Donald Trump’s antipathy towards the Inflation Reduction Act – Biden’s signature energy/climate legislation – is well known. But it is worth spending a few minutes reading about how Trump’s illegal cuts to IRA funding are creating harm on the ground in two of our most iconic river basins: the Klamath Basin (two haunting pieces by Jacques Leslie) and the Colorado Basin (in southwestern Colorado and throughout the basin). All four linked articles are worth your time.

What is so tragic about this – besides the shear cruelty of clawing back funds that have already been allocated and spent – is that many of these projects were creating real positive change on the ground for both ecosystems and communities: restoring rivers to benefit both fish and people, reducing erosion to help both landowners and downstream ecosystems, improving irrigation efficiency to free up water for the river while saving money for farmers. These things still make sense.