"Scott Vlaun has been working with his school district in western Maine to cut back how much energy it uses and helping his town come up with a plan to deal with climate threats from things like rising temperatures and worsening floods. It's a conservative part of the state where incomes are well below the national average. So, Vlaun says it was a big deal when his nonprofit got federal funding under the Biden administration to assist in lowering people's energy bills and preparing communities for more extreme weather.
"A lot of the work we do is about building resilience," says Vlaun, executive director of the Center for an Ecology-Based Economy in Norway, Maine, a town of about 5,000 that was once known as the Snowshoe Capital of the World. "But we're also trying to build energy equity, so that the working poor here can afford their electricity."
Then President Trump took office, and the aid disappeared.
At the end of March, the Environmental Protection Agency told Vlaun that a grant to his organization had been terminated. "The objectives of the award are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities," the agency said in a letter that was shared with NPR."
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