Demonstrators protest outside a downtown jail in Los Angeles following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids on June 8, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A federal appeals court late Thursday quickly froze a lower court’s order that President Donald Trump return command of 4,000 California National Guard troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom and set a schedule to more fully hear the closely watched case in the coming days.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a one-page order pausing implementation of U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer’s order issued just hours earlier that called for Trump to relinquish control of the National Guard by noon Friday.

The panel asked the state to file a written brief by 9 a.m. Pacific time Sunday and scheduled oral arguments for Tuesday.

The short 9th Circuit order did not explain the panel’s rationale for granting an administrative stay of Breyer’s order.

The Trump administration appealed and asked for the stay shortly after Breyer issued his ruling Thursday evening. Breyer said the mobilization was illegal and there were limits to Trump’s statutory authority.

Breyer’s order was “an extraordinary intrusion on the President’s constitutional authority as Commander in Chief to call forth the National Guard as necessary to protect federal officials, as well as his statutory authority … to mobilize state National Guards into federal service to quell riotous mobs committing crimes against federal personnel and property and to protect federal officials’ ability to enforce federal law,” the administration said. “The order also puts federal officers in harms’ way every minute that it is in place.”

The state opposed the request for a stay, saying Breyer’s “extensive reasoning” had shown the state would be irreparably harmed without court intervention.

Trump called up the state National Guard on Sunday in response to protests in Los Angeles over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Newsom opposed the deployment, saying it would only make the situation more volatile.

It was the first time in 60 years that a president called up a state’s National Guard over the objection of the governor.

California sued the administration to block the federalization, arguing that the president unlawfully took control of the state National Guard.

Breyer took the state’s side in his Thursday evening order, saying Trump violated the 10th Amendment to the Constitution that protects states’ rights.

Union members and supporters rally in Grand Park calling for the release of union leader David Huerta, who was arrested during an immigration enforcement action on June 9, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A federal judge in California late Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to relinquish command of 4,000 National Guard troops the president called to help contain Los Angeles protests over immigration raids.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard was illegal, and ordered the return of control to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had opposed the deployment. He said his order would go into effect noon Pacific time Friday, likely setting up an emergency appeal by the administration.

Trump’s “actions were illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Breyer wrote.

He issued the 36-page order mere hours after an afternoon hearing at which he appeared skeptical that Trump’s order was lawful.

Breyer at the hearing appeared not to accept the Trump administration’s argument that obtaining consent from Newsom, a Democrat, was not a prerequisite to federalize the California National Guard.

Newsom has been backed up by Democratic attorneys general across the nation in the closely watched case.

Breyer noted the law Trump cited when mobilizing the troops requires the order to go through a state’s governor, but Trump’s order bypassed Newsom and went directly to the adjutant general of the California National Guard.

“I’m trying to figure out how something is through somebody if, in fact, you didn’t give it to him, you actually sent it to the adjutant general,” Breyer said. “It would be the first time I’ve ever seen something going through somebody if it never went to them directly.”

‘A constitutional government and King George’

U.S. Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate, who argued for the administration, said Newsom’s approval was not necessary for the commander-in-chief to call National Guard troops into service.

“There’s no consultation requirement, pre-approval requirement,” he said. “The governor is merely a conduit. He’s not a roadblock. The president doesn’t have to call up the governor, invite them to Camp David, ‘Let’s have a summit, negotiate for a week about what are the terms that we’re going to call up the National Guard in your state, what are the terms of the deployment?’”

The president alone can determine whether the conditions allowing for the federalization of the National Guard are met, Shumate said.

But Breyer, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the president faced more limits on his authority than Shumate had argued.

“That’s the difference between a constitutional government and King George,” Breyer said.

Nicholas Green, who argued on behalf of the state, called the federal government’s argument “breathtaking in scope,” in part because the troops appear to be assisting in domestic law enforcement.

“They are saying, Your Honor, that the president, by fiat, can federalize the National Guard and deploy it in the streets of a civilian city whenever he perceives that there is disobedience to an order,” Green told Breyer. “That is an expansive, dangerous conception of federal executive power.”

Breyer seemed less opposed to Trump’s order to deploy 700 U.S. Marines to the area, noting those troops are not yet on the ground in Los Angeles and, as federal troops, were already under Trump’s command without needing to satisfy any other criteria.

Breyer’s order Thursday night did not direct any action regarding the Marines.

Pause requested

The judge, who is the brother of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, said he would rule quickly, possibly late Thursday, on California’s request for a restraining order to stop the deployment in Los Angeles.

Shuman requested that, if Breyer found in favor of the state, he should pause any restraining order while the federal government appeals.

Green said the state would “strongly oppose” such a pause because of the urgency of the situation in Los Angeles.

The city has seen days of protests starting on Friday over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on workplaces. Trump ordered the National Guard to the area on Sunday, saying it was necessary to restore order.

Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass objected to the decision and have said it has caused more chaos and inflamed tensions.

Democrats’ amicus brief

The hearing on California’s request for an injunction came a day after 21 Democratic attorneys general and the Democratic governor of Kansas filed an amicus brief in the case backing up California.

Trump wresting control of a state National Guard sets a dangerous precedent that undermines National Guard missions, they said.

“National Guard troops fight fires, respond to hurricanes, protect their residents from flooding, and provide much-needed security,” they wrote. “By undermining states’ authority, unlawfully deploying the National Guard troops, and leaving the door wide open to deploy the Guards of every state, the President has made us all less safe. This Court should enjoin the federal government from continuing down this unlawful and perilous path.”

In addition to Kansas Gov. Laura Kelley, the attorneys general of Washington, Delaware, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Wisconsin and Rhode Island signed the brief.

President Donald Trump signs a Congressional Review Act resolution Thursday, with congressional Republicans looking on. Left to right are Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvania, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Rep. John James of Michigan, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. (Screeenshot from White House webcast)

President Donald Trump signed a Congressional Review Act resolution Thursday that revokes California’s authority to set tailpipe emissions standards, upending policy in California and 17 other states that tie their standards to that of the Golden State.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Democratic attorneys general in 10 other states immediately sued to block enforcement of the law. Through a process that allows Congress to undo recent executive branch rules, the law repeals a U.S. Environmental Protection Act waiver allowing California to set a schedule for emissions standards for cars and trucks.

Trump signed two other resolutions that repeal the state’s authority to ban sales of new gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035 and to regulate emissions on heavy trucks.

At a White House signing ceremony, Trump said the law would allow greater consumer choice and lead to less expensive vehicles.

“Your cars are going to cost you $3,000, $4,000 less and you’re going to have what you want,” he said. “Again, you can get any car you want.”

Simple majority vote

The procedure used to pass the law was controversial because of the use of the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, which allows a simple majority vote in the U.S. Senate instead of the chamber’s usual 60-vote threshold.

Both the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the EPA waiver was not a rule and that the CRA could not be used. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune used the procedure anyway, and the measure passed 51-46.

The states suing over the law argued that process was illegal, saying that the CRA was “deemed inapplicable by every nonpartisan arbiter and expert who analyzed the question.”

“While all fifty States consented—through their Senators—to these expedited procedures for congressional disapproval of federal rules, no State consented to the CRA as a means for Congress to negate state rules,” the Democratic attorneys general wrote. “Nor would any State have done so.”

The states joining California in the lawsuit are Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont and Washington.

Clean Air Act

The federal Clean Air Act of 1970 generally prohibits states from setting their own air quality standards. But a section of the bedrock environmental law allows California, which had stringent environmental standards at the time the federal law was passed, to set its own standards.

While the other 49 states may not set their own standards, any state can adopt California’s standards as its own.

That means the law Trump signed Thursday has effects far beyond California’s borders, which the president noted.

“The federal government gave left-wing radicals in California dictatorial powers to control the future of the entire car industry, all over the country, all over the world, actually,” he said.

The law, which both chambers of Congress passed last month, applies to 17 states that follow California standards. In addition to those suing, those states are Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies before the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee at the U.S. Capitol on June 10, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Tuesday was the first time Hegseth testified before Congress since his confirmation hearings in January.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles will cost the federal government about $134 million, a Pentagon budget official said Tuesday, as the response to the protests further divided officials in California and Washington, D.C.

The situation in the country’s second-largest city captured the attention of lawmakers in the nation’s capital, even as the Republican-led Congress charted a path forward for the Trump-backed tax and spending cut bill.

Democrats in Congress on Tuesday warned the administration’s actions bordered on authoritarianism, while President Donald Trump said his intervention saved the city from destruction.

“If we didn’t send in the National Guard quickly, right now, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground,” Trump said in the Oval Office Tuesday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, sought a restraining order blocking the 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines deployed to Los Angeles from assisting with domestic law enforcement. Trump ordered the troops to the city over Newsom’s and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ objections.

Budget question

Democrats on Capitol Hill criticized the administration over several aspects of the deployment, saying Trump was instigating violence, overstepping his authority and wasting taxpayer money.

At a previously scheduled Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing, Democratic Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Pete Aguillar of California asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the financial cost of placing 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in Los Angeles.

Hegseth, who is originally from Minnesota, declined to answer McCollum’s question directly, instead invoking the riots in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 and saying Trump sought to avoid similar chaos in Los Angeles.

“President Trump recognizes a situation like that, improperly handled by a governor, like it was by Gov. (Tim) Walz, if it gets out of control, it’s a bad situation for the citizens of any location,” he said.

When Aguillar asked a similar question about cost, Hegseth deferred to acting Pentagon comptroller Bryn MacDonnell, who estimated the current cost at $134 million, mainly for housing, travel and food. That money came out of existing operations and maintenance accounts, she said.

Hegseth told the panel the deployment was authorized for 60 days.

Just 2 miles away at the White House, though, Trump implied the decision could be more open-ended, saying during the Oval Office event that troops would stay in Los Angeles “until there’s no danger.”

“When there’s no danger, they’ll leave,” he said.

Restraining order

California’s federal lawsuit challenging the deployment, which state leaders filed Monday, includes a request for the court to issue a restraining order by 1 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer did not issue such an order by that deadline.

The administration intended to use the military personnel “to accompany federal immigration enforcement officers on raids throughout Los Angeles,” the request for a restraining order said.

“These unlawful deployments have already proven to be a deeply inflammatory and unnecessary provocation, anathema to our laws limiting the use (of) federal forces for law enforcement, rather than a means of restoring calm,” the state said.

“Federal antagonization, through the presence of soldiers in the streets, has already caused real and irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles, the people who live there, and the State of California. They must be stopped, immediately.”

Democrats in California’s congressional delegation and members of the congressional caucuses for Black, Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander Democrats also blasted the administration’s role in inflaming the standoff between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who’d conducted recent raids on workplaces in the area.

“President Trump’s unlawful decision to deploy the National Guard onto the streets of Los Angeles is a reckless and inflammatory escalation, one designed not to restore calm, but to provoke chaos,” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette D. Clarke said at a press conference.

“Let’s be clear about how this began: with peaceful protests sparked by the unlawful and inhumane targeting, detention and deportation of our immigrant neighbors.”

Clarke, a New York Democrat, said in response to a reporter’s question that she believed the sending in of troops constituted an impeachable act by Trump.

“I definitely believe it is, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said.

‘Met with force’

Other Democrats on Capitol Hill have said Monday and Tuesday that Trump engineered the conflict to distract from unpopular provisions of Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” and other issues.

“Donald Trump, cornered by his own failures – from pushing a heartless bill that would rip health care away from 16 million Americans, to raising costs from his reckless tariffs, to waging war with Elon Musk – Trump is desperately seeking a distraction,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Tuesday.

“His order to deploy the National Guard and Marines – our own troops – on Americans is not just outrageous and provocative, it’s a dangerous authoritarian overreach that threatens the very fabric of our democracy.”

Rep. Jimmy Gomez led a press conference of California’s U.S. House Democrats Tuesday where he warned that the militarization in Los Angeles could happen elsewhere.

“If it can happen in Los Angeles, it can happen in any state in the union,” he said.

Later, at the Oval Office, Trump said protesters at his military parade on Saturday would be “met with very strong force.”

‘Tarred and feathered’

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Trump acted responsibly to protect Southern Californians and blamed Newsom for “failed leadership” that he said led to the clash this weekend.

Asked if, as Trump and White House border czar Tom Homan have suggested, Newsom should be arrested for interfering with immigration enforcement, Johnson initially demurred before suggesting an 18th-century punishment.

“I’m not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested,” the Louisiana Republican said.

“But he ought to be tarred and feathered… He’s standing in the way of the administration and the carrying out of federal law. Right? He is applauding the bad guys and standing in the way of the good guys. He is trying to — he’s a participant, an accomplice — in our federal law enforcement agents being not just disrespected but assaulted.”

Johnson said House Republicans were fully behind Trump’s actions and deflected a question about if there was a point at which he would oppose the administration’s efforts.

“He is fully within his authority right now to do what he is doing,” Johnson said. “We have to maintain order.”

Demonstrators protest outside a downtown jail in Los Angeles following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids on June 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump called for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to be arrested Monday and dispatched Marines to Los Angeles, shortly after Trump’s mobilization this weekend of California National Guard troops to quell protests without the governor’s consent.

Protests of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ activity in Los Angeles sparked a weekend of conflict between protesters and federal agents downtown and in nearby Paramount, California. Newsom on Monday said California is suing the administration over the violation of its state sovereignty.

Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn that he endorsed the idea of White House border czar Tom Homan arresting Newsom. Homan had said elected officials could be arrested for impeding raids by ICE agents.

Newsom on Sunday challenged Homan, saying, “Come after me, arrest me, let’s get it over with, tough guy.”

“I’d do it if I were Tom,” Trump said when asked if Homan should arrest Newsom. “I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity…. He’s done a terrible job. I like Gavin Newsom, he’s a nice guy but he’s grossly incompetent, everybody knows.”

Newsom, a Democrat, has framed the conflict with the White House as a fundamental test of every state’s ability to self-govern.

“This is a preview for things to come,” he told the progressive podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen in a clip the governor’s X account shared Monday morning. “This isn’t about LA, per se. It’s about us today. It’s about you, everyone watching, tomorrow. I promise you. I mean, this guy is unhinged. Donald Trump is unhinged right now.”

Marines deploying

About 700 U.S. Marines will travel to Los Angeles as part of the federal response, according to the U.S. military, with the objective of “protecting federal personnel and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area.” CNN first reported the Marines’ mobilization. The move could further aggravate the state-federal tension surrounding the protests.

That deployment followed Sunday’s mobilization by Trump of 2,000 California National Guard members, even as Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass vocally objected, saying the troops’ presence would only inflame the situation.

It marked the first time since 1965 — when President Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights protesters — that a president deployed the National Guard to a state over the governor’s objections.

Trump has also not ruled out invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act to take greater operational control of the situation. He and allies have referred to the protesters as “insurrectionists” several times.

He told reporters Sunday night that he was not invoking the act, which allows the president to use the military domestically, saying a decision to do so would depend “on whether or not there’s an insurrection.” On Monday, he said “insurrectionists” were causing problems in California.

According to CalMatters, “protesters on Sunday faced off with police officers who fired dozens of less-lethal rounds attempting to disperse people in the streets surrounding the 300 North Los Angeles Federal Building.

“At least two self-driving vehicles were set on fire near the protest, and police continued to pepper the rally with rubber bullets well into the late afternoon.”

Law and order

Trump, who took hours on Jan. 6, 2021, to implore his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol to disperse, and later pardoned hundreds of people charged with crimes that day, has said repeatedly controlling the California protests is necessary to protect ICE agents and Californians from protesters.

Trump has called “law and order” a top priority and has floated extreme methods to preserve order.

Asked Sunday about what the bar should be for sending U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, he responded, “The bar is what I think it is.”

On X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Marines could be used in the situation.

“The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE,” he posted Sunday.

State sovereignty at issue

Newsom and other Democrats have called the deployment of National Guard troops a violation of state sovereignty.

Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta said they’d filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the move on 10th Amendment grounds. The Constitution’s 10th Amendment protects states’ rights.

“Donald Trump is creating fear and terror by failing to adhere to the U.S. Constitution and overstepping his authority. This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic,” said Newsom in a written statement announcing the suit.

“Every governor, red or blue, should reject this outrageous overreach. This is beyond incompetence — this is him intentionally causing chaos, terrorizing communities, and endangering the principles of our great democracy. It is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism. We will not let this stand.”

A copy of the lawsuit was not immediately available Monday.

Newsom won backing from his Democratic colleagues across the country, including a Sunday statement from the Democratic Governors Association, a political group that includes every blue-state governor in the country.

“President Trump’s move to deploy California’s National Guard is an alarming abuse of power,” the governors said. “Governors are the Commanders in Chief of their National Guard and the federal government activating them in their own borders without consulting or working with a state’s governor is ineffective and dangerous. Further, threatening to send the U.S. Marines into American neighborhoods undermines the mission of our service members, erodes public trust, and shows the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement.”

Republican governors saw the issue differently, backing Trump and praising his approach to law enforcement.

“Every Democrat governor just endorsed lawlessness and chaos on American streets,” the RGA said on social media in response to the DGA statement.

Republicans in Congress broadcast similar messages, describing the deployment as a step toward law and order.

“If Gavin Newsom won’t enforce the law, President Trump will,” Oklahoma U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin wrote on X.

Billionaire and SpaceX owner Elon Musk said in an interview with CBS News that he was “disappointed” in the U.S. House GOP’s massive legislative package of tax cuts, border funding and more of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities. (Photo courtesy of CBS Sunday Morning)

Elon Musk says in an interview excerpt that he was “disappointed” in the U.S. House GOP’s massive legislative package of tax cuts, border funding and more of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities, telling CBS News the bill would undermine the work of his U.S. DOGE Service to cut government spending.

The interview, a portion of which was published Tuesday evening as a preview of this weekend’s edition of “CBS Sunday Morning,” marks the first public rift between Musk, the world’s richest man and a major funder of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and the president who gave him an influential position in his second White House stint.

After a day of news reports on Musk’s criticism of the bill Trump has championed Musk tweeted Wednesday evening he was officially leaving his White House role. Musk’s social media posts in recent weeks appeared to show he’d shifted his attention back to his private-sector interests. 

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote Wednesday. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

During the closing days of the presidential campaign, Musk said he could find $2 trillion per year in the federal budget to cut.

The legislation that Trump has promoted as the “big, beautiful bill” works against the goals Musk set as he spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency that sought to slash the size of the federal workforce, Musk said.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said.  “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”

GOP bill cuts Medicaid, adds to deficit

The U.S. House narrowly passed the 1,100-page bill last week with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. Senate Republicans are planning to use the complex budget reconciliation process to pass the bill without subjecting it to the chamber’s usual 60-vote threshold for legislation.

The measure includes an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that are expected to reduce federal spending on benefits by nearly $1 trillion over a decade, and increased funding for Defense Department and border security initiatives.

The House’s bill would add $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Musk and Republicans who wish to downsize the federal government have called for taking actions based on DOGE’s recommendations.

Trump ‘not happy about certain aspects’

Asked about Musk’s comments during an Oval Office event Wednesday, Trump praised the work of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and noted the slim majorities in both chambers.

He also touted the tax cuts included in the bill, but conceded he was “not happy about certain aspects of” the bill — although the administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting it and saying Trump would sign it into law.

“But I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” he said. “That’s the way they go. It’s very big. It’s the big, beautiful bill. But the beautiful is because of all of the things we have. The biggest thing being, I would say, the level of tax cutting that we’re going to be doing.”

Johnson, who spent weeks negotiating with disparate factions of his conference to win passage of the measure, attempted to soothe Musk’s concerns in a Wednesday post to X, which Musk owns.

The Louisiana Republican praised Musk’s work while promising spending cuts would come in bills that are outside the budget reconciliation process: annual appropriations bills and a recissions package that takes away unspent money from previous appropriations laws.

“@ElonMusk and the entire @DOGE team have done INCREDIBLE work exposing waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government,” Johnson wrote. “The House is eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings so we can deliver even more cuts to big government that President Trump wants and the American people demand.”

New plan for billions in cuts said to be on the way

Johnson echoed a post from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who said the rules around budget reconciliation made it difficult to cut significant chunks of discretionary spending, which is separate from the major cuts projected to hit the mandatory Medicaid and SNAP programs.

The administration is planning to send to House Republicans next week a proposal to rescind $9.4 billion in federal spending, according to a Wednesday report in Politico that cited unnamed House Republican and administration sources. The report was published after the Musk comments appeared on CBS News’ website.

On X, Johnson said the annual appropriations bills, which Congress began formal work on this month with department heads appearing at subcommittee hearings, would also provide spending cuts.

Appropriators, though, have cautioned against the aggressive cuts sought by the administration.

Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that writes the funding bill for environmental programs, told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum the panel would likely fund his department above what the administration request.

Burgum said he would comply with whatever spending amount Congress approves.

 

 

At a farm market in St. Petersburg, Florida, SNAP recipients were able to use their Electronic Benefits Transfer cards for food. (Photo by Lance Cheung/USDA).

The massive tax and spending bill passed by U.S. House Republicans would likely result in 3.2 million people losing food assistance benefits, and saddle states with around $14 billion a year in costs, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats have argued the bill, which the House passed, 215-214 early Thursday without any Democrats in support, would cut programs for the needy to fund tax breaks for high earners.

The CBO document, issued late Thursday, responded to a request to the office from the top Democrats on the Senate and House Agriculture committees, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Angie Craig, both of Minnesota, and somewhat bolsters that claim. The panels oversee federal food aid programs.

“This report is truly devastating,” Craig said in a Friday statement to States Newsroom. “As a mother and someone who at times relied on food assistance as a child, these numbers are heartbreaking. It is infuriating that Republicans in Congress are willing to make our children go hungry so they can give tax breaks to the already rich.”

A provision in the bill to tighten work requirements, including by excluding single parents of children older than 6 and by raising the age of adults to whom the work requirements apply, of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, would result in 3.2 million people losing access to the program in an average month, the CBO report said.

Of those, 1.4 million would be people who currently have a state waiver from work requirements that would be disallowed under the bill and 800,000 would be adults who live with children 7 or older, the report said.

In a Friday statement, Ben Nichols, a spokesman for the House Agriculture Committee led by Pennsylvania Republican Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, said the proposed change would be more fair to the people SNAP is supposed to help and noted the program is the only state-administered entitlement program that is paid fully by the federal government.

“No one who is able-bodied and working, volunteering, or training for 20 hours a week will lose benefits,” Nichols wrote.

Republicans want to use the legislative package to extend the 2017 tax law and its cuts, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

Toll on states

The cost-share changes, which would require states for the first time to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits, would also limit participation and add a massive line item to state budgets, according to the CBO.

Starting in 2028, states would be responsible for paying 5% to 25% of SNAP benefits, with a state’s share rising with its payment error rate. The federal government currently pays for all SNAP benefits.

Under the House bill, which will likely undergo substantial changes as the Senate considers it in the coming weeks, states collectively would be responsible for just less than $100 billion from 2028 to 2034, about $14 billion per year.

States would respond in a variety of ways, CBO Director Phillip Swagel wrote, including potentially dropping out of the program.

“CBO expects that some states would maintain current benefits and eligibility and others would modify benefits or eligibility or possibly leave the program altogether because of the increased costs,” he wrote.

The office took a “probabilistic approach to account for a range of possible outcomes” to determine what the effect on households would be and estimated that 1.3 million people would lose benefits because of state responses to the new cost-share.

Nichols, with the House Agriculture Committee, disputed the CBO’s estimate regarding the cost share change. The lowest state cost-share of 5% would be available for states with error rates below 6%. Every state has hit that mark at some point in the last decade, he said.

With that favorable of a cost-share, the Republican committee members did not believe states would drop out of the program, he added.

“We reject the hypothetical assumption that some states may not chip into 5 percent of a supplemental nutrition program,” Nichols wrote. “Every state is capable of paying for a portion SNAP… Federal policy should encourage states to administer the SNAP program more efficiently and effectively, and this bill does just that.” 

CBO’s forecasters determined the impacts of the work requirements and cost-share provisions separately, meaning some people potentially losing benefits could have been counted in both categories.

Move to the Senate

The House vote Thursday sent the measure to the Senate, where the debate over SNAP benefits may fall along similar party lines.

Republicans who hold control in that chamber are planning to employ the budget reconciliation process, which allows them to skirt the Senate’s usual 60-vote requirement for legislation.

During the House Agriculture Committee’s debate over its portion of the legislation, Republicans on the panel said the work requirement and state cost-share measures were needed reforms to SNAP that would protect the program for those it was meant to serve, while limiting the costs associated with benefits to adults who were able and unwilling to work or in the country illegally.

In a Friday statement, Sara Lasure, a spokeswoman for Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican, also said the panel would seek reforms to the program but did not offer specifics.

“The Senate Agriculture Committee is in the process of crafting its budget reconciliation package and will work as good stewards of taxpayer dollars to make commonsense reforms to SNAP that encourage employment,” she wrote in an email.

Klobuchar, in a statement after House passage Thursday, blasted the House bill and indicated she would oppose efforts to cut SNAP benefits.

“House Republicans are pulling the rug out from under millions of families by taking away federal assistance to put food on the table,” she said. “They’re doing that even as President Trump’s tariff taxes raise food prices by more than $200 for the average family, all to fund more tax breaks for the wealthy. That’s so very wrong —and we will fight against it in the Senate.”

Highway 170 in North Hollywood, California. (Photo by Trevor Srednick/Getty Images)

The U.S. Senate voted early Thursday to prevent California from enforcing regulations on tailpipe emission from new cars and trucks, upending state regulations for the nearly 40% of Americans whose states follow California standards.

The House has already passed an identical measure, meaning the Senate vote sends the resolution to President Donald Trump’s desk.

The 51-46 vote, with Michigan Democrat Elissa Slotkin joining all Republicans present to vote in favor, cleared a Congressional Review Act resolution repealing Environmental Protection Agency waivers that allow California to set regulations for emissions from cars and light-duty trucks.

The state policy includes a ramp-up to having no new gas-powered cars sold in the state by 2035.

Democrats blasted the near-party-line vote for contradicting the Senate parliamentarian, who’d ruled the waiver that the EPA had granted to California to set its own tailpipe standards was not a regulation that could be rolled back under the Congressional Review Act, or CRA.

The CRA allows for a simple majority in the Senate to vote to repeal recent executive branch rules, bypassing the chamber’s usual 60-vote threshold for legislation.

‘Chaos and uncertainty’ around the U.S.

The EPA under President Joe Biden issued waivers under a Clean Air Act provision that allows California, which had more stringent standards than what Congress enacted in the 1970 law, to set its own standards for air pollution.

No other state is allowed to set independent standards, but any state may adopt California’s.

For the light-duty vehicle emissions rule, 17 other states — Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington — and the District of Columbia adopted some portion of the standard.

The action by the Senate, particularly because of the mechanism for revoking the waiver, made the future of the standards in all those states uncertain, Justin Balik, vice president for states at the national environmental advocacy group Evergreen Action, said in a Thursday interview.

“What, fundamentally, they’re doing is sowing a huge amount of chaos and uncertainty in states around the country, not just in California,” he said of the senators.

Slotkin, who voted against procedural measures before her vote in favor of the resolution itself, said her vote was in defense of her state’s automotive industry. Slotkin campaigned on a promise not to allow an electric vehicle mandate.

“Today, I voted to prevent California and the states that follow its standard from effectively banning gas-powered cars by 2035,” she wrote in a statement. “I have a special responsibility to stand up for the more than one million Michiganders whose livelihoods depend on the U.S. auto industry.”

Debate over choice

Critics said the state regulation was effectively an electric vehicle mandate that robbed consumers of the option to purchase the vehicle of their choice.

Because of California’s market share — the state accounts for 11% of cars and trucks sold in the country, according to the California Air Resources Board — and adoption by other states, the Golden State standard had a virtually nationwide effect, they argued.

Republicans in the Senate focused on the 2035 deadline to end sales of new gas-powered vehicles, describing it as an electric vehicle mandate.

In a video posted to social media, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Barrasso of Wyoming, stood next to Shelley Moore Capito, the West Virginia Republican chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and touted the vote as a victory for consumer choice.

“Republicans have defeated Democrats’ delusional dream of forcing every American to drive an electric vehicle,” Barrasso said. “They wanted to force-feed the entire country things that don’t necessarily work, not practical.”

But proponents of the California standards said the Senate was removing choice from state policymakers, despite Republicans’ longtime advocacy for state and local control.

Manish Bapna, the president of the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council, blasted the move in a statement that said senators undermined state power.

“This vote is an unprecedented and reckless attack on states’ legal authority to address the pollution causing asthma, lung disease and heart conditions,” Bapna said. “After a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign from Big Oil, Republicans readily jettisoned their long-held view that states can best enact measures that reflect the values and interests of their residents.

“If other states don’t like California’s approach, they don’t need to follow it,” the statement continued. “But federal lawmakers shouldn’t be intervening to block states from providing cleaner air and a healthier environment.”

Procedural fight

Republicans’ use of the Congressional Review Act provoked a backlash from Democrats and environmental allies, who described it as “going nuclear” to tank the chamber’s filibuster rule.

The Senate parliamentarian and the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said the waiver could not be repealed with a CRA resolution, but Senate Republicans opted to use the procedure anyway.

“Senate Republicans exposed themselves as fair weather institutionalists. By overriding the parliamentarian — which the chair explicitly noted that the parliamentarian has been overridden — and in order to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, Republicans have eroded away at the Senate foundation and undermined this institution they claim to care about,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after a procedural vote late Wednesday.

Republicans defended the move, saying they were responding to an unprecedented case in the chamber. The question of how Senate rules applied to the waiver should be decided by senators themselves, Majority Leader John Thune said.

“I believe that when the Senate is facing a novel situation like this one, with disagreement among its members, it is appropriate for the Senate to speak as a body to the question – something the Senate does when questions over application of the rules arise,” he said in a floor speech.

Thune, of South Dakota, noted that the Senate resolved a rules question with a floor vote just last year after a Democrat raised a point of order against a Republican’s attempt to fast-track a measure.

“Nobody at the time cried nuclear, nobody said the Democrat member was blowing up the Senate – in fact, most members probably don’t even remember the situation, because it was just the Senate doing what the Senate is supposed to do, and that’s voting on how to apply the rules when faced with a new situation.”

Uncertainty abounds

Critics of the move attacked the process, the policy and the precedent, saying the Senate undid a half-century of a California-federal government relationship regarding the Clean Air Act that had served all parties well.

John Boesel, the president and CEO of clean transportation industry group CALSTART, called the Senate action radical.

“This vote upends decades of policy that has successfully resulted in cleaner air and the growth of a robust clean transportation industry,” he said in a statement. “It is a brazen, yet futile, attempt to bring the clean transportation industry to a sudden halt. CALSTART will continue to partner with the states working to fill this gaping void left by today’s federal action.”

And the unusual use of the Congressional Review Act will likely lead to lawsuits from California and at least some of the states that follow it to “protect their authority,” Balik, of Evergreen Action, said.

“But that’s going to take some time to play out,” he said. “In the meantime, the whole marketplace has been plunged into unnecessary chaos. Part of what the industry always says is, ‘We need certainty.’ And if anything, right now, we have the exact opposite thanks to what Congress is doing.”

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum testifies before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Screenshot from committee webcast)

Just after President Donald Trump rallied U.S. House Republicans to pass a giant legislative package containing most of his domestic policy goals Tuesday, members of both parties on a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum they would likely provide his department more funding than Trump requested.

Even as Republicans professed a deference to Trump — with the subcommittee’s chairman calling him “the boss” — they also reaffirmed Congress’ power to direct spending, winning a promise from Burgum to spend congressionally appropriated money for its intended purpose.

Republicans and Democrats on the House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee raised concerns with Burgum about proposed deep cuts in the administration’s “skinny budget” request to the National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Education and other Interior Department programs.

“The administration proposed some deep funding cuts that we will likely not see eye-to-eye (on), especially when it comes to Indian programs and the operations of our national parks,” subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, said.

The subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Maine’s Chellie Pingree, was more blunt in her objection to the budget request, saying she “wholeheartedly” opposed it.

“Secretary Burgum, the document we’re here to discuss today is more than just a budget,” she said. “It’s a blueprint for dismantling the very mission of the Department of Interior, making it impossible to protect our natural resources and iconic national parks or uphold our commitments to tribal communities now and for future generations.”

In his opening statement, Burgum highlighted efforts by the administration to increase oil and gas development, which he said would increase federal revenues from the department.

Burgum rejects impoundment

The panel’s hearing started late as Republican members were delayed listening to Trump address their conference’s weekly meeting.

“I want to apologize for the half-hour late start; we were listening to the boss over at conference,” Simpson said, referring to Trump’s appearance at the House Republican Conference meeting.

But, he continued, the panel would likely not accept the president’s recommendation to reduce the department’s budget by 30%, and he used his first question to put Burgum on the record about the administration’s duty to spend congressionally appropriated funds.

“If Congress chooses to provide discretionary appropriations for the agency that are at levels above the president’s budget request, how would you handle that?” Simpson asked. “In other words, would you spend the amounts provided in an enacted bill and for the specific programs that Congress identifies?”

“Yes,” Burgum responded. “That would be the law.”

While Congress has the constitutional authority to make federal spending decisions, spending hawks within the administration, including budget chief Russell Vought, have broached the idea of “impounding” money that Congress has directed. The legality of the concept is untested.

Burgum’s response to Simpson rejected the use of impoundment, but Pingree noted that his department has still been unable to access appropriations due to delays at the Office of Management and Budget, which Vought oversees.

‘Congress has the power of the purse’

The continuing resolution that Trump signed in March included a provision that the Interior Department would have funds available within 60 days, she said. That deadline has passed but the money had not yet been apportioned, threatening job losses in Maine and other states, she said.

Pingree asked Burgum if he was “pushing the OMB to appropriate your department’s funding.”

Burgum said he was.

“Okay, pushing is good,” she said. “So just from my perspective, if you don’t get this funding, then that is impoundment. It is breaking the law. And I think perhaps on both sides of the aisle, we’re feeling very frustrated this administration is not expeditiously appropriating what we funded.

“Congress has the power of the purse,” she continued. “We meet in this committee, and we do an incredible amount of work negotiating back and forth on both sides of the aisle to arrive at these numbers and to figure out what should be done. And to have this administration just wantonly disregard what we have done, and to worry about having to do that in the next, 2026, budget, I would ask, you know what, why do committees meet? Why do we do the work that we’re doing if, in fact, we can’t count on the OMB?”

Cut in spending on Park Service

The president’s budget request included a $900 million decrease in spending for the National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department. The administration proposed turning some NPS assets over to the states to manage as a way to reduce expenses.

Asked by Simpson about that idea, Burgum said no one was considering removing any of the 64 “crown jewel” national parks, but that some of the more than 400 other NPS sites could be managed by state or local authorities. Those sites may include historic battlefields or presidential birthplaces, he said.

“There’s, I think, zero intention of transferring any actual national parks,” he said. “I mean, the 64 crown jewels that we have, there’s zero thought about that.”

Full committee Chairman Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, noted that Burgum had taken the 64 large parks off the table, but was supportive of transferring smaller sites. He urged Burgum to look not just at states but at tribal governments.

“Look at the Chickasaw National Recreational Area sometime,” Cole, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, said. “I guarantee you, we’d manage it better. And that’s not to say the federal government does a bad job. They don’t, but we would put more resources into it.”

Tribal education

Members also questioned Burgum on the administration’s proposed $187 million decrease for the Bureau of Indian Education construction.

Burgum said his team was trying to understand the challenges of BIE facilities and noted that some were in need of maintenance.

But he said that his experience as North Dakota governor showed him that poor outcomes at BIE were not necessarily related to funding.

“It’s not always correlated between the more money you spend, the better outcomes you get,” he said.

Cole said he agreed with that idea, but said funding was also a statement of priorities.

“But I also think that kids have to have a good place to learn,” he said. “And sometimes that’s an expression of whether or not you care about them very much. And I’ve been to some excellent BIE schools… but I’ve been to some places I wouldn’t send my kid to simply because the resources aren’t there and haven’t ever been there.”

South Dakota state Rep. Karla Lems, R-Canton, speaks to hundreds of rally attendees at the South Dakota Capitol in Pierre on Jan. 13, 2025, during an event highlighting opposition to a carbon dioxide pipeline. (Photo by Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

Lawmakers and advocates on the right and left are raising questions about a provision in legislation a powerful U.S. House committee approved Wednesday, with critics arguing it would allow federal regulators to approve natural gas and carbon dioxide pipelines over prohibitions in state law.

Two sections in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s reconciliation instructions, which the Republican-led panel passed along party lines, would allow pipeline operators to pay $10 million to participate in an expedited federal permitting process that critics say would override state laws.

The potentially intensely controversial provision would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exclusive authority to issue licenses for pipelines carrying natural gas, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oil, or other energy products and byproducts.

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if the Commission issues a license under subsection (c)(1) of this section and the licensee is in compliance with such license, no requirement of State or local law that requires approval of the location of the covered pipeline with respect to which the license is issued may be enforced against the licensee,” the text of the bill reads.

A summary document provided by the committee says the bill would apply to states only in cases when state agencies are responsible for conducting federal reviews.

“For States, this includes their authorities to impose conditions for any certifying authorities delegated to States by federal law,” the document says.

But a variety of groups and lawmakers — environmental groups opposed to loosening reviews, landholder advocates concerned about property rights and small-government conservatives who favor local control — say the measure would open the door for the federal government to nullify state and local protections.

That includes a recent South Dakota law to prevent pipeline operators from using eminent domain to force landowners to sell or allow use of their property.

“This is federal overreach,” South Dakota state Rep. Karla Lems said in a Thursday interview. “It would override any state or local law regarding … the routing of a pipeline.”

Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

The Energy and Commerce Committee was one of 11 House panels that have approved reconciliation instructions and sent them to the House Budget Committee to consolidate into one package. House Republicans plan to consider the 1,100-page package on the floor next week.

The complex process, known as budget reconciliation, allows the majority party to pass legislation with simple majorities in both chambers, avoiding the U.S. Senate’s usual 60-vote requirement.

President Donald Trump has described the package as “one big, beautiful bill” and it contains a host of his domestic policy priorities including extending tax cuts and increasing funding for immigration enforcement.

A provision in Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation bill encouraged an existing trend of pipeline installation in the Midwest. The measure provided tax breaks for carbon sequestration, which can involve piping the carbon dioxide byproducts that result from processes like ethanol production into underground storage chambers.

Actually building those pipelines across hundreds of miles between ethanol producers, particularly in farm states like Iowa and South Dakota, and underground storage facilities in North Dakota, where the geology supports it, requires the use of private land, which has been strongly opposed for several reasons and led to state restrictions.

Environmental and safety groups worry some pipeline at some point will rupture and therefore pose a danger to nearby residents and water sources.

Private property owners and conservative political allies say they should have stronger rights to resist pipeline operators from using their property.

Plea to Congress

That unusual coalition was apparent again this week as environmentalists and conservatives united to oppose the measure in the Energy and Commerce bill.

A collection of 70 environmental and conservation groups signed a letter to the committee Wednesday urging the language be removed.

“These measures would radically expand federal jurisdiction over all types of interstate pipelines, drastically limit public input, shorten environmental review timelines, and shield projects from legal challenges, all while clearing the way for expanded use of federal eminent domain against landowners,” the letter said.

The letter was signed by groups ranging from the local agriculture and conservation organization Dakota Rural Action to national environmental group Food & Water Watch.

South Dakota House Speaker Jon Hansen, a self-described MAGA Republican, tweeted screenshots of the provision with the message “property rights are under attack again.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican former U.S. House member and rival to Trump in the 2024 presidential nomination race, reposted the tweet.

“This represents overriding both the rights of states and private property owners to serve Biden’s Green New Deal,” DeSantis wrote above Hansen’s message. “What the heck is going on up there?”

Uncertainty over impact

Chase Jensen, a senior organizer with Dakota Rural Action, said in a press release accompanying the coalition letter that the group was calling on members of Congress “to stand with the State of South Dakota and oppose this clear attempt to buy permits and bypass the people.”

“When South Dakota was first faced with carbon dioxide pipelines, our congressmen said it was up to the state to deal with it,” Jensen said. “Now that we have barred eminent domain for these private projects – their billionaire owners are trying to cut the state out of the process altogether.”

South Dakota’s U.S. House member, Republican Dusty Johnson, said in a statement to South Dakota Searchlight he’d been unaware of the bill’s language but predicted it would be removed before final passage.

He indicated he was unsure what the effect of the bill would be, but started “from a place of deep skepticism.”

“I wasn’t aware of this language until committee text was released,” Johnson, who does not sit on Energy and Commerce, wrote. “As a former public utilities commissioner, I have strong concerns with bypassing state permitting and I begin from a place of deep skepticism for this language. I doubt it will be included in President Trump’s ‘one, big, beautiful bill.’”

But U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, a North Dakota Republican who is a former state utility regulator, told reporters on a press call Thursday morning that she thought the bill would not block the state from being involved in environmental reviews, even if a company seeks a pipeline permit from federal regulators.

Fedorchak said she doesn’t think the proposal would limit local input on projects, adding that FERC has a “pretty robust permitting process” for interstate natural gas pipelines.

A spokesman for the Energy and Commerce Committee did not return a message seeking clarification Thursday.

North Dakota Monitor Editor Amy Dalrymple and South Dakota Searchlight Editor Seth Tupper contributed to this report.

A “SNAP welcomed here” sign is seen at the entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland, Oregon. (Getty Images)

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee approved, 29-25, Wednesday evening its portion of Republicans’ major legislative package that includes a provision that would shift to states some of the responsibility to pay for a major nutrition assistance program.

The bill would require states, for the first time, to cover part of the cost of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits that provide $100 billion per year to help 42 million Americans afford groceries. The measure would also shift more of the administrative cost to states and increase work requirements for recipients.

Republicans are planning to combine the measure with legislation from 10 other committees in a budget reconciliation package that allows the Senate to avoid its usual 60-vote threshold.

House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson said the panel’s bill and its estimated $290 billion deficit savings over a 10-year budget window were necessary for the larger legislative package to extend tax cuts and increase border security and defense spending.

 The package would “prevent the largest tax increase in American history on our families, farmers and small businesses, and (would) deliver critical funding necessary for the Trump administration to continue their work keeping Americans safe,” the Pennsylvania Republican said in an opening statement.

“Our reconciliation instructions provide the opportunity to restore integrity to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to make sure that this essential program works for the most vulnerable and functions as Congress has intended.”

Republicans on the panel said throughout a marathon committee meeting, which started Tuesday night and wrapped up more than 26 hours later following an overnight break, that the added work requirements and accountability measures for state governments were overdue reforms.

The panel’s GOP majority approved the bill over unified opposition from Democrats, who argued that the measure would unfairly cut benefits to needy families to pay for tax cuts for high earners, undermine the panel’s bipartisan tradition of fusing crop subsidies with nutrition assistance and overburden state governments that can’t afford to take on the additional cost.

Ranking Democrat Angie Craig of Minnesota called the measure “the largest rollback of an anti-hunger program in our nation’s history” which would be felt deeply across a broad swath of recipients.

“We will see children going to bed without dinner, more seniors skipping meals to afford their medicine, more parents sacrificing their own nutrition, so their kids can eat,” Craig said. “Every single one of us knows (the cuts) will take food away from families at a time when working folks are struggling with higher costs.”

State contributions

The bill would make states pay for up to 25% of SNAP benefits, which are currently entirely covered by the federal government, starting in 2028.

States would be required to pay at least 5%, with the rate rising with a state’s payment error rate. The highest state cost-share would be triggered by a state reaching a 10% or higher error rate.

Even at the lowest state cost-share, the provision would add $4.7 billion overall to annual state obligations, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the center-left think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

But only seven states would have qualified for the lowest cost-share in fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which data is available. The national error rate was 11.7% and more than two dozen states and territories had error rates higher than 10%.

That means in practice the costs to states would be much higher. The three most populous states — California, Texas and Florida — alone would have combined to owe more than $5.7 billion under their 2023 error rates and 2024 benefit amounts.

Republican members said the requirement would incentivize states to better manage their programs.

“Unlike every other state-administered entitlement program, SNAP benefit is 100% funded by the federal government, resulting in minimal incentives for states to control costs, enhance efficiencies and improve outcomes for recipients,” Thompson said.

Impact on state budgets

Democrats said states could ill afford to take on additional costs, meaning the bill would result in cuts to the program or other critical services.

“The massive unfunded mandate this bill forces on states just passes the buck onto state legislatures, forcing them to slash local programs and services, cut benefits, kick vulnerable people off SNAP or raise taxes,” Craig said. “We already know states can’t afford it.”

The change would force difficult decisions for states, several Democrats said.

In Ohio, the state would be on the hook for an additional $534 million annually, Democrat Shontel Brown said.

“That’s not to expand benefits or improve outcomes, that’s just to maintain the status quo.” she said. “To cover the costs, Ohio, along with every other state, is going to have to make brutal tradeoffs. It’s going to mean cutting K-12 education funding, scaling back opioid and mental health treatment programs, reducing Medicaid coverage or putting off critical infrastructure repairs.”

Republicans countered that the provision would bring much needed accountability to state administrators, which would make the program fairer overall.

Alaska had an error rate of nearly 60% in fiscal 2023. Without mentioning that state, Derrick Van Orden, a Republican whose home state of Wisconsin was among the few states with error rates under 6%, said the costs associated with such numerous errors shouldn’t be covered by states with lower rates.

“Overpayments, waste, fraud and abuse have plagued programs like SNAP,” he said. “There is a state that has a 59.59% overpayment rate and my Wisconsinites are not going to pick up that slack.”

States’ error rates include fraud, but it makes up a small share of a category that also includes inadvertent underpayments and overpayments, Michigan Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet said.

SNAP has a fraud rate of less than 1% and work requirements already exist, McDonald Rivet said. Republicans’ efforts to target fraud and add work requirements wouldn’t reach the cost savings they sought, she said.

“Are there error rates in the states? Sure,” she said. “Should we address it? Absolutely. But the idea that we are going to find $300 billion of cuts — $300 billion of cuts — on that small percentage of people who are not working that are already required to or error rates in the states is just a flat-out lie. What we are really doing is cutting food for people.”

Administrative costs

The bill would also increase states’ share of the cost of administering the food assistance program.

Under current law, states and the federal government evenly split the cost of administering the program. The bill would have states shoulder 75% of administrative costs.

Democrats, including the ranking member of the panel’s Nutrition, Foreign Agriculture, and Horticulture Subcommittee, complained that would compound the problems created by the new cost structure for SNAP benefits.

“States will be forced to budget more for SNAP benefits with less for administrators,” Rep. Jahana Hayes of Connecticut said. “With fewer administrative staff, it is inevitable that errors will increase.”

Work requirements

Another section of the bill would expand the number of participants subject to work requirements to receive SNAP benefits.

The proposal would raise from 54 to 64 the age at which a person no longer has to meet work requirements. It would also lower from 18 to 7 the age at which caring for a child exempts a person from work requirements.

Democrats raised and introduced several amendments meant to address the provision, but were outvoted each time.

Kansas Republican Tracey Mann said the changes were not only about improving SNAP efficiency, but would make the program’s rules fairer for those it was meant to serve.

“It is wrong to jeopardize the benefits of the single mom taking care of kids too young to be in school or the disabled or elderly in order to subsidize someone who is perfectly capable of making an honest income but isn’t willing to join the workforce,” Mann said.

“These changes will ensure that individuals are served by the program as it was intended — not as a couch that you can sit on as long as you want, but as a true safety net that gets you back on the ladder of opportunity and back into a job.”

Boxes of sugary cereal, including those from General Mills, fill a store's shelves on April 16, 2025, in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s portion of Republicans’ massive taxes and spending bill would partially shift to states the costs of the country’s largest food assistance program, which some experts and Democrats predicted will lead to major cuts in the program — and possibly even an end to it in some states.

The measure will be taken up by the panel Tuesday night and is expected to be voted on late Tuesday or early Wednesday, after which it will be folded into a larger reconciliation package with 10 other bills passed out of committees and sent to the floor. The entire House is set to vote on the legislation before Memorial Day.

The federal government currently pays for all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. A provision in the Agriculture Committee’s piece of Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda would transfer between 5% and 25% of that cost to states, depending on each state’s payment error rate, starting in 2028.

The program provided about $100 billion in food assistance to nearly 42 million Americans last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Eligibility currently depends on tests related to income, assets, work requirements and more.

But the change in cost structure could lead states to opt out entirely, said Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance at the left-leaning economic think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, leading some needy families unable to pay for groceries.

“The language is unclear, but it could end SNAP entirely in some parts of the country if states decide the new state funding requirements are impossible for them to meet,” Cox said in a statement late Monday after the bill’s release. “The bill’s massive cuts disguised as ‘cost shifts’ pass the buck to states – but ultimately would leave families holding an empty grocery bag when states aren’t willing or able to backfill for lost federal funds.” 

Republicans plan to use the reconciliation package to permanently extend the 2017 tax law, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

“Our budget reconciliation text restores SNAP to its original intent—promoting work, not welfare—while saving taxpayer dollars and investing in American agriculture,” House Committee on Agriculture Republicans said on X on Monday night.

Funding tied to error rate

Under the bill, states’ responsibility would rise with the broadly defined error rate of payments, which includes fraud as well as paperwork mistakes by a beneficiary or caseworker.

States with an error rate of 6% or less would be responsible for paying 5% of benefits, and those with an error rate higher than 10% would shoulder one-quarter of the cost of benefits.

Two other intermediate categories would exist for states with error rates between 6% and 10%.

Based on current data, more than half of states would fall into the highest category of error rates. The national average is 11.7% and more than two dozen states and territories have rates higher than 10%.

The states are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. The District of Columbia also has an error rate over 10%, as do Guam and the Virgin Islands.

Alaska’s nation-leading 60% error rate would be nearly impossible to bring under 10% by the time the provision goes into effect, Jones Cox said in a Tuesday interview.

Only seven states — Idaho, Iowa, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming — would qualify for the lowest state cost-share.

$290 billion in cuts overall

The measure would incentivize states to control the $13 billion per year in erroneous payments, a House Agriculture Committee summary of the legislation said. The bill as a whole would cut $290 billion in federal spending over a 10-year budget window, according to the summary.

While congressional Republicans can claim they are not cutting benefits with the bill, the program would shrink with a lower federal cost-share, Jones Cox said.

“They can say it’s not a cut, because they’re going to say it’s just shifting those costs to the states,” she said. “But it is a cut because states, if they cannot fill the gap… that brings down the program, period.”

The changes would force state budget officers to choose from among a host of unattractive options: cutting SNAP, offsetting costs with corresponding cuts to other programs or raising revenues through taxes or other measures.

States “have a few options,” Jones Cox said. “None look good.”

Republicans are using the complex reconciliation process to move the package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber, avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, which would otherwise require bipartisanship. 

Reconciliation measures must address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit in a way not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. That means the GOP proposals must carry some sort of price tag and cannot focus simply on changing federal policy.

Democrats slam bill

On a press call Tuesday, Democratic officials and an anti-hunger nonprofit blasted the proposal.

Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, expressed skepticism that U.S. DOGE Service head Elon Musk could find a more efficient use of the $2 per meal SNAP provides during the call with other Democratic senators, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and the nonprofit, Hunger Free Vermont.

“This is not a waste, fraud and abuse deal,” Welch said. “This is really about taking away basic nutritional security that is so absolutely essential to the well-being of our families and our kids in Vermont and in every single state across the nation.”

Kotek, who started her political career as a policy advocate for the Oregon Food Bank, said she saw firsthand the effect of food insecurity. More than 700,000 Oregonians receive benefits from SNAP, and every dollar spent on SNAP generates another $1.50 to $1.80 in economic activity at grocery stores, farmers’ markets and other local businesses, Kotek said.

“When you cut SNAP, you’re not cutting bureaucracy,” she said. “You’re cutting a child’s dinner. You’re cutting their breakfast. You’re cutting their family’s dignity.”

One in four New Mexicans rely on SNAP, said Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M. The farmers and ranchers he represents also plan their farming season based on what grocery stores and food banks will need, and farmers already planted seeds with the idea that those vegetables will be used for school lunches and other food programs.

“The way to look at this is it’s not fiscally responsible,” Luján said. “It’s taking away from the hungry across America to make billionaires and millionaires even wealthier, and it’s going to even explode the deficit.”