House Republicans are moving to derail the administration’s “ecogrief” training for federal employees by attaching language to a spending bill that would bar the Interior Department from offering the classes to its employees.
Employee workshops at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one of the department’s agencies, drew rebukes from Congress and scorn from some agency insiders who said the ecogrief program was a bizarre way to spend scarce resources.
The ban proposed by Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee would cover the Fish and Wildlife Service and apply to the entire department.
Ecogrief is part of a family of new terms, along with “climate grief” and “eco-anxiety,” to describe distress from environmental changes. Republican lawmakers say the concept is ludicrous and the training classes are a “colossal waste of taxpayer money.”
“We and many of our constituents are appalled to see our tax dollars funding ‘ecogrief’ workshops instead of science-based, environmentally-sound policies,” Rep. Bruce Westerman, Arkansas Republican and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a letter this spring to Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams.
The ban on such training is part of the bill to fund environmental policy and the Interior Department.
The legislation reads: “None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be obligated or expended to carry out the program for Federal employees at the Department of the Interior entitled ‘Acknowledging Ecogrief and Developing Resistance’ or any counseling sessions, workshop, or any other meeting pertaining to ecological grief, ecogrief, or eco-resilience.”
The bill has cleared a subcommittee and is slated for full committee action on Wednesday. The Senate has not announced its version of the bill, and the chances for the provision to make it into law are unclear.
The Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on the legislation and did not answer questions about the status of the training.
The Interior Department declined to say what other agencies hold similar training.
“We have nothing to contribute,” said Melissa Schwartz, the department’s communications director.
The Washington Times first reported on the classes earlier this year, sparking outrage among members of Congress.
The agency said employees had asked for the training. Each session was open to 35 people and lasted four hours.
In March, officials told Congress that four or five sessions had been held in different regions of the country at a total cost of about $10,000.
Attendance appeared to be disappointing. Officials were pleading with employees to sign up for the March session, run by the service’s regional office in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Republican bill would trim spending at the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA budget would be cut by $4 billion. The Smithsonian Institution, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management also would face double-digit percentage cuts, said Rep. Michael Simpson, the Idaho Republican who serves as chairman of the subcommittee that wrote the bill.
“Cutting funding is never easy and can often be an ugly process. But with the national debt in excess of $32 trillion and inflation at an unacceptable level, we must do our jobs to rein in unnecessary federal spending,” Mr. Simpson said.
Democrats said the proposed reductions are unacceptable.
“The cuts in this bill are so severe that even agencies that usually enjoy bipartisan support are targeted for damaging reductions,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree, Maine Democrat.
She said National Park Service employees would be fired and wildland firefighters would lose pay raises.
The bill also settles some Republican policy scores.
The legislation would unravel environmental protection regulations for tenuously defined “waters,” revoke an attempt to withdraw the availability of hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Minnesota for energy exploration, and thwart attempts to build a National Museum of the American Latino.
The bill also contains a general prohibition on spending to advance the president’s diversity, equity and inclusion agenda.
Some Fish and Wildlife Service employees said that agenda sent their agency off the deep end and made culture warriors out of federal employees whose jobs are to protect endangered species.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is engaged in a multimillion-dollar “Values Journey” focusing on LBGTQ matters. That includes a “Transgender Day of Visibility” summit and a policy granting employees nearly unlimited time off to participate in diversity or equity organizations and events.
In documents seen by The Times, Fish and Wildlife Service leaders described the diversity and equity push as Ms. Williams’ top priority.
Some of those activities will be curtailed if the bill becomes law.
In particular, the legislation bans flying gay rights or other trendy nongovernmental flags at department facilities.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.