Many MindedCanceled federal grants leave Kotzebue's wind plan stalled and diesel bills high
Kotzebue, a small city in northwest Alaska just north of the Arctic Circle, can be reached only by air and sea. Ice blocks freight barges for most of the year, so it has about a three-month window to receive its full annual diesel supply. Diesel provides roughly 75% of its power, and residents spend about 20% of their income on it. That is more than three times the average energy burden of low-income US households.
In 2024 the EPA announced a $20 million grant for a Kotzebue wind project, part of a $150 million allocation for tribal infrastructure in Alaska. The Trump administration canceled the grant in May 2025, and the project has stayed paused for more than a year. Chad Nordlum, energy project manager for the Native Village of Kotzebue, estimates the wind project would have cut diesel reliance to about 40%-50%. That figure is his own estimate.
The cancellation is part of a wider pattern. Two Brookings Institution reports say the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended many funding streams created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. They also say DOGE eliminated another $468 million in Indian Country funding. The Hopi Tribe lost a $25 million grant for solar panels on 600 homes when the $7 billion Solar for All program was cut.
This is a setback for energy affordability where the cost of fuel is highest. Remote communities have the most to gain from local generation, and they are the ones losing the money that would build it. Housing and household budgets absorb the cost.
Watch for Nordlum's smaller solar project, and for whether Congress acts on the Brookings recommendations. Those are to bar cancellation of tribal grants and to send funds directly to tribes rather than by reimbursement. Brookings researcher Rob Maxim also notes that underinvestment in tribal infrastructure predates Trump and is the US default. He calls the post-pandemic funding the aberration.
Source: Canary Media