Nevada tribe's $20 million EPA grant suspended

Alan Halaly, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Mar 31, 2025

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A $20 million grant meant to strengthen a Nevada tribe’s poor access to electric power and clean water has been suspended, delaying construction timelines.

The Environmental Protection Agency awarded the money to the Nevada Clean Energy Fund in December — one of 84 projects in that round of so-called Community Change Grants. With the money, the nonprofit aimed to work with the Walker River Paiute Tribe in west-central Nevada on needed infrastructure improvements.

Kristen Stasio, the nonprofit’s CEO, said in an interview last week that the EPA hasn’t been communicative since she received notice March 7 that the grant was suspended.

“It’s legally obligated to us,” Stasio said. “We should ultimately receive these funds to do the work that we are also obligated under our agreement with EPA to do.”

About 1,200 tribal members live on the Walker River Reservation — a 325,000-square-acre parcel of land that includes parts of Mineral, Lyon and Churchill counties. Stasio said that of the tribal members her nonprofit surveyed for the grant proposal, about half rely on electricity for medical equipment or to store medications.

In a statement last week, an EPA spokesperson said grant reviews are a part of President Donald Trump’s agenda of shrinking federal spending.

“As with any change in Administration, the agency is reviewing its grant funding to ensure it is appropriate use of taxpayer dollars and to understand how those programs align with Administration priorities,” the agency said.

‘Impossible to continue’

As a result of the Trump administration’s mass reviews of federal spending, the nonprofit had been unable to access its $156 million Solar For All grant and another $7.7 million for clean school buses, but both have since been cleared, Stasio said.

Senate Bill 132 would give the Nevada Clean Energy Fund a $5 million appropriation from the state Legislature if approved by lawmakers and signed by the governor. Stasio said the money would help fill in gaps in different programs not accounted for by the federal grant money.

On the grant meant for the tribe, the nonprofit has heard nothing but silence. At the EPA, administrator Lee Zeldin has indicated it would eliminate the office related to environmental justice, mostly aimed at reducing the impacts of pollution on minority communities.

Zeldin has called diversity, equity and inclusion programs “forced discrimination” — something Stasio fears may have caused the review of Community Change Grants in the first place.

“There’s no DEI mentioned anywhere in our work plan for the grant or in any of our terms and conditions,” Stasio said. “It’s not a DEI program. These are critical infrastructure, energy and water projects.”

The tribe released a statement about its dismay for the construction delays this has caused, saying that the water improvement project would have been completed in May 2027.

Now, it’s not clear if the tribe will ever be able to move forward with its plans to construct a solar and battery energy storage facility or improve the energy efficiency of more than 150 homes.

“The uncertainty to the grant is the ever changing status,” the tribe wrote. “It becomes active, then suspended and this makes it impossible to continue with our projects.”

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