Nearly three dozen Appalachian advocacy groups want federal lawmakers to protect needed federal funding.
In a series of letters to members of the House and Senate appropriations committees, the groups, including the Appalachian Citzens' Law Center and Appalachian Voices, say federal cuts put their communities at risk of flooding and pollution and will expose miners to more deadly diseases.
The cuts come from a variety of sources. Some were frozen when President Donald Trump ordered reviews of environmental and climate change initiatives. Others came from sweeping layoffs that eliminated essential staff at programs that research and enforce mine safety measures. The letters also caution against cuts that may still be yet to come for child care and housing assistance programs.
The groups urged fully funding programs like the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood mitigation efforts, the Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement, and basic assistance for low-income families to buy food.
Advocates bemoaned the loss of programs that were helping.
”These issues are real and they matter, and it is heartbreaking to have the solutions in our hand ready to go and being implemented and then illegally and irresponsibly taken away for cheap political points,” said Dana Kuhnline, program director of ReImagine Appalachia, a group that brings together local policy makers from around the region to make a cohesive economic and environmental strategy.
In Pound, Virginia, vice-mayor Leabern Kennedy said local officials were working with federal emergency officials on ways to rebuild their town after multiple years of flooding. But midway through, FEMA eliminated that program – called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC — for being “wasteful and ineffective.”
“I want people to know that that money, that program, was important to us,” Kennedy said. “We need to restore a program like BRIC to protect towns like mine from devastating floods.”
Both the House and Senate committees in charge of drafting a spending plan for fiscal year 2026 are collecting funding requests from federal lawmakers. Once approved, the new budget will take effect at the end of September 2025.
