The Trump administration has frozen or canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help protect the Chesapeake Bay, according to a coalition of groups advocating for cleanup of the massive estuary.
The funding freeze could jeopardize progress toward restoring the bay, whose watershed spans 64,000 square miles within Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, New York and Washington, bay advocates said.
Members of the Choose Clean Water Coalition descended on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to call for more funding this year for bay programs and initiatives. The group’s members include local nonprofits, foundations and national environmental groups.
The annual event comes as President Donald Trump continues to freeze some grants from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, despite federal judges having ruled that blocking money appropriated by Congress could be unconstitutional.
