An electric car charging station. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program to build out the capacity for charging electric vehicles has been restarted after being suspended by the Trump administration early this year. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

A suspended federally funded program to expand the nation’s electric vehicle charging capacity has been jolted back to life.

Prospective developers seeking to build stations in Wisconsin and share in the state’s federal grant have until Sept. 5 to submit their proposals, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Wisconsin was one of the first states to take part in the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) project, part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

“Our state DOT was incredibly proactive” in participating in the program, Amy Barilleaux, communications director for Clean Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The state’s allotment was $78 million and 53 projects were awarded with the funds in May 2024, a state DOT spokesperson said. The department signed 39 agreements accounting for $16 million before the program was frozen earlier this year; eight projects have been completed and five are under construction.

Countermanding the push to reduce reliance on fossil fuels that have been associated with worsening climate change, President Donald Trump issued executive orders promoting fossil fuels and attempting to block measures to promote renewable energy that were enacted during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

One of Trump’s first such orders, on the day he took office, froze NEVI funding that had not been committed to projects by then.

“It should have never been paused in the first place,” Barrilleaux said. “This was money that was allocated by Congress that was ours to spend under this program.”

Wisconsin along with more than a dozen other states and the District of Columbia sued to restore the NEVI grants. A federal judge in June blocked the Trump administration from freezing the grants or withholding the money from the 14 states and D.C. that joined the lawsuit.

Barrilleaux noted that by joining the lawsuit, Wisconsin was able to benefit from the ruling that released the money.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued new guidance for the grants Aug. 11. The new guidance eliminates various provisions in the original federal program, including specifications that emphasized using renewable energy, required consumer protections and required engagement with rural, underserved and disadvantaged communities.

“While I don’t agree with subsidizing green energy, we will respect Congress’ will and make sure this program uses federal resources efficiently,” Duffy wrote in a statement.

“It’s good that we’re getting back to building out this infrastructure,” said Ben Behlke, clean technology programs manager for Renew Wisconsin. “This is a great opportunity for us to solve ‘the chicken or the egg’ issue as it relates to making charging available as adoption of electric vehicles becomes more prevalent. Beyond making this technology more accessible, electrifying our transportation is a necessary part of our effort to create a clean energy economy.”

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (right), accompanied by President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference at the White House on Jan. 21, 2025. Trump announced an investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

As a part of President Donald Trump’s AI Action Plan, which rolled out at the end of last month, the U.S. General Services Administration launched a platform Thursday that will allow government employees to experiment with artificial intelligence tools.

USAi.gov allows federal workers to use generative AI tools, like chatbots, code builders and document summarization, for free. The platform is meant to help government employees determine which tools could be helpful to procure for their current work, and how they might customize them to their specific needs, a statement from the administration said.

The tools will come primarily from AI companies Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta, Fedscoop reported. OpenAI initially announced a partnership with the federal government last week, saying any federal agencies would be able to use ChatGPT Enterprise for $1 per agency for the next year.

“USAi means more than access — it’s about delivering a competitive advantage to the American people,” said GSA Deputy Administrator Stephen Ehikian, in the statement.

The GSA called the platform a “centralized environment for experimentation,” and said it will track performance and adoption strategies in a dashboard.

The platform’s creation follows Trump’s recently released plan to “accelerate AI innovation” by removing red tape around “onerous” regulations, and get AI into the hands of more workers, including federal employees.

The plan also calls for AI to be more widely adopted in manufacturing, science and in the Department of Defense, and proposes increased funding and regulatory sandboxes — separate trial spaces, like the USAi platform — for development.

A GSA official told FedScoop that before being added to the platform, AI models will be evaluated for safety, like whether a model outputs hate speech, its performance accuracy, and how it was red-teamed, or tested for durability.

But the GSA didn’t say how the introduction of USAi.gov would affect the federal government’s current tech procurement process, FedRAMP. The program, developed with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), provides a standardized way for government agencies to assess the safety and effectiveness of new tech tools.

“USAi helps the government cut costs, improve efficiency, and deliver better services to the public, while maintaining the trust and security the American people expect,” said GSA Chief Information Officer David Shive in a statement.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference with Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., demanding the release of the Epstein files at the U.S. Capitol on July 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A nonprofit government watchdog sued the Trump administration Friday for failing to respond to public records requests for communications between the White House, Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation about Florida sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including any review of President Donald Trump’s past relationship with the financier.

The lawsuit came as the White House continues to face fallout following the Department of Justice’s refusal in early July to release what are commonly referred to as the Epstein files.

According to reporting by CNN, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Vice President JD Vance met Wednesday evening at the White House to discuss next steps in addressing the growing scrutiny.

The Democracy Forward Foundation filed the lawsuit in district court for the District of Columbia alleging the administration violated the Freedom of Information Act for not responding to the organization’s expedited request within the legally required 10 days.

The nonprofit is requesting the court order the DOJ and the FBI to provide a determination and turn over any non-exempt files, including email communication, calendar invites, and Slack and Microsoft Teams messages among officials who reviewed Epstein investigative files this year. The organization also requested records containing information about Trump’s communication with Epstein dating back to 1990.

“President Trump has repeatedly said he would release the Epstein files, his spokesperson claims his administration is ‘the most transparent in history,’ and yet, they continue to hide from the American people. The only thing transparent about the Trump-Vance administration is how clearly they continue to disregard our nation’s laws,” Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s president and CEO, said in a statement Friday.

“Public records laws outline a clear and simple process that requires the government to immediately produce important documents in response to urgent public information requests, and yet again, this administration is ignoring the law. The court should intervene urgently to ensure the public has access to the information they need about this extraordinary situation.”

The White House and Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

DOJ says no Epstein ‘client list’ exists

The Trump administration’s handling of Epstein case material has come under a microscope since an unsigned Department of Justice memo on July 7 declared “a systemic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’” and department and FBI officials concluded that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”

The DOJ’s refusal to release further information sparked criticism among Trump’s voter base, and even among some administration officials. The memo also roused both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress, who are now demanding records be released and ex-government officials testify under oath about the investigation into Epstein, who died in a New York City jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, avoided tough votes compelling the release of Epstein records by sending lawmakers home early for August break.

The House Committee on Oversight, chaired by Kentucky Republican James Comer, issued several subpoenas Tuesday to past U.S. attorneys general and former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Epstein surrounded himself with powerful figures through the years, including Trump and the Clintons. A July 23 Wall Street Journal report revealed that Bondi briefed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein files. The context in which Trump’s name appears in the investigative material is not clear.

In response to failing to fulfill his campaign promise to release the Epstein files, Trump ordered the release of grand jury testimony from the Epstein investigation. A Florida judge swiftly denied that request.

Ghislaine Maxwell interview

The president also dispatched Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to a Florida prison to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse girls. Details of the interview have not been made public. Maxwell has since been moved to a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas.

The House Oversight Committee also subpoenaed Maxwell for an Aug. 11 interview and rejected her recent request for immunity, according to media reports. The committee has delayed the deposition.

Epstein pleaded guilty to sex trafficking in Florida in 2008. A federal grand jury indicted Epstein in 2019 on charges of sexually trafficking minors. According to the Justice Department, Epstein harmed over 1,000 victims.

An elementary school student concentrates while performing a sit-up during physical education class. (Photo via Getty Images)  

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is bringing back a physical fitness test to public schools after over a decade, but details of the new test, including timing and implementation, remain to be seen.

Trump signed an executive order July 31 that reestablished the Presidential Fitness Test — a source of both fear and achievement among youth — and committed to revitalizing the “President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition,” which would develop the test.

“Rates of obesity, chronic disease, inactivity, and poor nutrition are at crisis levels, particularly among our children,” the executive order notes. “These trends weaken our economy, military readiness, academic performance, and national morale.”

The president designated Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to administer the test.

The council is tasked with creating “school-based programs that reward excellence in physical education and develop criteria for a Presidential Fitness Award,” according to a White House fact sheet.

Expert hopes for ‘holistic’ revamp

The order did not provide any details on what the test will look like or how or when it will roll out.

Laura Richardson, a clinical associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Michigan, said she hoped to see an updated version of the test that focused more on level of activity than on a student’s performance.

“I’m hopeful that maybe it will be reevaluated and revised and really have some tools that don’t just look at how fast you are or how strong you are, but more holistic in the tools we need to get our children to be active in childhood that should then continue through the trajectory into adulthood,” Richardson told States Newsroom.

Richardson added that testing alone would not be sufficient to see improvement in kids’ physical fitness, and called for increasing resources to schools to help students be more active.

“Sedentary behavior is really widespread — we’re seeing increasing obesity among all ages,” Richardson told States Newsroom. “We can test … but if we’re not giving the tools to the teachers and the students and the parents, we may continue to see the same data.”

Bill would codify test

Rep. Jeff Van Drew announced last week that he will introduce a bill to codify Trump’s executive order.

In a statement, the New Jersey Republican said he coordinated with the administration, including Kennedy, when writing the bill.

“Every parent wants their kid to grow up strong and healthy,” he added. “This bill is about making sure they are given the tools to do just that.”

Latest version of test

The Presidential Fitness Test dates back to President Dwight Eisenhower, who set up the President’s Council on Youth Fitness in 1956 following alarming findings on the state of youth fitness in the United States compared to youth in European nations.

The test initially included sit-ups, a mile run, a shuttle run, pull-ups or push-ups and a sit-and-reach, according to Harvard Health.

Since then, the test has seen several versions. The most recent major revamp was in 2012, when President Barack Obama’s administration replaced the Presidential Fitness Test with the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which aimed for a more individualized and health-focused approach.

The program, which came after criticism of the Presidential Fitness Test and concerns about its psychological effects on youth, aimed to minimize “comparisons between children and instead supports students as they pursue personal fitness goals for lifelong health,” according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion within the Department of Health and Human Services. 

President John F. Kennedy, an uncle of the current HHS secretary, expanded on Eisenhower’s efforts. In a 1960 essay, “The Soft American,” the president-elect at the time described physical fitness as a “vital prerequisite to America’s realization of its full potential as a nation.”

According to HHS’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, President Kennedy also promoted “taking the 50 mile hikes previously required of U.S. Marine officers” in a national public service advertising campaign.

President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Presidential Physical Fitness Award Program in 1966 for “exceptional achievement by 10- to 17-year-old boys and girls,” per HHS. 

First District U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) holds an in-person listening session at Elkhorn High School in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, Thursday evening July 31, 2025. (Copyright Mark Hertzberg/for Racine County Eye)

ELKHORN — At a raucous listening session in a high school auditorium Thursday evening, U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) defended the immigration and tariff policies of  President Donald Trump and the Republican budget reconciliation law that Trump signed on July 4.

From the roars of the crowd, critics of the congressman appeared to account for the majority of the group that filled nearly two-thirds of the 600-seat Elkhorn High School auditorium. But there were also recurring cheers, shouts and applause at key moments from a smaller coterie of supporters in the room.

Steil represents the 1st District in Congress, which covers Southeastern Wisconsin from Janesville and Beloit east to Racine and Kenosha on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Over the last several months, Republican members of Congress have been counseled not to hold in-person events with constituents after publicity about angry crowds turning up at some GOP town halls.

Steil’s constituents have been protesting weekly outside his office in Racine for months, calling on him to hold an in-person meeting rather than telephone ones. 

Taking the stage shortly after 5 p.m. and lasting for about 80 minutes there, Steil stuck with a cheerful, breezy tone. He treated the loud, impassioned and often angry audience cries as mostly a difference of opinion.

When an audience member asked Steil how he might take a stand against other congressional Republicans “who lie to the American public and malign the dignity of 70 million people on Medicaid by suggesting that they are lazy,” Steil lamented the tone of political discourse and vowed not to denigrate anyone. Then he turned the subject back to the boisterous auditorium.

“I’d say the overall majority of people here want to learn and understand my perspective, want to hear the question,” he said. “And then there’s a small group of people that are challenging.”

It was left to the moderator of the session, Janesville radio host Tim Bremel, to lecture the crowd to refrain from shouting over Steil’s answers during a Q&A period.

During one interruption, the radio host scolded, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will never get questions if we can’t keep the auditorium quiet. And please do the person who asked the question the respect of allowing his question to be answered.”

Pledge of Allegiance

Steil kicked off the session with the Pledge of Allegiance, inviting the audience to join him. They did so, some shouting the final words “and justice for all” with vehemence.

He followed with a short talk offering “just kind of an overview of where we’re at in this country to get ourselves back on track” — words that prompted more angry taunts.

Steil said that the nation’s spending is about “$1.8 trillion more than on the revenue side,” a comment that prompted scattered shouts scoffing at “tax breaks.”

He defended the expansion in the budget reconciliation law of work requirements for SNAP food aid, saying the change followed a model that Wisconsin had already instituted for the program in the 1990s.

When he switched to immigration and a graph that Steil said showed “the dramatic drop, the decrease that we have seen in border apprehensions,” a cry of “We are all immigrants!” came up from several rows of seats.

Nine minutes in, Steil made a pitch for his office’s constituent services, then appealed for restraint from the crowd.

“The more civil we are with each other — there’s people that have different views in here, we heard applause and boos on the border security issue, we’ve heard it a couple of times,” he said. “We have people on all sides, it’s great, that’s what makes us so great.”

Tariffs, ICE and deportation

The questions that followed came from members of the audience who filled out forms at tables in the school lobby.

Bremel told the crowd that the questioners would be chosen at random. Some greeted that claim with loud skeptical scoffs. Over the course of the hour, however, the vast majority of people who were chosen asked questions sharply critical of Steil, Trump, the Republican congressional majority, or all three.

Criticizing Trump’s tariffs, Tom Burke asked Steil “what dire economic circumstances” justified the president’s executive orders to impose them.

“What we need to do is make sure that we’re having other countries treat the United States fairly,” Steil replied, adding that the U.S. should “work collectively with our allies to address the real culprit, which is China.”

Burke wasn’t satisfied with the answer. U.S. allies, “seem to be alienated beyond belief,” he told Steil, adding that until he got a satisfactory answer to his question about their rationale, “I’m going to be totally opposed to these tariffs — period.”

Specifying that her question was about “not politics, but morality,” Jean Henderson of Elkhorn told Steil, “What I see happening to our immigrant population embarrasses me, terrifies me.”

Henderson criticized the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel, their faces hidden by masks, against immigrants “who are doing the right thing by going to the immigration office,” only to be taken into custody. “It is a trap,” she said. “Why is this happening and why aren’t you stopping it?”

Steil began in reply, “What I view is the moral hazard created by the Biden administration…,” prompting a roar of disapproval from the crowd, then a shout of “Joe Biden sucks!” from someone perhaps more sympathetic to the congressman.

The rest of Steil’s response was largely drowned out.

When it was her turn at the microphone, Kelly Neuens connected the experiences of her grandparents and great aunt and great uncle, who were held in U.S. internment camps during World War II as U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, to the conditions in the El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent some immigrants taken into custody.

“President Trump said, ‘Homegrowns are next’ when he was speaking to the El Salvador president,” Neuens told Steil. “My worry is that we are repeating history here.”

A plea for the climate

In his answer, which was repeatedly interrupted, Steil described the World War II internment as “one of the more darker chapters of American history,” then added, “As we look at the engagement that law enforcement is doing now against immigrants who are in the country illegally, I don’t see the  exact parallel.”

Another questioner asked Steil to explain “why you support Linda McMahon and defunding the Department of Education?”

Congress, Steil said, is still “analyzing what the spending will be for the upcoming fiscal year.” He added that the department “has burdened a lot of our local school districts with unnecessary red tape” in the course of distributing funds to the states. “I think what we will see as we negotiate this going forward is a way to make sure that those funds are there” for local schools, he said.

When it was her turn to ask a question, Sharna Ahern of Fontana thanked Steil and his staff “for answering all the contacts I’ve made with you over the years.”

She enumerated a wide range of concerns she has had — about the Department of Education, about the treatment of immigrants, “about the rule of law and civil rights” — and then turned her focus on the environment.

“Extreme weather conditions are happening more frequently as we experience them,” she told Steil. “The EPA is deregulating the standards that are in place to fight climate change, to protect the citizens. Where do you stand on this issue? And how can you be an advocate for us to initiate legislation to restore our safeguards?”

Steil praised Wisconsin as “one of the most beautiful states in the country” and asserted that “making sure that we’re protecting our air and water and soil is absolutely essential.” He said that on the issue of climate change, “what we need to be doing is focused on addressing that global aspect. But again, make sure other countries are doing their fair share of it.”

The crowd largely jeered at the response. When another audience member asked about Trump’s executive orders rolling back Biden administration measures to address climate change, Steil said that action was necessary to “correct … the overreach in the previous administration.”

It was after 6 p.m. when Bremel called for the final question.

A few minutes earlier, someone had shouted a question about “children starving in Gaza,” and the woman whose turn it was asked Steil to address that topic as well as to defend the SNAP cuts.

“I can do them both,” Steil said. He started with SNAP, reiterating his earlier assertion that Wisconsin would not be affected by the program’s changes to work requirements because of policies the state had in place already.

Turning to Gaza, Steil said, “To me the easy answer to address this crisis is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages. Release them. Israel was unfairly, unjustly attacked.”

His comments gave rise to another brief demonstration, punctuated by repeated chants of “60,000 people are dead!”

By the time the chanting ended, Steil had left the stage. 

The photos accompanying this report are not available for republishing except by agreement with photographer Mark Hertzberg. 

A medical worker prepares to vaccinate people at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic in a rural Delta community in April 2021 in Leland, Miss. The Mississippi State Department of Health, like other state health departments, is concerned about the potential loss of federal funding. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Between 2016 and 2022, as congenital syphilis cases rose nationally and especially in the South, Mississippi saw a one thousand percent increase — from 10 to 110 — in the number of newborn babies who were hospitalized after contracting the disease, known to cause developmental issues, intellectual disabilities, and even death.

So in 2023, the state Department of Health mandated that all medical practitioners screen for the disease in pregnant mothers, and it has been running advertisements to spread awareness.

Annual congenital syphilis cases in Mississippi rose from 62 in 2021 to 132 in 2023, according to state data. The number fell to 114 last year. There have been 33 cases so far this year.

That work won’t stop despite potential budget cuts, Dr. Daniel Edney, Mississippi’s state health officer, said in an interview. “We’re going to keep doing what we have to do, you know, to keep it under control.”

State by state, public health departments take a similar approach: They monitor, treat and try to stem preventable diseases, alongside their host of other duties. But in the coming year, health department officials — with their agencies already strapped for cash — fear they’ll find it much more difficult to do their jobs.

President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 would cut the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget by more than half, from $9.3 billion to $4.2 billion. The proposal serves as a wish list from the administration, a blueprint for the Republican-controlled Congress as it works through upcoming spending legislation.

If lawmakers hew to Trump’s vision, then state and county public health departments would be hit hard. States contribute to their own health departments, but a lot of them rely heavily on federal funding.

And around half of local public health department funding comes from federal sources, primarily the CDC, as noted in a 2022 report from the National Association of County & City Health Officials.

Medicaid cuts are likely to worsen mental health care in rural America

“The federal government provides a lot of funding, but the actual implementation of public health programs happens at the state and local level,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at KFF, a health policy research group. “Each state has its own approach, in many ways, to how public health programs are overseen, how they’re funded, how they are implemented.”

In announcing his department’s share of the proposed budget, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Trump’s goals align with “new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”

But many local health leaders point to the longtime mission of state public health departments in preventing the spread of disease.

“Local public health is on the front lines preventing communicable disease, operating programs to prevent chronic disease, ensuring our septic and well water systems are safe,” said Dr. Kelly Kimple, acting director of North Carolina’s Division of Public Health within the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I’m very concerned,” Kimple said, “especially given the magnitude of funding that we’re talking about, as we can’t keep doing more with less.”

Clawing back COVID-era grants

Other federal budget cuts also have states worried.

Many state public health departments grew alarmed when the Trump administration announced in March that it would be clawing back $11.4 billion in COVID-era funding for grants that were slated to extend into 2026.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia sued. A federal district court in Rhode Island temporarily blocked the cuts, and the case remains tied up in court.

The court’s preliminary injunction may not protect temporary staff or contractors, though. Public health departments have been laying off staff, cutting lab capacity and reducing immunization clinics, said Dr. Susan Kansagra, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Historically, public health departments receive funding in “boom and bust” cycles, meaning they tend to get more federal support during emergencies, said Michaud, of KFF. But “since the Great Recession of 2008, there was a general decline in public health support funding until the COVID pandemic.”

For example, KHN and The Associated Press reported that between 2010 and 2019, spending on state public health departments declined by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments fell by 18%.

Nationally, syphilis cases reached historic lows in the 2000s, thanks to robust prevention efforts and education from public health officials. By 2022, however, cases reached their highest numbers nationally since the 1950s.

“In the wake of the COVID emergency, you’ve seen a sort of backlash to what people had been calling the overreach of public health and imposing vaccination requirements and lockdowns and other public health measures,” Michaud told Stateline.

Smallpox, cholera and typhoid

Public health departments and officials go back to the 19th century, when there was a greater emphasis on sanitation efforts to prevent spread of diseases such as smallpox, cholera and typhoid, which were rampant at the time.

By the end of the century, 40 states had established health departments, which to this day are responsible for water sanitation, tracking the spread of disease, administering vaccinations, furnishing health education, providing screenings for infants and some prenatal care for moms at local clinics, offering family planning services, and tracking and treating sexually transmitted infections, among other things.

Kimple pointed to measles as a current example of a disease that’s spreading fast. When North Carolina’s health department detected a case in the state, she said, the department “identified and contacted everyone who might have been exposed, helped people get tested, worked with doctors to make sure they knew how to respond.”

That’s the legacy of local public health, Michaud said.

“The federal government cannot decide, ‘This public health program will happen in this state, but not that state,’ that kind of thing. And cannot declare a national lockdown. The COVID pandemic tested a lot of those boundaries. It really is a state and local responsibility to protect public health. And that’s always been the case, since the beginning of our country,” Michaud said.

“And what we’re seeing now is a complete upheaval of the funding going into public health.”

A major cut in services

Kimple said she’s seen recent progress in her state in the support for funding public health.

“North Carolinians viewed our work as highly important to improving health and well-being in the state, and appreciated the local presence, the reliable information, the role in prevention and efforts to protect, in particular, vulnerable communities,” she said.

Similarly, Edney said that Mississippi state lawmakers were showing more support, despite some setbacks in 2016 and 2017. New federal cuts could throw a wrench in the health department’s economic plans and its ability to reach small communities.

“Now the federal rug is being pulled out from under us,” he said.

Edney said he expects the federal share of his department’s public health funding to fall from its current 65% to around 50%.

Edney said he’s been trying to strengthen Mississippi health department’s longevity by diversifying its revenue streams by, for example, accepting private donations.

The state will not stop doing its “core” work, he said, regardless of federal funding.

“We’re not going to cut back on services at the county health department, because what we do now is all mission critical,” Edney said.

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Heavy traffic moves along Interstate-395 on Nov. 22, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has submitted a proposal to scrap a years-old finding that greenhouse gas emissions threaten the environment and public health, a move that former agency officials say would gut the EPA’s authority to reduce emissions and is sure to end up in the courts.

The EPA sent a draft proposal to the White House late last month calling for scrapping what’s referred to as the endangerment finding on top of vehicle emissions standards for certain cars and trucks. The White House Office of Management and Budget could finish reviewing the draft on Monday and some expect an announcement on the issue the last week of July, Joe Goffman, a former assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in an interview.

Former EPA officials say such a move would gut the agency’s own power to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which have been widely found to cause global warming.

“It’ll be the most decisive step taken to make the agency totally irrelevant, which then will become an excuse to just get rid of it,” Christine Todd Whitman, the EPA administrator from 2001 to 2003 under President George W. Bush, said in a phone interview.

Whitman said she thinks “the long-term goal of all of this is to ensure that the agency can’t do regulations.”

‘Suffocating its own authority’

The EPA finalized what it is known as the endangerment finding in late 2009. It said that greenhouse gases are a threat to both the environment and public health and that emissions from vehicles pollute the air with greenhouse gases. The finding is what obligates the EPA to address greenhouse gas emissions, Goffman said.

“Essentially what the EPA is doing is suffocating its own authority under the Clean Air Act…to establish programs and rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Goffman, who worked at the EPA during the administrations of Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

“They’re making it impossible to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” in a deliberate fashion, he said.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced back in March that the agency was going to reconsider the finding.

Its proposal — which was submitted to the executive branch’s Office of Management and Budget on June 30 — will be shared for public comment following interagency review and after Zeldin has signed it, an EPA spokesperson said Thursday in an email.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Court fight ahead

The Trump administration’s moves to scrap the finding and vehicle emissions standards are its latest plays to dial back U.S. climate policy and efforts to fight climate change.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans scaled back support for renewable energy projects and other climate policies in the budget reconciliation bill signed into law July 4.

Trump also signed executive orders during his first days back in office to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement again and to aid fossil fuel production.

The EPA said the endangerment finding went beyond the agency’s statutory authority under the Clean Air Act, according to a summary of part of the proposal that was sent to the White House.

The Clean Air Act “does not authorize the EPA to prescribe emission standards to address global climate change concerns,” an executive summary of the proposal sent to the White House states, according to an excerpt obtained by States Newsroom.

Because of that, the agency is proposing rescinding “the Administrator’s findings that GHG emissions from new motor vehicles and engines contribute to air pollution which may endanger public health or welfare,” it said.

The agency in its proposal also raises a key 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA that determined the EPA is allowed to regulate greenhouse gases as part of the Clean Air Act because they pollute the air.

The EPA argued that the decision doesn’t support how the agency has carried out the Clean Air Act. On top of that, the agency says that the “EPA unreasonably analyzed the scientific record” and that “developments cast significant doubt on the reliability of the findings.”

Similar to numerous other executive actions taken by the Trump administration, Whitman and Goffman said they expect this latest move will end up in the courts.

“This is the beginning of a long, long saga,” Goffman said.

David Sacks, U.S. President Donald Trump's "AI and Crypto Czar", speaks to President Trump as he signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 23, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Trump signed a range of executive orders pertaining to issues including crypto currency and artificial intelligence. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The Trump administration wants to greatly expand the development and use of advanced artificial intelligence, including rolling back environmental rules to spur building of power-thirsty data centers and punishing states that attempt to regulate AI on their own.

The administration’s action plan, called “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” released on Wednesday, is a result of six months of research by tech advisors, after Trump removed President Joe Biden’s signature AI guardrails on his first day in office. The plan takes a hands-off approach to AI safeguards, and invests in getting more American workers to use AI in their daily lives.

“To win the AI race, the U.S. must lead in innovation, infrastructure, and global partnerships,” AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks said in a statement. “At the same time, we must center American workers and avoid Orwellian uses of AI. This Action Plan provides a roadmap for doing that.”

The action plan outlines three major pillars — accelerate AI innovation, build American AI infrastructure and lead in international AI diplomacy and security.

The Trump administration says that to accelerate AI in the U.S., it needs to “remove red tape,” around “onerous” AI regulations. The plan recommends the Office of Science and Technology Policy inquire with businesses and the public about federal regulations that hinder AI innovation, and suggests the federal government end funding to states “with burdensome AI regulations.”

The plan does say that these actions should not interfere with states’ ability to pass AI laws that are not “unduly restrictive,” despite unsuccessful attempts by Congressional Republicans to impose an AI moratorium for the states.

The plan also says that free speech should be prioritized in AI, saying models must be trained so that “truth, rather than social engineering agendas” are the focus of model outputs. The plan recommends that the Department of Commerce and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), revise the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to eliminate references to misinformation, DEI and climate change.

The Trump administration also pushes for AI to be more widely adopted in government roles, manufacturing, science and in the Department of Defense, and proposes increased funding and regulatory sandboxes — separate trial spaces for AI to be developed — to do so.

To support the proposed increases in AI use, the plan outlines a streamlined permitting process for data centers, which includes lowering or dropping environmental regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and others. It also proposes making federal lands available for data center construction, and a push that American products should be used in building the infrastructure.

The Action Plan warns of cybersecurity risks and potential exposure to adversarial threats, saying that the government must develop secure frontier AI systems with national security agencies and develop “AI compute control enforcement,” to ensure security in AI systems and with semiconductor chips. It encourages collaboration with “like-minded nations” working toward AI models with shared values, but says it will counter Chinese influence.

“These clear-cut policy goals set expectations for the Federal Government to ensure America sets the technological gold standard worldwide, and that the world continues to run on American technology,” Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio said in a statement.

The policy goals outlined in the plan fall in line with the deregulatory attitude Trump took during his campaign, as he more closely aligned himself with Silicon Valley tech giants, many of whom turned Trump donors. The plan paves the way for continued unfettered growth of American AI models, and outlines the huge energy and computing power needed to keep up with those goals.

In an address at the “Winning the AI Race” Summit Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump called for a “single federal standard” regulating AI, not a state-by-state approach.

“You can’t have three or four states holding you up. You can’t have a state with standards that are so high that it’s going to hold you up,” Trump said. “You have to have a federal rule and regulation.”

The summit was hosted by the Hill & Valley Forum, a group of lawmakers and venture capitalists and the All‑In Podcast, which is co-hosted by AI Czar Sacks, 

In addition to discussing the AI action plan, Trump signed executive orders to fast track data center permitting, expand AI exports including chips, software and data storage, and one that prohibits the federal government from procuring AI that has “partisan bias or ideological agendas.”

He spoke about the need for the U.S. to stay ahead in the global AI race, saying that the technology brings the “potential for bad as well as for good,” but that wasn’t reason enough to “retreat” from technological advancement. The U.S. is entering a “golden age,” he said in his speech.

“It will be powered by American energy. It will be run on American technology improved by American artificial intelligence, and it will make America richer, stronger, greater, freer, and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said.

During the address, Trump addressed his evolving relationship with tech CEOs, calling out Amazon, Google, Microsoft for investing $320 billion in data centers and AI infrastructure this year.

“I didn’t like them so much my first term, when I was running, I wouldn’t say I was thrilled with them, but I’ve gotten to know them and like them,” Trump said. “And I think they got to like me, but I think they got to like my policies, maybe much more than me.”

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI — one of the tech giants that stands to flourish under the proposed policies — spoke Tuesday about the productivity and innovation potential that AI has unlocked. The growth of AI in the last five years has surprised even him, Altman said. But it also poses very real risks, he said, mentioning emotional attachment and overreliance on AI and foreign risks.

“Without a drop of malevolence from anyone, society can just veer in a sort of strange direction,” Altman said.

A voter casts an early ballot at a polling station in Milwaukee in 2023. Wisconsin is among at least nine states that have received requests from the U.S. Department of Justice for voter information, raising concerns among election officials about how the Trump administration will use the data. (Photo by Morry Gash/The Associated Press)

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking the voter registration lists of several states — representing data on millions of Americans — and other election information ahead of the 2026 midterms, raising fears about how the Trump administration plans to use the information.

The DOJ is also demanding Colorado turn over all records related to the 2024 election, a massive trove of documents that could include ballots and even voting equipment. The Colorado inquiry, the most sweeping publicly known request, underscores the extent of the administration’s attention on state election activities.

At least nine states have received requests for information over the past three months, according to letters from the DOJ obtained by Stateline. Some states also received emails from a DOJ official last week asking for meetings to discuss information-sharing agreements.

The department’s focus on elections comes after President Donald Trump directed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in March to seek information about suspected election crimes from state election officials and empowered her to potentially withhold grants and other funds from uncooperative states.

For years, Trump has advanced false claims about elections, including the idea that the 2020 election that he lost was stolen. Now back in power, his administration is taking a new level of interest in how states — and even local authorities — administer elections.

Last week, a political operative approached several Republican county clerks in Colorado to enlist them in election integrity efforts in light of Trump’s sweeping March executive order overhauling elections administration. One clerk told Stateline the operative claimed to represent the White House.

“Whatever the Trump administration tries to pull is very unlikely to be successful,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said in an interview, calling Colorado elections very secure. “With that said, do I think they are trying to undermine our elections at large in this country? Absolutely.”

DOJ has sent letters to Alaska, Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, in addition to the request to Colorado.

The letters have typically asked election officials to describe how they register voters and work to identify duplicate registrations and individuals not eligible to vote, such as people with felony convictions and those who have died. The Washington Post earlier Wednesday reported on the letters; Votebeat and NPR previously reported on some of the letters as well.

Most letters also ask about each state’s process for flagging noncitizen applicants. Noncitizen voting is against federal law and incredibly rare, but Trump and his allies have promoted false claims about its prevalence. The Trump administration is also conducting a general crackdown on illegal immigration.

The letters call on election officials to turn over voter registration lists, which in some instances contain data on millions of residents in their states. This request has raised the most concerns, with some experts saying it’s unclear exactly why the DOJ wants the information.

“They don’t make much sense as law enforcement investigations. That makes me think that there’s some other purpose,” said Justin Levitt, who served as senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights in the Biden White House and is now a law professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Trump’s proof of citizenship elections order blocked for now in federal court

While many states make their voter registration lists available to the public, Levitt emphasized the data could still be largely off-limits to the federal government. Federal privacy law sometimes restricts how the government can use data that’s publicly obtainable. The DOJ may need voter information in some individual circumstances, but “that’s not blanket permission to go vacuuming up data.”

The DOJ didn’t respond to questions for this story.

Federal laws restrict the federal government’s ability to centralize information on Americans, said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. Even if states provide voter registration information to the public, they often redact sensitive information.

In Orange County, California, the DOJ sued local election officials in June, seeking unredacted voter registration information, such as Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses, as part of an investigation into noncitizen voting.

More than 350 election officials from some 33 states participated in a conference call about federal actions on Monday hosted by Becker, who was previously an attorney in the DOJ Voting Rights Section during the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He said the interest in the call shows the level of uncertainty and anxiety over the current “federal imposition” on election administrators.

“The DOJ seems dead set on acquiring personal information on voters, including driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers and dates of birth — records that are highly protected under federal law and under state law and which state election officials are sworn to protect,” Becker said.

Sweeping Colorado requests

In Colorado, the amount of data the DOJ wants is enormous. On May 12, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant U.S. attorney general in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to Griswold, the secretary of state, asking for access to “all records” related to the 2024 election.

Federal law requires state election officials to preserve records related to elections for 22 months. Typically, the rule ensures records are preserved in case any lawsuits are filed over an election. In the letter, Dhillon referred to a complaint against Griswold’s office alleging noncompliance with records retention laws, but provided no details.

Experts on election administration who spoke to Stateline expressed shock at the scope of the demand to Colorado. The request encompasses a vast trove of material, potentially including ballots.

“The amount of records being requested from a place like Colorado … it’s really, really significant in terms of the volume of materials that are required to be retained,” said Neal Ubriani, a former voting rights litigator at the DOJ during the Obama and first Trump administrations and the current policy and research director at the nonpartisan Institute for Responsive Government.

Colorado elections have previously drawn Trump’s attention. Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a staunch Trump supporter, is serving a nine-year prison sentence after a conviction in state court for allowing unauthorized access to voting equipment in 2021.

On May 5 of this year — a week before the Dhillon letter to Griswold — Trump posted on social media that Peters should be released, calling her a “political prisoner.” Griswold noted the timing.

“I think the bigger picture is Donald Trump is continuing to try and rewrite the 2020 election and destabilize the ’26 and ’28 elections,” Griswold told Stateline.

Trump signs broad elections order requiring proof of citizenship

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office responded to the DOJ by providing copies of the state’s master voter file and voter history file. All of the information provided is also available to the public.

Some Colorado Republican county clerks in recent days have also been approached by Jeff Small, a political operative who worked at the U.S. Department of the Interior during the first Trump administration. Stateline and Colorado Newsline spoke to three GOP clerks who said they had spoken to Small last week.

Steve Schleiker, clerk of El Paso County, which includes Colorado Springs and is the most populous county in the state, said that on July 9 he received a text and call from Small, who introduced himself in a voicemail as someone who “works for the White House.”

Schleiker said that when he called back, Small said he wanted to build relationships with clerks because the Trump administration was unhappy with progress on the president’s elections executive order. He later connected Schleiker with a Homeland Security official who wanted to test the security of El Paso County’s election systems, said Schleiker, who added that he opposed the request.

Weld County Clerk Carly Koppes said she also heard from Small, but that Small told her he wasn’t under contract or being paid for the calls. Small indicated he was making the calls on behalf of former colleagues, Koppes said.

Small, a former Capitol Hill chief of staff who now works for a Colorado-based government affairs firm, didn’t return a call to his office on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the agency works with local partners to ensure elections remain safe.

“We don’t disclose every single conversation we have with them,” an unidentified DHS spokesperson wrote in an email.

Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said he was aware of 10 clerks approached by Small. He noted that every clerk approached by Small hails from a county that uses Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems.

While Dominion is widely used in Colorado, it’s also been the subject of election conspiracy theories. A former candidate for county sheriff in southwest Colorado was arrested in June, accused of firebombing a clerk’s office. Colorado Public Radio reported the suspect, according to law enforcement, had spoken publicly about trying to get rid of the county’s Dominion machines.

“I think the really important thing to say here is that it was Republican clerks who stood up to a Republican administration and said, ‘No, we’re going to follow the law,’” Crane said.

The intent of the efforts by Small and the federal government “has been muddied up it seems,” Montrose County Clerk Tressa Guynes said. Based on her conversations with other clerks, she said, it appeared Small represented one thing to other clerks and then “represented maybe a watered-down version by the time it got to me.”

Guynes said Small wanted to discuss Trump’s elections executive order. She said Small asked whether she would be willing to support a federal task force’s efforts in an advisory role.

“I said absolutely I will advise,” Guynes said. “I said I’m frankly glad that they’re finally reaching out to the boots on the ground, the people who actually conduct the elections, instead of listening to those who have never conducted a Colorado election.”

Letters to other states

As Colorado grapples with the most far-reaching request, other states are choosing how to respond. In Wisconsin, the state election commission responded to a DOJ request for the voter registration list with instructions on how to request public voter data.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, responded on June 2 — after DOJ in a May 20 letter told the state to ensure voter registration applicants provided a driver’s license number, if they have one, instead of a partial Social Security number. The DOJ also wanted Arizona to check voters against a state database to look for noncitizens.

Fontes replied that Arizona complies with federal law and conducts checks using a state motor vehicle division database.

“We are focused on dealing with DOJ in a good faith manner while ensuring we are following the letter of federal and state laws,” Fontes spokesperson JP Martin wrote in an email to Stateline.

More recently, Arizona received a letter July 10 from DOJ about implementation of Trump’s elections executive order. Rhode Island Democratic Secretary of State Gregg Amore also received an email about the order the same day, according to a copy provided to the Rhode Island Current.

In the email, Scott Laragy, principal deputy director in the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, asks for a call to discuss a possible information-sharing agreement to provide DOJ with information on individuals who have registered to vote or have voted despite being ineligible, or those who have committed other forms of election fraud.

The email echoes the language in Trump’s elections executive order, which calls for DOJ to reach information-sharing agreements with states. While much of the order, which focused on proof of citizenship in elections, has been struck down in federal court, provisions related to information sharing remain.

The executive order directs Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, to prioritize enforcement of federal “election integrity laws” in uncooperative states. It also requires her to review grants and other DOJ funds that could be withheld from states that resist.

Some states have already struck deals with the Trump administration. Indiana Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales announced an agreement last week with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services allowing the state to access a database to verify the citizenship of registered voters. Alabama Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen has signed a similar agreement.

“With your cooperation, we plan to use this information to enforce Federal election laws and protect the integrity of Federal elections,” Laragy wrote to Rhode Island.

Janine Weisman of the Rhode Island Current and Lindsey Toomer of Colorado Newsline contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee's Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., talks with ranking Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on June 3, 2025 before Education Secretary Linda McMahon testified to the panel about President Donald Trump's budget request for the Education Department.  The proposal includes a reduction in the maximum Pell Grant award. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants to cut nearly $1,700 from the maximum Pell Grant award as part of his fiscal 2026 budget request — a move that would leave the subsidy for low-income students at its lowest level in more than a decade.

The proposal would have a devastating effect on college affordability and drive up costs for states because they’d have to fill in the missing federal dollars, education advocates and experts say.

The request — part of the president’s wish list for appropriations in fiscal 2026 — faces steep odds in Congress, where key members of both parties responded to the proposal with alarm.

“I don’t want to cut the Pell Grant,” U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican and chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, told States Newsroom.

“I’m concerned about that — I’m hoping that we’ll get that resolved,” she said.

Opposition from Capito, whose panel writes the annual bill to fund the Education Department, makes Trump’s wish unlikely to make its way into the upcoming legislation.

The Pell Grant is a government subsidy that helps low-income students pay for college and is the foundation of federal student aid in the United States.

Catherine Brown, senior policy and advocacy director at the National College Attainment Network, said the cut would be “absolutely devastating,” noting that “college is already out of reach for millions upon millions of low-income students.”

Funding gap

The Pell Grant program is seeing a projected budget shortfall of $2.7 billion heading into the next fiscal year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The administration has cited the shortfall as a reason to decrease the maximum award.

The request calls for reducing the maximum Pell Grant for the 2026-2027 award year from $7,395 to $5,710. The last time the maximum award stood below this level was during the 2013-2014 award year, at $5,645. 

Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request includes $12 billion in total cuts to the Education Department as he and his administration seek to dismantle the agency and dramatically reshape the federal role in education.

Democrats: Cut would be ‘crazy’

Democrats have raised strong opposition, while even the Republican chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Education Department funding was noncommittal about pursuing Pell Grant cuts.

“We want to make sure that (Pell Grants are) serving the people they need to,” Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama said when asked about any concerns he has on the proposed cut.

Aderholt said he’s hearing “a lot” from his constituents about the proposed reduction, and that it’s “certainly something we’re going to look at.”

Meanwhile, the leading Democrats on the House and Senate education spending panels were quick to blast the proposed cut.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the full House Appropriations Committee and the education spending subcommittee, called the nearly $1,700 reduction “crazy.”

“People are not going to be able to do it, and that’s the tragedy of what they’re doing here is dismantling all of the constructs that are there to provide people particularly with public education and a pathway to success,” the Connecticut Democrat said.

“You take away Federal Work-Study, you lower the Pell Grant, that says to me, you want to destroy public education,” DeLauro said.

The budget request proposes slashing $980 million of Federal Work-Study funding and requiring employers to pay 75% of students’ hourly wages, with the government contributing 25%.

The program gives part-time employment to students with financial need in order to help cover the cost of college. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ranking member of the Senate subcommittee, said she “strongly” opposes the proposed reduction.

The Wisconsin Democrat said she also recognizes that “there’s a looming shortfall in Pell funding that we need to address.”

“I am hopeful that we’ll be able to work together to do that,” Baldwin said.

Advocates, experts weigh in

Higher education advocates and experts are also sounding the alarm on the proposed reduction, both over the harm to low-income students’ access to higher education and the impact on states and colleges.

“This would just much further exacerbate that gap and drive millions of students out of pursuing post-secondary education or set them on a different path,” Brown, with the National College Attainment Network, said.

Katharine Meyer, a governance studies fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, described the proposed decline as “truly unprecedented.”

She added that when the Pell Grant is smaller, states have to spend more on higher education, creating a challenge for state officials potentially grappling with other cuts in federal support in the budget reconciliation package Republicans are scrambling to pass.

“States don’t necessarily have the flexibility to spend more money when they have budgets that they need to balance, and they’re facing other federal constraints, including potentially having to take on additional health care costs depending on what happens with health care negotiations in budget reconciliation,” she said.

Capito also said she thought a reduction to Pell Grants would ripple out to the state level.

At the institutional level, Meyer pointed out that if a state has a smaller bucket to allocate for higher education but wants to prioritize financial aid, it would “come at the cost of” the money appropriated to universities.

“Then institutions are not going to be able to spend as much on their operating funds,” she said. “They’re not going to be able to do capital improvement campaigns, which are often very necessary.”

Ties to reconciliation bill

House Republicans have also proposed major changes to Pell Grant eligibility as part of GOP lawmakers’ separate “big, beautiful bill.” The legislative package would slash billions of dollars in federal programs to offset the cost of other parts of Trump’s agenda, including extending the 2017 tax cuts and boosting border security funding.

GOP lawmakers are using the complex reconciliation process to move a package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber and avoid the Senate’s 60-vote threshold that generally requires bipartisanship.

The House narrowly passed its version of the reconciliation package in late May. That measure included a provision that would raise the minimum number of credit hours to qualify for the maximum Pell Grant award from 12 per semester to 15. The move would save $7.1 billion in federal spending over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.

That new eligibility requirement is not included in the draft proposal for the reconciliation package that Republicans on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions released in June.