2026-08-24
8 分钟NPR.
This is The Indicator from Planet Money.
I'm Adrian Ma.
And I'm Waylon Wong.
Federal funding is getting more political, maybe even personal.
Department of Energy officials admitted in a recent court filing
that they had canceled hundreds of grants based on whether projects were located in blue states.
And if the administration gets its way, it could be empowered to make funding decisions based on political leanings.
And not just with energy-related grants, but all federal grants.
That's because the Office of Management and Budget has proposed sweeping changes
to how the federal government doles out money to academic researchers, nonprofits and local governments.
Among these changes, senior political appointees would have to sign off on federal grants
and funding could be cut off mid-project if there's a change in, quote, agency priorities.
The OMB says these revisions will increase accountability and help ensure that taxpayer money isn't wasted or misused.
But.
The proposal is worrying many grant recipients
who don't want future funding to be at the mercy of shifting political winds.
Today on the show, we focus on one big category of recipients, local governments.
We go back to the pandemic when cities and towns got hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants.
We see how they use this money,