind of deeply inappropriate to then undo that at that point?

03:39Senator, if it's not consistent with administration priorities, depending on how the program was appropriated by Congress,

03:48and depending on what the details are of that individual grant, that grant can be subject to cancellation.

03:54Okay.

03:56I will follow up with a question on specifically why these grants were funded or unfunded.

04:02The second one is from a plan for a community health project to increase tree planting in a heat kind of dome section

04:15of a very poor part of Gresham, Oregon, and air conditioning and space to address respiratory illness.

04:26Does the community, does the philosophy, when you say it's inconsistent with the philosophy of the government,

04:32is the incoming government against addressing air conditioning to address heat emergencies

04:40or spaces to address respiratory illness during smoke emergencies?

04:46You're asking about a specific grant.

04:48I would need the details of that particular grant to be able to answer it.

04:50Actually, I was asking about whether this, the philosophy, is that the philosophy of the incoming administration

04:55that you're against, you may have undid this for who knows what reason,

05:01but are you opposed to tree planting and spaces to address respiratory emergencies?

05:07Tree planting is fantastic.

05:09We would encourage more of it, Senator.

05:11Well, if you look at these individual grants, which I'm sure there's so many of them,

05:15I know that they were done by kind of a huge swath of cancellation,

05:18but if you look at them and go, well, there's nothing about this that we oppose.

05:23We like to have community health centers built.

05:27Is there a possibility you'll restore those grants?

05:30Senator, over the course of the rest of the fiscal year,

05:34it is our intent to continue to be spending money that was appropriated by Congress

05:41to fulfill our obligations and to follow the law.

05:46And it very well will end up including grants that were canceled.

05:51The way that the grant may be finalized under new terms

05:55might not include whatever the particular aspect was that led to its cancellation the first time,

06:01but I'm sure that there's going to be many examples of grants

06:04that will end up going back out the door, just not without the issue.

06:07Possibly, you may be restoring grants, if I just summarize what you just said.

06:12Yes.

06:13Yes.

06:13The third one is a community health center in the town of the Grand Ronde

06:20and have a place to coordinate national response to natural disasters.

06:26I know you're not going to give a response to this specifically,

06:30but in philosophy, it's not that the administration is against community health centers.

06:36I remember during the first Trump term,

06:40that was something that there was an increase of funding to community health centers.

06:45That was a subject of legislation, I remember, because it was in the House at the time.

06:50And the fourth one is an early learning center,

06:52and the administration is not against early learning center in philosophy.

06:57I have not heard of any administration or any member of Congress or otherwise being against something like that.

07:07Well, these are important grants.

07:09I think there may be elements of each of these grants that you don't particularly like,

07:13like they're going to put solar panels on the roof,

07:16or the wording of the grant used the word resilience,

07:21or said we're responding to heat emergencies from climate change.

07:24I'm sure there are words you don't like, but I hope when you review these grants

07:28and that you've stated your intention to spend the money in these categories

07:32by the end of the fiscal year, which is only months away,

07:37that you'll examine these.

07:41I'll get you a list for Oregon.

07:43I think it's in these small communities,

07:46it's so hard to even write a grant.

07:49And it's such a victory when they win a grant and say,

07:55we can finally solve a major community problem.

07:57And I know I'm over my time, Madam Chair,

08:00but I will close just with this note,

08:03because you've responded to the question of earmarks

08:07or congressionally directed spending on the revolving water fund.

08:12So in Oregon, we call these community-initiated projects.

08:16The communities say, here is our very top need,

08:20and will you fight to get us help,

08:22because we can't afford this water treatment on the front end

08:25or wastewater in the background.

08:28And I think very similarly, I think it is in Alaska,

08:30communities say, here's our priorities.

08:33Senator Murkowski is fighting for them.

08:35I think that that's kind of the best arrangement.

08:39It sounded to me like you didn't like the idea

08:41of us fighting for the top priorities for our communities,

08:44but I think it's absolutely our responsibility.

08:47Better to have the communities say they want their priorities

08:49and us fight for them in some bureaucratic decision

08:52made 3,000 miles away or further away from Alaska.

08:55Yeah, Senator, there are so many great examples

09:00of what's called congressionally directed spending,

09:05earmarks, where it's a member of the...

09:07Community-initiated projects.

09:09Community-initiated projects.

09:10Where a member of Congress, House, Senate,

09:14is fighting for something that is filled with merit purely.

09:20It's a great project that's going to have

09:22extremely positive outcomes.

09:25There are many of those examples,

09:28and that's something that I'm not here to say,

09:32you know, generally, you know, encouraging or discouraging.

09:35That's a decision for Congress to make

09:37as to whether or not and how much to do it.

09:39My job is to make sure that the money gets out the door

09:42when Congress does.

09:45I don't want to use the wrong word.

09:47Not congressionally directed...

09:48Community-initiated projects.

09:49Congressionally initiated funds.

09:52We'll make sure that the money gets out the door, Senator.

09:56The point as it relates to the description,

10:02the notes in the skinny budget as it relates to SRF,

10:06is just the concern of how that pot of money has been used

10:11with regards to these funds.

10:16With that being said,

10:17I'm sure that there are many different examples,

10:19many examples of what was described there

10:24being good outcomes for a particular community.

10:29A very thoughtful,

10:31congressionally initiated...

10:35Community-initiated project.

10:37Community-initiated funding.

10:38I was used to the term earmark when I was in Congress,

10:41but we can call it something else now.

10:43The reason I don't love congressionally directed

10:45is it's not some invention of us up here

10:49that we just say,

10:50oh, it's what do we want?

10:51No, it's what have our communities identified they want?

10:54So I've been trying to get the appropriations community

10:56to change its terminology

10:57to reflect what's actually happening,

10:59and I think it puts it in a strong light.

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