At the same time, many cities have seen their streets crowded with delivery trucks from Amazon and other companies, as consumers increasingly opt to have products delivered to their homes. In a few states, lawmakers think fees on those deliveries could be part of their road-funding solution.

“If you’re going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them,” said Colorado state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat who chairs the Energy and Environment Committee.

In July 2022, Colorado became the first state with a retail delivery fee, a charge on all vehicle deliveries to consumers within the state. The fee, which currently stands at 29 cents per delivery, provides funding for highways, bridges, tunnels, electric vehicle charging stations and projects to reduce air pollution and to electrify vehicle fleets and transit systems. It has brought in more than $160 million.

Colorado leaders have had to simplify the law to help businesses comply with it, but they say it’s largely been a success story. Minnesota enacted its own retail delivery fee in 2023, and lawmakers in New York and Illinois have proposed similar measures. Meanwhile, legislators and transportation officials in several other states have commissioned studies to consider the concept.

Some retailers and Republican lawmakers have argued that the fee hurts consumers, and many businesses in Colorado initially had trouble complying with the law.

“The 27-cent delivery fee is not trivial, its effects are not imperceptible, and it greatly affects our citizens — especially those who are already struggling to pay the bills and provide for their families,” Republican state Rep. Rose Pugliese, the House minority leader, wrote in a Colorado Springs Gazette guest column several months after the law was enacted.

But backers of the fee say they see growing interest across the country, especially as delivery trucks become ubiquitous in many neighborhoods.

___

‘Future-proofing’ transportation funding

State law in Colorado limits the ways in which lawmakers can expand taxes. With gas tax revenues dwindling, legislators didn’t have an obvious solution to pay for roads. They eventually settled on the retail delivery fee, which is not characterized as a tax.

Initially, the program was a struggle for many businesses, due to a requirement that they detail the fee separately on each receipt.

“For our medium and small businesses, it was a real complicated thing and very burdensome for them to have to reprogram their software with a whole extra line item,” Kipp said.

Last year, Kipp joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers to amend the program. They rescinded the requirement that businesses itemize the fee on each receipt and allowed companies to cover the fee themselves rather than breaking it out on each order. They also exempted retailers with less than $500,000 in sales.

Since the fix was adopted, Kipp said she has stopped hearing complaints about the program. Chris Howes, president of the Colorado Retail Council, said he too has not heard any recent gripes.

“We’ve got it straightened out by now,” he said. “People have accepted it and moved on.”

Amazon did not grant a Stateline interview request, and the National Retail Federation deferred questions to state chapters. Chamber of Progress, a tech industry advocacy group, did not arrange an interview by publication time.

Last year, lawmakers in Minnesota enacted their own retail delivery fee, a 50-cent charge on purchases of more than $100. Lawmakers heard from local governments that they were struggling to maintain their roads and badly needed state aid to make up the gap.

“This is trying to future-proof our transportation funding,” said Democratic state Rep. Erin Koegel, who sponsored the bill. “We keep getting performance grades from civil engineers saying we’re at a C- or D for our infrastructure. We needed to think about ways to get more revenue in the system.”

Koegel said the measure was a compromise. Her initial draft, which did not have a $100 threshold for purchases, was intended to be a deterrent, much like cigarette taxes. She said delivery trucks are increasing congestion in many cities and damaging streets that weren’t built to support large vehicles. However, lawmakers ultimately decided to limit the fee to more expensive purchases in order to protect lower-income consumers.

Minnesota’s fee is projected to generate $59 million in its first fiscal year. The funding will be distributed to cities, counties and towns to help with their road-funding needs.

___

Traffic throughout the day

Cities and counties in Washington state also have asked for help, and some local leaders have asked state lawmakers to consider a retail delivery fee — or to authorize cities to collect one. State lawmakers commissioned an analysis, published last month, looking at the potential for such a program. The report found that a fee could generate $45 million to $112 million in revenue in 2026, depending on which businesses and orders were covered.

“We’re now seeing that there’s traffic on our system throughout the day, and the growth of these delivery services is a part of that,” said Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias, who chairs the Transportation Committee. “We’ve had a history in transportation of user-based fees. This feels like a mechanism that could help in that regard.”

Liias emphasized that some version of the fee is likely to be a big topic of discussion in the next legislative session. He said he’s already heard strong arguments on both sides of the issue.

In some areas, the rise in retail deliveries has put the greatest burden on the infrastructure surrounding shipping facilities. Illinois’ CenterPoint Intermodal Center, the nation’s largest inland port, connects interstate trucking, railway lines and Mississippi River barges.

“There really needs to be a shift in the tax structure, since many of these facilities are not generating the local sales tax you’d get at a brick and mortar,” said Democratic state Sen. Rachel Ventura, whose district includes the CenterPoint facility. “We have a lot of traffic going in and out, and the environmental burden and road repairs and the tax burden fall locally.”

Ventura has drafted a bill that would allow communities to assess fees on intermodal facilities — locations that transfer products from one type of transportation to another. Local governments that opted in would be able to spend the funds on roads within five miles of the facilities. The fee, which would be based on the weight of each shipment, is projected to generate $33 million to $68 million per year.

The bill has not passed out of committee, and Ventura said lawmakers are still discussing the path forward amid opposition from the trucking industry.

In New York, a Democratic bill to impose a 25-cent fee on deliveries within New York City has been introduced but remains in committee. Meanwhile, state agencies in Nevada and Ohio have commissioned studies examining the feasibility of retail delivery fees. Those reports have not yet led to legislative action.

At the same time, many cities have seen their streets crowded with delivery trucks from Amazon and other companies, as consumers increasingly opt to have products delivered to their homes. In a few states, lawmakers think fees on those deliveries could be part of their road-funding solution.

“If you’re going to be creating wear and tear on our roads, you should help pay to maintain them,” said Colorado state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat who chairs the Energy and Environment Committee.

In July 2022, Colorado became the first state with a retail delivery fee, a charge on all vehicle deliveries to consumers within the state. The fee, which currently stands at 29 cents per delivery, provides funding for highways, bridges, tunnels, electric vehicle charging stations and projects to reduce air pollution and to electrify vehicle fleets and transit systems. It has brought in more than $160 million.

Colorado leaders have had to simplify the law to help businesses comply with it, but they say it’s largely been a success story. Minnesota enacted its own retail delivery fee in 2023, and lawmakers in New York and Illinois have proposed similar measures. Meanwhile, legislators and transportation officials in several other states have commissioned studies to consider the concept.

Some retailers and Republican lawmakers have argued that the fee hurts consumers, and many businesses in Colorado initially had trouble complying with the law.

“The 27-cent delivery fee is not trivial, its effects are not imperceptible, and it greatly affects our citizens — especially those who are already struggling to pay the bills and provide for their families,” Republican state Rep. Rose Pugliese, the House minority leader, wrote in a Colorado Springs Gazette guest column several months after the law was enacted.

But backers of the fee say they see growing interest across the country, especially as delivery trucks become ubiquitous in many neighborhoods.

‘Future-proofing’ transportation funding

State law in Colorado limits the ways in which lawmakers can expand taxes. With gas tax revenues dwindling, legislators didn’t have an obvious solution to pay for roads. They eventually settled on the retail delivery fee, which is not characterized as a tax.

Initially, the program was a struggle for many businesses, due to a requirement that they detail the fee separately on each receipt.

“For our medium and small businesses, it was a real complicated thing and very burdensome for them to have to reprogram their software with a whole extra line item,” Kipp said.

Last year, Kipp joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers to amend the program. They rescinded the requirement that businesses itemize the fee on each receipt and allowed companies to cover the fee themselves rather than breaking it out on each order. They also exempted retailers with less than $500,000 in sales.

Since the fix was adopted, Kipp said she has stopped hearing complaints about the program. Chris Howes, president of the Colorado Retail Council, said he too has not heard any recent gripes.

“We’ve got it straightened out by now,” he said. “People have accepted it and moved on.”

Last year, lawmakers in Minnesota enacted their own retail delivery fee, a 50-cent charge on purchases of more than $100. Lawmakers heard from local governments that they were struggling to maintain their roads and badly needed state aid to make up the gap.

“This is trying to future-proof our transportation funding,” said Democratic state Rep. Erin Koegel, who sponsored the bill. “We keep getting performance grades from civil engineers saying we’re at a C- or D for our infrastructure. We needed to think about ways to get more revenue in the system.”

Koegel said the measure was a compromise. Her initial draft, which did not have a $100 threshold for purchases, was intended to be a deterrent, much like cigarette taxes. She said delivery trucks are increasing congestion in many cities and damaging streets that weren’t built to support large vehicles. However, lawmakers ultimately decided to limit the fee to more expensive purchases in order to protect lower-income consumers.

Minnesota’s fee is projected to generate $59 million in its first fiscal year. The funding will be distributed to cities, counties and towns to help with their road-funding needs.

Traffic throughout the day

Cities and counties in Washington state also have asked for help, and some local leaders have asked state lawmakers to consider a retail delivery fee — or to authorize cities to collect one. State lawmakers commissioned an analysis, published last month, looking at the potential for such a program. The report found that a fee could generate $45 million to $112 million in revenue in 2026, depending on which businesses and orders were covered.

“We’re now seeing that there’s traffic on our system throughout the day, and the growth of these delivery services is a part of that,” said Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias, who chairs the Transportation Committee. “We’ve had a history in transportation of user-based fees. This feels like a mechanism that could help in that regard.”

Liias emphasized that some version of the fee is likely to be a big topic of discussion in the next legislative session. He said he’s already heard strong arguments on both sides of the issue.

In some areas, the rise in retail deliveries has put the greatest burden on the infrastructure surrounding shipping facilities. Illinois’ CenterPoint Intermodal Center, the nation’s largest inland port, connects interstate trucking, railway lines and Mississippi River barges.

“There really needs to be a shift in the tax structure, since many of these facilities are not generating the local sales tax you’d get at a brick and mortar,” said Democratic state Sen. Rachel Ventura, whose district includes the CenterPoint facility. “We have a lot of traffic going in and out, and the environmental burden and road repairs and the tax burden fall locally.”

Ventura has drafted a bill that would allow communities to assess fees on intermodal facilities — locations that transfer products from one type of transportation to another. Local governments that opted in would be able to spend the funds on roads within five miles of the facilities. The fee, which would be based on the weight of each shipment, is projected to generate $33 million to $68 million per year.

The bill has not passed out of committee, and Ventura said lawmakers are still discussing the path forward amid opposition from the trucking industry.

In New York, a Democratic bill to impose a 25-cent fee on deliveries within New York City has been introduced but remains in committee. Meanwhile, state agencies in Nevada and Ohio have commissioned studies examining the feasibility of retail delivery fees. Those reports have not yet led to legislative action.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

In places including California, Florida and Louisiana, some homeowners are finding it nearly impossible to find an insurance company that will cover their property. Others have seen their premiums climb so high that they can no longer pay. Experts say the trend is spreading throughout the country as natural disasters increase.

Most mortgage lenders require homeowners to maintain insurance. Without access to coverage, millions of Americans could find themselves forced to reconsider where they live. Consumer advocates say long-overdue conversations about development in areas prone to natural disasters are being driven by property insurers, not governments.

“Insurance companies have basically become our land-use officials,” said Doug Heller, director of insurance with the Consumer Federation of America, a research and advocacy nonprofit. “In 2023, the industry suddenly seemed to wake up and say, ‘There’s climate change, forget all those times we’ve nodded our head yes and told you that you can live there.’”

As the crisis escalates, state leaders are desperately trying to convince insurance companies to stick around. States are offering them more flexibility to raise premiums or drop certain homes from coverage, fast-tracking rate revisions and making it harder for residents to sue their insurance company.

Meanwhile, a flood of new policyholders are joining state-backed insurance “plans of last resort,” leaving states to assume more of the risk on behalf of residents who can’t find coverage in the private sector.

Industry leaders note that insurance companies have been hammered by heavy payouts — last year, 28 separate U.S. natural disasters caused at least $1 billion each in damage, according to federal figures — and say they simply can’t afford to provide coverage in the areas that face the highest risk.

Disaster costs are soaring. In the last five years, there have been 102 disaster events in the United States that caused at least $1 billion in damage. In the entire decade of the 1990s, there were 57 billion-dollar events (adjusted for inflation), and in the 1980s there were 33.

Natural disasters are increasing at the same time risk-prone areas are becoming ever more populated, and as property values are climbing. The price of repairs and replacement have skyrocketed due to inflation, workforce and supply chain issues. Insurers say costs also have been driven by an uptick in litigation and fraud.

“We’re experiencing record-breaking losses as it relates to natural disasters,” said Adam Shores, senior vice president for state government relations with the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, an industry group. “We want to be there, but when the math doesn’t work for a company, they have to make those decisions.”

While the insurance crisis is most acute in certain coastal states, climate experts say every region will face similar challenges, especially as severe storms batter the middle of the country. While some states have made marginal gains in stabilizing the insurance market, some experts say that progress may be short-lived.

“Insurers are the climate change canary in the coal mine,” said Dave Jones, the former insurance commissioner in California and director of the Climate Risk Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment. “While these policy and regulatory interventions might help in the short run, they’re likely to be overwhelmed by the increasing risk and loss.”

___

‘The perfect storm’

In some hard-hit states, policymakers have focused on giving insurance companies more flexibility to adjust their rates and coverage options.

Four hurricanes walloped Louisiana in 2020 and 2021, causing $23 billion in insured losses. Twelve insurance companies became insolvent and dozens left the state. Residents in southern Louisiana especially have struggled to find coverage, and some have moved elsewhere because they couldn’t afford their premiums.

“It’s the perfect storm,” said Louisiana state Rep. Gabe Firment, a Republican. “We just do not have companies willing to write business in Louisiana right now, and you can’t blame them.”

Firment sponsored a measure, enacted this year, repealing a state rule that had blocked companies from dropping long-standing customers. Those dropped can join a state-run plan. Lawmakers hope that — given the ability to cancel the highest-risk policies — insurance companies will remain in the state and avoid massive rate hikes on their remaining customers.

Legislators passed a suite of other laws aimed at the crisis, speeding up the process for insurers to adjust their rates, extending a grant program to help residents fortify their homes and giving companies more time to pay out claims. Firment said the changes are designed to attract more companies back to the state, “but if we get two or three hurricanes this year, all bets are off.”

In California, many major insurers have canceled policies or stopped accepting new applications due to wildfire risk. Regulators there have proposed a rule that would allow companies to incorporate climate change projections into the models they use to set their rates.

“Insurers are not going to continue to write in every market if they can’t price accurately,” said Mark Friedlander, director of corporate communications with the Insurance Information Institute, an industry-backed research group.

Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has put forth a measure that would speed up regulators’ approval of the rate revisions proposed by insurance companies. While seeking to give insurers more flexibility on rates, California leaders also have sought to protect residents by establishing a one-year moratorium on policy cancellations in disaster areas following a wildfire.

Officials at the state Department of Insurance did not respond to Stateline interview requests.

Homeowners’ insurance rates in Texas spiked 23% last year, twice the national average. The state has endured a myriad of disasters in recent years, but consumer advocates fear insurers are weaponizing climate change to jack up rates and demand looser regulations.

“[Insurance companies] are putting a gun to our heads, telling us, ‘Do it our way or we’ll pull up stakes,’” said Ware Wendell, executive director of Texas Watch, a nonprofit advocacy group. “They’re going to cherry-pick the country and only insure parts of the country that have less climate risk.”

The Texas Department of Insurance did not grant a Stateline interview request.

___

‘Last resort’

In several states, homeowners who can’t find private coverage are joining state-run plans. Originally intended to be a last-ditch option, because they generally offer limited coverage, these plans are seeing more and more residents signing up.

Florida has seen more than 1 million residents join the plan offered by the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. The plan, which is meant to be a “last resort” option, now stands as the largest in the state.

Insurance rates in Florida have climbed to four times the national average, following hurricanes Ian and Nicole in 2022. The state also has seen an uptick in claims lawsuits that insurance companies characterize as legal abuse.

Legislators changed state law in 2022 to disincentivize such lawsuits, ending homeowners’ ability to collect attorneys fees from insurers in claims disputes. State regulators say insurance rates have stabilized in 2024, and new companies are joining the market. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation did not grant an interview request.

But some lawmakers say state leaders are eager to help insurance companies while ignoring the underlying issue of climate change.

“Stabilization is important, but [premiums] have stabilized at high rates,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat. “Floridians can’t afford Florida anymore, and if we’re not taking climate change seriously, then we’re missing the point.”

Eskamani called for leaders to change land-use policies to limit development in high-risk areas.

Even as some Florida homeowners are now shifting from the state-run plan back to the private market, industry experts say the nationwide surge in state-backed policies is troubling. If such plans exhaust their reserves, states impose an assessment on either all insurance companies or all individual policyholders — known in Florida as the “hurricane tax.”

Jones, the former California insurance commissioner, noted that insurers there are worried that growing wildfire risk could force them to bail out the state plan. Nearly 400,000 Californians rely on the state plan for insurance, and state officials have warned that a catastrophic event could wipe out its reserves.

While Californians struggle to find insurance on the private market, Jones called out the insurers that are dropping policies even as they retain financial ties to fossil fuel companies.

“Why are insurers investing in and writing insurance for the very industry that’s making it increasingly challenging for them to write insurance in certain parts of the country?” he said.

In Colorado, lawmakers voted last year to create a state-backed insurance plan like those in more than 30 other states. State Sen. Dylan Roberts, the Democrat who sponsored the bill, said he heard from constituents who were getting dropped by their insurers following the Marshall Fire that swept through Boulder County in 2021.

“We’re going to have more and more Coloradoans every year who are unable to find insurance for their property on the private market,” he said. “To have an insurer of last resort is something we hope isn’t used widely, but it’s something we need to have.”

Some consumer advocates believe states will have to get more involved. Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a nonprofit that advocates for insurance customers, said governments face the same difficult risk calculations as private companies but are tax-exempt and don’t face the same pressures to return high profit margins to shareholders.

“Publicly supported insurance programs are here to stay,” she said. “It behooves us to build them as smart as we can.”

In Washington state, regulators say they have only a few hundred policies on the state-backed plan, a sign that residents can still access coverage on the private market. David Forte, senior property and casualty policy adviser with the Office of the Insurance Commissioner, said the agency has added actuarial staff to speed up insurers’ rate revision approvals.

He also credited the work of state leaders who have invested millions to reduce wildfire risk. But he cited a 2022 wildfire that nearly swept through the town of Index, before shifting winds changed its direction.

“If that had happened, I think our property market would be different,” he said. “Are we just one bad event away? Probably.”

Many rural Alaskans depend on food stamps, and many grocery stores rely on their customers’ use of those benefits to support their businesses. So, when the state delayed residents’ requests for food aid for months at a time, the crisis threw entire communities into disarray.

“We are seeing increased demand at food pantries and soup kitchens,” said Rachael Miller, chief advocacy officer with the Food Bank of Alaska, which provides food to partner organizations across the state and helps Alaskans apply for food stamps. “There’s a huge strain on the system. This backlog has had a direct effect on people’s ability to eat and food banks’ ability to serve them.”

Alaska has struggled to keep up with food aid applications since 2022, leaving thousands of residents waiting for their claims to be processed. At one point, more than 15,000 Alaskans were stuck in the backlog.

State leaders have spent millions of dollars hiring more caseworkers and improving technology systems. The state still has a case backlog of 2,000 households.

Most other states also have fallen behind. In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent warning letters to 32 states and two territories that are tardy on applications. USDA guidelines call for 95% of claims to be processed within 30 days. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, is funded with federal money but administered by state agencies.

The letters were part of a larger SNAP integrity push from USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, calling out problems in 44 states, the District of Columbia and two territories that include payment errors and accuracy in case determinations.

Many states have struggled to maintain staffing levels at the social service agencies that handle safety net programs, even as their workload has ballooned with the expiration of pandemic-era waivers that streamlined the application process. Some states are boosting funding to add and retain workers, and others are investing in new computer systems to speed up their work.

Stacy Dean, the federal agency’s deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said the letters were intended to draw governors’ attention to the problem.

“We know state legislatures are in [session] right now and governors are pursuing their budgets,” she said. “This is a moment where legislatures can offer the support that states might need for necessary investments in terms of staffing or technology.”

Dean said federal officials are confident states will address their delays, and many states are scrambling to bring on more caseworkers and improve their processing systems. But food security advocates say these struggles are a symptom of long-term disinvestment.

“It is definitely systemic,” said Parker Gilkesson Davis, senior policy analyst with the Center for Law and Social Policy, a nonprofit focused on low-income communities. “Caseworkers are not paid enough, the turnover rate is unbelievable, and their [computer] systems are archaic.”

Alaska’s struggle

In Alaska, state officials say a host of problems led to the backlog. The state’s Department of Health and Social Services misunderstood a federal policy memo issued at the end of 2021, leading the state to extend food aid to some applicants without recertifying their claims. When officials discovered the error, the subsequent flood of overdue certifications in the summer of 2022 created a mountain of paperwork.

The agency also blamed a cyberattack and outdated computer systems for slowing the processing of applications. But the union representing some agency employees told the Alaska Beacon that budget cuts and low pay have caused a workforce shortage that is at the heart of the problem.

Deb Etheridge, director of the state’s Division of Public Assistance, said the agency has reassigned other staff to work on SNAP applications, created an online application system, retooled its training process, and is working to reopen offices that were closed during the pandemic. Last year, state lawmakers approved $60 million to address the crisis, with the bulk of that dedicated to computer upgrades.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, is requesting another $8.8 million this year to bring on 30 full-time employees. The agency said it currently has 142 eligibility technicians processing SNAP applications, including 42 who typically work on other responsibilities. It’s actively hiring for open positions, with pay starting at nearly $25 an hour. Agency officials say they need to reach nearly 200 technicians to clear the backlog.

The state also has suspended follow-up interviews with applicants — in defiance of federal policy — to speed through more claims.

“[Interviews] were taking an extreme amount of time,” Etheridge said. “We were growing the backlog.”

The USDA has threatened to pull the agency’s funding for the administrative portion of the SNAP program if it does not comply with the interview requirement, which was waived during the pandemic but now is back in place. Etheridge said the state is talking with the feds to resolve the issue.

Saima Akhtar, senior attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, a nonprofit that represents and advocates for social service recipients, is representing 10 Alaskans who are suing the state for its failure to provide timely benefits.

“Parents are eating less to make sure there’s enough for their kids,” she said. “People are trying to decide between paying for heat and buying food.”

Their lawsuit seeks to compel the state to meet federal deadlines, allow people to apply for benefits on the first day they contact the agency and provide interpretive services for those who speak another language.

“There are hungry people today,” said Miller, with the Food Bank of Alaska. “This is a very acute situation that needs to be both triaged and eradicated with a long-term vision.”

Lawmakers also are taking aim at the problem. Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, a Republican, has sponsored a bill that would expand eligibility for food stamps and streamline the verification process, a standard that has already been adopted by 41 states. The measure would eliminate restrictions on recipients’ savings and assets, while expanding eligibility to those making 200% of the federal poverty level, up from 130%.

Alaskans lose their benefits if they accrue savings or assets exceeding $2,750, keeping them in a cycle of poverty, Giessel told Stateline. State workers also spend up to 90 minutes per case on asset forms, she said. While agency officials say the expanded eligibility would force them to handle more applications, Giessel said the time saved per case would make up the difference.

“It would be an excellent trade-off,” she said. “It would be meeting the needs of Alaskans, and that’s the whole reason we’re here as a government.”

The bill was approved without opposition by the Senate Health & Social Services Committee this week.

A national crisis

Many other states are struggling to keep pace. Colorado has seen a 35% increase in households seeking food aid since before the pandemic, said Karla Maraccini, division director of food and energy assistance for the Colorado Department of Human Services. The state saw an average of 25,000 applications per month in 2023.

Colorado is one of 10 states with county-operated SNAP programs overseen by the state. Maraccini said some county agencies have trouble retaining staff. Caseworker jobs require months of training, involve high-stress work and often pay subpar wages.

“Even though the public health emergency technically is over, poverty isn’t over,” Maraccini said. “We want people to participate in this program, but when you tell people, ‘Please walk through our doors,’ it’s also really difficult to maintain that high caseload.”

The state has rolled out software that can process handwritten documents much faster than a human worker, and it’s working to deploy that in every county. It’s also exploring a texting service to interact with clients. County governments have called on lawmakers to provide more funding to help them administer the program.

In Texas, state leaders have long failed to properly fund social services, said Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, the state’s largest hunger relief organization. The system reached a “tipping point,” she said, with the 2023 “unwinding” of Medicaid benefits, which required caseworkers to redetermine the eligibility of health care recipients who had been enrolled throughout the pandemic.

“The state really prioritized Medicaid because they were anxious to remove people from the rolls,” she said. “But it’s more important to get people food who are eligible for SNAP than to kick people off Medicaid.”

With the slowdown in food aid, Cole’s organization has seen a 20% increase in requests for emergency food.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission declined an interview request, but said in an email that it has requested a federal waiver to extend SNAP certifications by six months. The agency also has redirected 250 staffers to focus on food stamp and Medicaid cases and worked to recruit and retain more caseworkers.

Georgia is another state where residents have been harmed by a backlog in food aid.

“There’s this huge customer service issue,” said Ife Finch Floyd, director of economic justice with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a nonprofit focused on marginalized communities. “Things weren’t great before the pandemic, but they have gotten far worse.”

Finch Floyd said food banks in the state are stretched thin, and she blamed the state for rolling back supplemental pandemic-era SNAP benefits before other states. She called on state leaders to make workforce investments to not only alleviate the crisis but also strengthen the program for the future.

The Georgia Department of Human Services did not respond to an interview request.

Looking for answers

Both state officials and food security advocates said the pandemic-era relaxation of some bureaucratic requirements was a success and called on the USDA to reinstate certain waivers. Several said the suspension of the requirement to conduct interviews for each application was particularly helpful.

Another exemption made more college students eligible for food stamps, while the feds also temporarily lifted the three-month cap on benefits for able-bodied adults without dependents.

“These steps helped so many people receive SNAP, and it helped states process applications much quicker,” said Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director with the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit focused on hunger and nutrition issues. “We saw that it worked.”

Food advocates said states should shoulder the blame for failing to meet requirements that were standard practice before the pandemic. But they acknowledged that it will be a long time before states’ staffing issues are resolved.

Bhatti said the USDA should at least allow states to waive some procedures if they reach a certain threshold of backlogged applications or staff vacancies.

But Dean, with the federal agency, said those requirements exist to ensure states are providing support for applicants as they navigate the system.

“Certainly some states really appreciated the flexibilities they were offered during the unprecedented situation of the pandemic, but it is important that they acclimate back to the requirements of how we operate the program in regular times,” she said.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The event was among the last sanctioned animal hunting contests in the state, following lawmakers’ passage of a ban on such events that will take effect later this year.

“There’s growing awareness of these contests and the damage they’re causing ecologically,” said Renee Seacor, carnivore conservation director with Project Coyote, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting carnivore species. “Public attitudes on wildlife management are shifting.”

New York became the 10th state to ban or limit wildlife hunting contests with the December enactment of the new law. Oregon’s wildlife agency also imposed a ban last year on such events on state lands. So far, the bans have largely been passed in Democratic-led states. In some states, including Nevada, wildlife commissions — which are often stacked with hunting proponents — have rejected petitions to ban the practice.

So far this year, Illinois and New Jersey are following New York’s lead by seeking to ban contests through legislation rather than state agency rules. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that such contests kill more than 60,000 animals every year.

In addition to coyotes, hunting contests have targeted bobcats, foxes, crows, squirrels and many other animals that lack the strict regulations applied to traditional game animals such as deer and elk.

Advocates of the bans say the contests are pointless killing sprees fueled by bloodlust and cash, based on outdated perceptions that some species — primarily coyotes — are “nuisance” animals.

But some hunters fear the bans are part of a broader effort to crack down on hunting opportunities. Steven Rinella, a hunting advocate renowned for his “MeatEater” TV show and podcast, noted that contests must fall within existing rules set by wildlife managers.

“Any of the individuals who are participating in these contests could at any time be out doing the exact same practice,” he said in an interview. “To target the competitive derby component in this is basically just saying, ‘I disapprove of hunting, and this is a thing I can go after and win.’”

Brian Gray, president of the Mohawk Valley Coon and Cat Club, said contests such as the one his hunting club held last weekend help sustain the organization’s membership.

He intends to continue holding contests once the ban takes effect, organizing by word of mouth to avoid state enforcement “unless someone tattles.” If challenged, Gray said, he intends to relabel the event a “photography contest,” with prizes for the best photos of dead coyotes instead of for the carcasses themselves.

“Some of our guys have $6,000 scopes on their rifles, and they’re never going to get to use them for anything else,” he said. “This club has been in my family since the ’40s, and I don’t want to lose it.”

___

Coyotes under fire

For much of America’s history, predator animals such as coyotes and wolves were viewed as troublesome varmints and subjected to state-sponsored extermination campaigns. While this practice cleared vast landscapes of wolves, grizzly bears and other animals, coyotes only became more abundant.

Coyotes respond to hunting pressure by dispersing and birthing larger litters, as author and historian Dan Flores describes in his book “Coyote America.” While coyotes once lived only in the arid West, the efforts to eradicate them have driven them to every corner of the North American continent. They’ve filled the ecological niches left vacant in places where wolves and cougars were killed off, and they’ve learned how to thrive in cities, with abundant prey of rats and mice.

“The American public has long regarded this animal as something like a cockroach with fur,” Flores said in an interview. “But our attempts to wipe them out triggered an evolutionary response from them to scatter and spread.”

Wildlife experts say efforts to protect livestock and pets by shooting coyotes only causes more breeding from surviving animals — which results in coyotes that are less schooled about avoiding conflict with humans.

“There’s the suggestion that these animals are really bad for us, but you can’t shoot your way out of that,” said Barbara Baker, chair of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, which outlawed hunting contests in 2020.

Hunting advocates counter that the species’ resilience proves coyotes can be hunted sustainably.

Gray, president of the hunting club in New York, blamed coyotes for killing livestock and pets in Mohawk Valley, but said there has been no decline in those attacks following hunting contests that killed scores of coyotes. He asserted residents should be allowed to fight back.

In many states, even those that have banned contests, hunters can shoot as many coyotes as they please with few restrictions on seasons or weaponry.

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A growing movement

California became the first state to ban hunting contests in 2014, following a vote from state regulators.

“Most ethical hunters object to these contests,” said Mike Sutton, who was serving as president of the California Fish and Game Commission at the time. “They’re inconsistent with our current understanding of predator ecology, and they give hunters a bad name.”

Tony Wasley serves as president of the Wildlife Management Institute, a conservation group with roots in the hunting community, and holds leadership roles in several hunting-related organizations. He supported an effort to ban hunting contests when he served as director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife in 2021.

In testimony before the Nevada Wildlife Commission, he noted that the agency’s role is to recruit more hunters, who supply much of the agency’s budget through license fees. That task, he said, is made difficult when images of mass slaughter circulated on social media tarnish their public image.

“I fear what indiscriminate killing says about hunters or the ethics of hunting more broadly,” he said in an interview. “To verminize every coyote and say that [killing it] is some benefit to another species would be difficult to substantiate.”

Despite Wasley’s support, the proposal to ban hunting contests was rejected by the agency’s commission, which by law is made up predominantly of hunters and anglers.

Tommy Caviglia, who was the commission’s vice chair at the time, argued that few members of the public are even aware of the contests, the Nevada Current reported, saying the proposal was driven by the “anti-hunting side of the world.”

While some individual hunters have spoken in favor of the contest bans, organized sporting groups have largely remained silent or opposed them as a “slippery slope” to further hunting limitations.

“Hunting is already highly regulated, and people don’t understand the amount of nuance that there is,” said Torin Miller, senior director of policy with the National Deer Association, a nonprofit that advocates for wildlife habitat and hunting. “All of these contests have to occur within the bounds of seasons and bag limits that agencies have put in place.”

Miller said that contest bans should be decided by wildlife agencies, not legislators.

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State bans

In December, New York became the fourth state to enact a ban through legislation, following Maryland, New Mexico and Vermont. The bill passed 88-53 in the New York Assembly, and 46-15 in the Senate.

“This does not serve a wildlife management purpose,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick, the Democrat who sponsored the bill. “There were hunters who felt it gave them a black mark and distorted what people thought of hunters.”

Some lawmakers who opposed the bill said the ban illustrates a growing urban vs. rural divide.

“It fails to understand and simply ignores the impact on the heritage and traditions of many rural upstate communities, farmers, and local environments and economies,” said Republican state Sen. Tom O’Mara, according to The Press & Sun-Bulletin.

The New York bill followed an agency decision in Oregon to ban contests on state lands.

Under Oregon law, wildlife managers’ authority in the state does not extend to “predatory animals” on private lands, said Michelle Dennehy, communications coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, but the agency responded to public concern about the contests on public lands.

While many of the bans enacted so far have been issued by state wildlife agencies, advocates are increasingly turning to lawmakers to act — especially in states where wildlife commissions are dominated by hunters.

“We have an outdated state agency that’s comprised only of hunters, so we have to go the legislative route,” said Brian Hackett, director of government and community relations at the Associated Humane Societies in New Jersey, a nonprofit that rescues wild and domestic animals.

New Jersey lawmakers advanced a contest ban measure through a Senate committee last year, but the session ended before it could progress further. A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a similar measure earlier this month.

In Illinois, lawmakers also are considering a bill to ban hunting contests. Democratic state Rep. Anna Moeller, the bill’s sponsor, said that wildlife officials deferred the matter to the General Assembly in response to pressure from some hunting groups. While the bill has yet to see any movement, Moeller said backers are working to educate lawmakers who are still unaware that such contests even exist.

“We support hunting that’s done in a sustainable and responsible way,” Moeller said. “When you’re wiping out large numbers of animals at a time, you’re creating an imbalance, and oftentimes we find there’s harmful consequences from being so reckless.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

They’re finding that it’s not easy.

“States and tribes already didn’t have enough funding to support the programs they have, and now they are being put in a position where they need to step up,” said Marla Stelk, executive director of the National Association of Wetland Managers, a nonprofit group that represents state and tribal regulators.

Wetlands play a crucial role in filtering pollution and nutrient runoff. They also absorb stormwater, help to recharge aquifers and provide essential habitat for many species. When wetland areas are lost, water managers say, communities may suffer from flooding, become more vulnerable to droughts or require expensive treatment plants to make water safe to drink.

In some states, the loss of federal rules means that many waters are now largely unregulated. Some lawmakers, mostly in Democratic-led states, are looking to craft rules to replace the lost Clean Water Act protections, but they expect a yearslong process just to get new regulations on the books.

Other states have had strong rules in place even without the federal coverage. But now they can no longer rely on federal partners such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help enforce those standards. Regulators in those states are asking lawmakers for millions of dollars to hire more staff to process permits and monitor water quality.

Meanwhile, some conservative states view the rollback as an opportunity for developers and industry. Soon after the court decision, North Carolina passed a law eliminating all state protections that exceeded the federal standard. Environmental advocates say other business-friendly states are unlikely to enact their own protections, and fear that some will follow North Carolina’s lead by cutting existing rules.

“It ought to help with regard to costs and predictability,” said Ray Starling, president of the NC Chamber Legal Institute, the legal strategy arm of the business advocacy group, in a June interview with Stateline. “The Supreme Court knew that this would end up yielding quite a bit more jurisdiction to the states. We would argue that’s actually good.”

State leaders say they remain unclear on exactly which waters have lost federal oversight following the Supreme Court decision and a subsequent EPA rule based on it. Officials expect plenty of litigation as they attempt to make sense of murky legal definitions from the feds. Some fear that developers may take advantage of the confusion, using states’ uncertainty as implicit permission to bulldoze wetlands.

“Every state’s risk has increased,” said Julian Gonzalez, senior legislative counsel for policy and legislation at Earthjustice, an environmental law group. “The whole point of the Clean Water Act was to ensure that there’s not a patchwork of regulations. Even when EPA had full jurisdiction, there were tons of enforcement issues all across the country. This is only going to exacerbate them.”

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Staffing shortfalls

In May, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Water Act does not cover wetlands that lack a continuous surface connection to a larger body of water, which excludes many waters that connect underground. The court also narrowed the law to exclude from protection “ephemeral” streams that flow only seasonally.

Of the nation’s 118 million acres of wetlands, more than half could lose federal protection under the new definition, Earthjustice estimated. The EPA in August issued a new rule revising its regulation known as the “waters of the United States” rule to meet the court’s limitations.

“We still don’t know how [courts] are fully going to interpret what constitutes a surface connection, but we’re still assuming that at least 50% of [Washington’s] wetlands are no longer jurisdictional [under the Clean Water Act],” said Lauren Driscoll, manager of the wetlands program with the Washington State Department of Ecology.

With the feds bowing out, Driscoll’s agency may have to process an additional 50 to 100 permits a year, up from the 12 or so it currently handles. The agency is currently enforcing state wetland standards using a customized administrative order for each permit. Regulators are asking state lawmakers to enact a dedicated permit program that would create a standardized application process.

The agency also is seeking 10 more staffers to process permits, and three more temporary workers to help develop the new program. Once established, the permit program will cost about $2.2 million per year to administer, Driscoll said.

In California, regulators say they’ll also need more funding and staff to enforce state wetlands laws. For waters that are losing federal protection, states such as California will lose access to environmental analyses, expertise and staff capacity from federal partners such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“We are anticipating no longer having support from the [U.S.] Army Corps of Engineers for things we’ve relied on them to do on the technical side” in waters that are no longer protected as waters of the United States, said Karen Mogus, deputy director of the Division of Water Quality within the State Water Resources Control Board. “We have protections in place, we have state authority, but we are certainly seeking additional resources to cover the gap that we have estimated is going to be opened up.”

While the agency’s specific funding request remains confidential, Mogus said, the loss of federal support could delay the issuance of permits. Regulators also might have to set up a state version of a federal pollution discharge program that covers wastewater plants and other industries.

A few states already have passed laws that are broader than the federal standard, with well-established permit programs to uphold them. In Minnesota, for instance, state officials say their efforts will be largely unaffected by the court decision. But they acknowledge that other states may be hard-pressed to enact protections such as Minnesota’s 1991 Wetland Conservation Act.

“It would be very difficult to even consider doing something like that today,” said Dave Weirens, assistant director for programs and policy with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources. “Democrats and Republicans found it easier to find common cause to solve problems than they do today.”

Last year, New York lawmakers passed a measure to expand the wetlands covered by state regulators, in part because of the pending Supreme Court case. Officials with the state Department of Environmental Conservation did not grant an interview about that effort, but supplied a statement saying the expansion would protect an additional 1 million acres of wetlands.

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Making investments

Other states are working to put firmer protections on the books. In New Mexico, officials already had been working prior to the ruling to establish a surface water permitting program.

While the state currently has standards to protect wetlands, it’s enforcing them via administrative orders rather than a well-defined program. Agency officials have been coordinating with counterparts in Washington state, which is also using administrative orders, even as both states work toward a more defined program.

“We’d like to get away from boutique permits, these individual one-off permits and standardize this,” said John Rhoderick, director of the Water Protection Division within the state Environment Department. “Each permit is an adventure to say the least.”

Rhoderick said it will take about five years to get the state program fully established, requiring an additional 35 to 40 staff members and $5 million to $6 million per year. He said state lawmakers have been supportive of that effort, and he anticipates they will empower his agency to begin a rulemaking process late next year.

Colorado is among the states without strong wetlands protections. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has proposed $600,000 in his budget request as an “initial investment” toward developing a program, spokesperson Katherine Jones said in an email. The governor’s office declined an interview request seeking more details on that proposed program. Developers in the state say they’re monitoring the process, while environmental advocates say they’re working with officials to craft laws that will restore protections for Colorado’s waters.

“We are fully intent, both advocates and the government, to get a program in place that will at a minimum return us to where we were at [with federal oversight],” said Ean Tafoya, Colorado state director with GreenLatinos, an environmental justice organization. “What’s frustrating is that we could have been taking these steps a few years ago.”

While Polis’ budget request may help to kick-start a rulemaking process, Tafoya said, establishing a full regulatory program will cost millions of dollars. While specific bill language hasn’t been released, he said he expects lawmakers to consider legislation that would direct the state Water Quality Control Division to establish standards by a certain date.

Illinois activists also are pushing for legislative action.

“Wetlands are one of the few natural tools we have to filter our nutrient pollution, and they have the capacity to hold water, which helps mitigate flooding,” said Eliot Clay, land use programs director with the Illinois Environmental Council. “They are going to help us get through some of the worst impacts of climate change.”

At present, Clay said, the state’s wetlands protections are vague, and the state Department of Natural Resources is understaffed. But he believes Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker is interested in bolstering the state’s standards, and advocates expect to see a bill in the legislature next year.

Pritzker’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Last month, a company announced the successful demonstration in the West of a new drilling technique that it says will greatly expand where geothermal plants could be built. And in the Eastern half of the country, where geothermal’s potential is mostly as a heating and cooling source, a community recently broke ground on the first utility-run thermal energy network.

Some officials say those advances show great promise. A handful of states approved laws this year and others are considering measures that would provide money and regulations to help the industry.

“There have been enormous technological breakthroughs in geothermal,” Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said in an interview with Stateline. “More geographic areas are now eligible and capable of producing inexpensive geothermal energy. You’re seeing more and more states addressing geothermal opportunities with the urgency that Colorado is.”

In the West, some states see geothermal power plants as a crucial source of “always-on” clean electricity — a resilient energy supply to bolster grids supplied by wind and solar.

At the same time, some lawmakers in Eastern states believe networks of underground heat could replace gas-powered furnaces for many neighborhoods, campuses and commercial buildings.

In both cases, supporters believe the transition to geothermal could draw on the drilling and pipeline construction expertise of oil and gas workers.

Still, it will take a lot to expand geothermal power. Exploratory drilling is expensive and uncertain, and industry leaders say government backing is required to make that initial phase manageable for companies.

Meanwhile, the drilling technique of injecting water to fracture rock has proven controversial in oil and gas operations. While geothermal projects don’t use the same chemicals that have been linked to groundwater pollution, other concerns — such as increased seismic activity — could challenge new proposals.

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Unleashing potential

Last month, Texas-based Fervo Energy announced that its pilot plant in Nevada had successfully demonstrated the first commercially viable enhanced geothermal technology. Historically, geothermal power — which brings steam to the surface that powers turbines — has relied on sites with naturally occurring heat, fluid and permeable rock. Enhanced systems use oil and gas drilling techniques to create artificial reservoirs.

Sarah Jewett, the company’s vice president of strategy, said locations with permeable rock are limited and unpredictable. Horizontal drilling technology can be used to create that permeability and pump water into hotspots underground.

“This is the thing that really unleashes the potential of geothermal power, but it’s never been demonstrated on a commercial level in the U.S. before,” she said. “A lot of people said it couldn’t be done. This opens up massive new geographies [for geothermal power production].”

The plant will connect to Nevada’s grid later this year, providing 3.5 megawatts of electricity to power Google data centers. Fervo has started construction on another project in Utah that is expected to provide 400 megawatts by 2028. That’s enough to power 300,000 homes.

Geothermal provides less than half a percent of the nation’s electricity. Supporters believe that advances in technology will eventually enable it to power as much as 20% of the U.S. grid.

Fervo’s announcement could supercharge the ambitions of some Western states, which have been working to bring more geothermal power online. The Western Governors’ Association, chaired by Polis, has spearheaded an initiative on the issue and recently issued a report outlining several policy recommendations.

Industry leaders have called for clear policy guidelines and well-staffed permitting regimes, as well as public funding to support exploratory drilling, which can be financially risky for companies. They also urged more regulators to issue “clean firm” power standards such as California’s 1,000-megawatt order in 2021, which directed utilities to build out more projects from on-demand resources like geothermal.

In Colorado, lawmakers passed a slate of geothermal measures this year, including a framework for regulators to approve new geothermal operations. Under the measure, the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was renamed the Energy and Carbon Management Commission and given oversight of geothermal projects.

“They now have an expedited approval process for geothermal drilling,” Polis said. “There really hadn’t been an easy way to do that before.”

Other bills signed by Polis will create a $35 million tax credit for geothermal electricity projects and allow gas utilities to establish thermal energy networks. Lawmakers also provided funding to help Colorado Mesa University expand its geothermal heating and cooling system.

Earlier this year, New Mexico state lawmakers passed a measure to provide loans and grants for geothermal projects and a funding increase to help state regulators speed up permitting decisions. The bill sailed through the legislature with near-unanimous support, but Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declined to sign it, surprising backers.

“New Mexico has some of the easiest access to hot rock because of our geology, and we also have an availability of drilling rigs now in the oil and gas industry that can be put to use,” said state Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a Democrat who sponsored the bill.

Ortiz y Pino said lawmakers are hoping to meet with Lujan Grisham, address her objections and revive the bill next year. The governor, who cited fiscal responsibility in her veto of a tax credit package that included geothermal projects, did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, West Virginia leaders passed a law last year to establish a regulatory program for geothermal energy. The state has underground hotspots at relatively shallow depths compared with other Eastern states.

“We wanted to have the groundwork in place so if companies wanted to look at West Virginia, it wasn’t an unknown,” said Del. Adam Burkhammer, a Republican who sponsored the bill. “We’re not overregulating, we’re just establishing a clear path forward.”

Earlier this year, drilling began on the state’s first geothermal test well.

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Thermal networks

In many Eastern states, the underground hotspots needed to produce electricity are many miles below the surface, making power production impractical with existing technology. But heating and cooling through geothermal can be achieved at much shallower depths, and many lawmakers see great promise.

“The potential is wildly exciting,” said Maryland Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat who is drafting legislation to enable geothermal heating networks. “This is a really important piece of the transition from fossil fuel to non-combusting clean energy.”

Geothermal systems bring heat from underground using piped fluids, then use a heat exchanger to transfer it to a building’s ventilation system. In warm months, the same process can cool buildings by sending excess heat underground.

Such systems are gaining momentum as a solution for individual homes and even large campuses. But Charkoudian and others want utilities to run pipelines to create thermal energy networks through towns and cities, taking advantage of an existing workforce and rate structure.

Charkoudian is drafting a bill that would allow gas utilities to build networked geothermal systems, focused first on marginalized communities. She expects to introduce the measure next year.

“When you combine super-efficient ground-source heating and cooling with a networked system, you get the most efficient way possible to heat and cool an entire neighborhood,” she said.

Such networks, she noted, also could allow high-energy users like data centers to transfer “waste heat” to nearby buildings that need it.

The push in Maryland follows a law passed in New York last year to establish a regulatory structure for thermal energy networks. New York lawmakers also voted overwhelmingly this year to expand the drilling depth for such systems below 500 feet, which backers argued was necessary to install them in dense neighborhoods.

Earlier this year, Framingham, Massachusetts, broke ground on the first utility-run geothermal network pilot project in the country.

And in Vermont, lawmakers hope to advance next year a proposal to create a regulatory structure for such thermal energy networks. As just one gas utility covers a third of the state’s area, the bill would also allow such networks to be managed by towns, nonprofits or homeowners associations.

In addition to lowering emissions, backers say the bill could help with heating prices, as rising fuel costs are a major concern in a state where nearly half of residents rely on heating oil.

“There are ways to build local [geothermal] wells and have communities own and operate their own local energy supply,” said Debbie New, lead coordinator with the Vermont Community Geothermal Alliance. “There are municipalities that are interested and saying they really need this bill to pass in order to move forward.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

Last month, a U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down federal protections for wetlands covering tens of millions of acres across the country, leaving no regulation of those areas in nearly half the states.

The court’s narrowing of the Clean Water Act has left some states scrambling to enact their own safeguards and others questioning whether their regulators can handle the workload without their federal partners.

Other states, though, see the loss of federal oversight as an opportunity to roll back corresponding state laws at the behest of developers and farmers, who argue such regulations are overly burdensome.

“State protections are not all the same,” said Jim McElfish, senior research and policy adviser with the Environmental Law Institute. “It’s going to be up to the states to fill the gap, and they might act very quickly. It’s really going to be up to what the legislatures want to do.”

An analysis conducted by the institute found that 24 states have no state-level regulations for the wetlands that now lack federal oversight. Some, including Colorado, are looking to put such protections on the books.

Seven states, the analysis found, provide limited coverage of those waters, although lawmakers in North Carolina are seeking to block state regulators from taking control.

And in the 19 states with broad wetlands protections, environmental regulators worry that they don’t have the capacity to uphold state laws without the federal partnerships that had been crucial to permitting and environmental analyses.

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‘States are going to need to step up’

The court’s ruling found that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency improperly claimed authority over an Idaho couple’s effort to build a house on their property. The decision limits the scope of wetlands covered by the Clean Water Act to those with a continuous surface connection to a larger body of water. It also cut protections for “ephemeral” streams that only flow seasonally.

More than half of the country’s 118 million acres of wetlands could be stripped from federal oversight, estimates Earthjustice, an environmental legal group. Advocates say the ruling ignores the fact that water often flows below ground, meaning unregulated wetlands could spread contamination to nearby lakes and rivers that the law does safeguard.

“Where the Supreme Court is tying the hands of the federal government to provide safe, clean water, the states are going to need to step up and act to fill the gap,” said Howard Learner, president and executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, a legal advocacy organization in the Midwest.

In Colorado, state lawmakers and officials say they’re committed to restoring protections. State Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Democrat who chairs the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, said legislators will be analyzing the issue before next year’s legislative session. Meanwhile, regulators with the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment have developed a draft policy to protect waters under state law.

“The fact that we have sources of water that are at risk of being contaminated or eliminated because of this Supreme Court decision should be concerning to all of us, and we should try to find the proper way to protect them,” Roberts said. “In the next couple months, we’ll know whether the state department can do this on their own or if they’re going to be making a legislative ask.”

Environmental advocates say they’re confident the state will ensure that wetlands and streams remain protected.

“We’re hopeful that we can restore protections here in Colorado,” said Ean Tafoya, Colorado state director with GreenLatinos, an environmental justice organization. “The state is considering a policy as a stopgap and we’re likely to see legislation in 2024.”

In New Mexico, the state Environment Department already was pursuing its own surface water permitting program. John Rhoderick, director of the Water Protection Division, said it will take five to seven years to get the program up and running.

“This is going to give us the capability to better protect New Mexico,” he said. “We’re evaluating whether we need to somewhat modify our approach and do an interim rulemaking that addresses wetlands. But we’re on a good course and we’ll adjust as we see what the ripple effects from this ruling are.”

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Limiting state authority

Other states are attempting to roll back state water laws. North Carolina lawmakers passed a bill this month that would invalidate state wetland protections that go beyond federal regulations.

“The state law should be clear that state jurisdiction ends concurrent with the federal [standard],” said Ray Starling, president of the NC Chamber Legal Institute, the legal strategy arm of the business advocacy group. “The mentality and expectation of the General Assembly is that we don’t regulate more stringently than the federal government.”

Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has not indicated whether he will sign the bill.

Business, development and agriculture groups cheered the court ruling last month, arguing that confusing regulations and lengthy permit times were stifling economic growth. Now, they’re turning their efforts to the state level.

“We’re very happy with the decision, and we consider it a victory against federal overreach,” said Adam Pugh, environmental policy program manager with the National Association of Home Builders. “We do appreciate that a lot of states will continue to regulate and provide permits for those [waters]. We’re trying to make our state associations aware of any proposal that’s going to make homebuilding easier or more difficult and prepare them for that conversation.”

The group’s North Carolina chapter supported the bill to roll back state wetland protections. But environmental groups say that effort is misguided.

“Our waterways are only as clean as the wetlands that filter our pollution,” said Kelly Moser, senior attorney and leader of the Clean Water Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This opens up millions of acres of wetlands to development and industrial pollution, wetlands that we have as a region relied on to protect our communities from increasing floods.”

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Capacity issues

Even in states with established wetland laws and permitting programs, the Supreme Court decision is shaking things up. State agencies work closely with federal regulators to conduct analysis, review proposals and process permits. But now, for those wetlands, states largely are on their own.

“We expect there are going to be delays [in issuing permits] if we maintain our current staffing level,” said Lauren Driscoll, manager of the wetlands program at the Washington State Department of Ecology. “To maintain the timelines that we have right now, we’re going to need to bring in additional people.”

The agency would need legislative approval to bring on more staff. Washington estimates that more than 50% of its wetlands have lost federal protection, and it will have to process roughly 50 additional applications each year for projects that no longer fall within federal jurisdiction.

Moser, with the Southern environmental law group, expressed concern that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality also will struggle to handle the increased workload.

“Even though Virginia has wetland regulations on the books, they simply don’t have the expertise or resources to fill the gap,” she said.

The agency did not make officials available for an interview.

In Colorado and New Mexico, officials have acknowledged that efforts to enact state protections will require a lot more money in order to increase capacity at regulatory agencies. And in Illinois, advocates pushing for a wetlands law say it would be meaningless if state agencies weren’t able to handle the work.

“If you put in a state law that provides specific wetlands protection, that implies a permitting and review system, which is a significant capacity issue,” said Paul Botts, executive director of the Wetlands Initiative, a Chicago-based nonprofit. “There’s no point doing that if the agencies can’t carry it out.”

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Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2023 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A tiny mollusk known as the magnificent ramshorn has long made its home in the state’s freshwater coastal ponds. But sea level rise and storm surges are making those ponds saltier, and the snail can’t tolerate salt. The coastal plain that was once the species’ habitat has no snails left — the only surviving members are bred in captivity.

The state hopes to reintroduce the snail in one remaining pond, but little of the habitat where it once lived can now support it.

“There are very few places that exist in its known historic range that would still be suitable for it to live,” said Kyle Briggs, chief deputy director of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

If the magnificent ramshorn is to flourish in the wild again, it may well have to be somewhere new. It’s among many species that are finding their long-established habitats increasingly inhospitable because of warmer temperatures, rising oceans, wildfires and droughts.

Some wildlife officials want to help those plants and animals find new homes, a tactic known as assisted migration. In the coming weeks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to issue a final rule that could allow wildlife managers to introduce endangered species in habitats where they’ve never been seen before.

“It just allows us to have more flexibility when that is needed,” said Elizabeth Maclin, division chief for restoration and recovery with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “When a habitat has been depleted to the extent that it’s no longer suitable for a species, we’re able to have the tools we need to prevent its extinction.”

States such as North Carolina have been following the proposal closely since the agency released it a year ago. They see the threats climate change poses, and many acknowledge that some species won’t survive without help getting to new places.

But state wildlife officials disagree about whether the feds’ plan is a good idea. In Michigan, wildlife managers hope the change will allow them to move a tiny blue butterfly northward. Arizona officials, however, fear that relocating a wolf to a new habitat could unleash serious ecological risks.

Other states, including North Carolina, are willing to consider assisted migration but have deep concerns about how it will be carried out.

“This is a really big opportunity that I’d hate for us to miss, but I think it needs to be done correctly and with the concurrence of the states,” Briggs said.

North Carolina is among several states asking for a “concurrence” provision, essentially requiring state wildlife officials’ approval before the feds could move a species. The federal agency would not comment on whether it is considering those requests.

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The states’ role

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversees management of endangered species including the magnificent ramshorn (for marine species, that role falls to the National Marine Fisheries Service). But state wildlife managers often work closely with the feds on plans to preserve and restore those populations, such as habitat restoration projects and landowner incentive programs.

And state agencies are responsible for keeping species without federal protection out of the “emergency room.” They are wary of threats that could place a species under endangered status, removing it from the state’s purview and bringing along a host of federal regulations and restrictions.

The Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, a nonprofit advocacy group representing state wildlife managers, expressed “cautious support” for the federal proposal, said Lane Kisonak, the group’s chief legal officer. While the group’s member agencies have differing views on the rule, he said, they share a belief that any species relocation efforts should require extensive collaboration with the states.

“There’s a strong desire by the states to have that cooperation maximized should a final version of this rule be implemented,” he said.

In Hawaii, which has more endangered species than any other state, wildlife officials have welcomed the proposal. Two species of Hawaiian honeycreepers are among the forest birds that are particularly threatened as climate change brings invasive mosquitoes — and deadly avian malaria — into upper elevation forests.

“We’re the endangered species capital of the world, and our landscape has changed so much,” said Kathryn Stanaway, program specialist with the Division of Forestry and Wildlife in the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. “We want to establish populations outside of their historical range in some instances, and we can do that under state law, but we can’t do that under federal law the way it’s currently written.”

But some wildlife managers fear the assisted migration of federally protected species could prove harmful to other species under the states’ care. Wyoming officials have identified more than 800 species of “greatest conservation need,” which are not currently listed as endangered but may require state action to address declining populations.

“Our role is to keep those species common,” said Angela Bruce, deputy director of external affairs at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. “Putting endangered species in non-historic ranges could throw off the ecological balance and throw off all the great work we’re trying to do. The risk is too high to jeopardize all the other species.”

Much of the Wyoming agency’s conservation work comes through voluntary partnerships with landowners, who are wary of the restrictions that often come along with endangered species status. Putting such species in new places would jeopardize those relationships, Bruce said.

While Wyoming sees the proposal as a threat to its own wildlife management efforts, others believe it could empower states. Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said the rule change could be the first step to one day allowing species to be moved before they’re listed as endangered. Such preemptive rescues also would keep those species from falling under federal authority.

“We see (assisted migration) as a means to move species around the landscape to prevent them from getting listed under the Endangered Species Act,” he said. “That would allow us to retain state management.”

Vincent-Lang mentioned wolverines as a candidate for relocation. If assisted migration were eventually allowed for state-managed species, Alaska officials could help wolverines migrate to more suitable areas before dwindling snowpack in their current range put them on the endangered species list.

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The track record

Washington state has successfully reintroduced fishers, a small member of the weasel family that had been eradicated in the state because of trapping and habitat loss. While state wildlife officials support changing the rule to allow such relocations in new ranges, they caution that it won’t be an easy answer to habitat loss caused by climate change.

“Translocations are difficult, expensive, they don’t always succeed and there’s a lot of risks,” said Hannah Anderson, wildlife diversity division manager with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “I would perceive (assisted migration) as another tool in the toolbox, but it’s not like we would immediately jump to that.”

While the Washington agency supports the rule change, Native tribes that serve as co-managers of the state’s fisheries are skeptical.

“This would need to be done very carefully, in full consultation and collaboration with affected tribes, and we don’t see a track record that leads us to believe that that’s the way this would move forward,” said Rob Jones, fisheries policy analyst with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, a coordinating body for treaty tribes in western Washington. “This is a half-baked idea without those specifics.”

At least a dozen states weighed in through comment letters sent to the federal agency. Wildlife officials in Oregon, Florida and Missouri all said species may need to be moved to new areas to save them from climate change, but urged the feds to craft strong safeguards that acknowledge the ecological risks of such maneuvers. Leaders in New Mexico and Montana opposed it altogether.

“To introduce experimental populations to new ecosystems renders the experimental population nothing more than an invasive species, threatening the natural balance within the ecosystem unaccustomed to its presence,” wrote Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican.

Many states — both supporters and opponents of the rule — also expressed concern about social and economic consequences. Areas with endangered animals and plants can face severe limitations on development, ranching, mining and other land-use activities that could disrupt the species.

Federal officials say that past reintroductions of endangered species — in areas where they’d previously lived — show that the model can work. Such “experimental populations” can have more flexible rules that are often less restrictive, but some states still fear that adding endangered species to a landscape could have major economic consequences and public backlash for those regions.

Maclin, with the federal agency, said introductions of experimental populations account for the community impact. She pointed to the black-footed ferret, which has been reintroduced with allowances that permit landowners to manage their lands without fear they will inadvertently violate the Endangered Species Act.

While states weigh the ecological and economic repercussions of the proposal, many environmental advocates say it would be more costly not to act.

“This is an emergency room situation where species are going to blink out if we don’t help them,” said Elise Bennett, Florida director and senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group. “We would much prefer and urge preventative care, but within the policy framework of the Endangered Species Act, Congress was quite clear that we have to prevent extinction of a species — no matter what the cost is.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

Later this year, the court will rule on a long-standing federal law designed to ensure that Native American children removed from their homes by state agencies are not displaced from tribal communities.

Tribes, advocates and many state child welfare agencies fear that a court decision striking down the Indian Child Welfare Act, known as ICWA, could threaten decades of work to ensure that Native kids are not removed from their communities and culture.

Lawmakers in at least half a dozen states have proposed or passed bills this year to put similar language into state law, in case the federal law is invalidated. Eleven states now have such laws on the books.

“ICWA gives the tribe a chance to find a placement where we can keep kids connected to their communities,” said Clare Johnson, counsel for the Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming. “It helps preserve our culture and keeps kids from getting lost in the system.”

Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, amid growing concern that 25% to 35% of all Native children were being removed from their families by welfare agencies — with the vast majority placed outside their communities. The separations that happened through adoption and foster care came in the wake of an era that saw hundreds of thousands of Native children forcibly removed from their homes and sent to boarding schools designed to strip them of their culture, language and religion. The act prioritizes family and tribal placements for Native kids in child custody cases, while mandating that tribes be notified of such proceedings.

“Native children were removed from their homes under the thin guise of poverty or lack of electricity or (state agencies) not understanding community-level responsibility for children,” said Sarah Kastelic, executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association, a Portland-based nonprofit that supports tribal child welfare systems. “ICWA was put in place to stop that.”

The case before the Supreme Court centers on a white Texas couple who adopted a Native child, and their dispute with the Navajo Nation over the child’s placement. The couple and their supporters have argued that the preference given to tribes under the federal law amounts to race-based discrimination, violating the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. Backers say the law recognizes tribes’ status as sovereign nations, not based on racial status, and a ruling to overthrow it under that argument could upend all federal Indian law.

Followers of the case say it’s unclear how the court will rule, or on which grounds the court might decide to overturn the law. Some states are making backup plans.

Earlier this year, Wyoming passed a measure putting ICWA into state law, while also establishing a state task force that will develop recommendations to strengthen child custody procedures and adapt if a Supreme Court ruling upends the current system.

“We want to be prepared in saying we are going to maintain the status quo under state law,” said Wyoming state Sen. Affie Ellis, the bill’s Republican sponsor and member of the Navajo Nation. “The ultimate goal is to prevent greater disruption. As a human being, as a mom, as a person who practices federal Indian law, I lay in bed at night thinking about possible outcomes, and this seemed like the most prudent course.”

Minnesota also codified the federal ICWA language into state law this year, while New Mexico enacted a state-specific version with expanded protections last session. Eleven states now have either done so or passed a state-specific version of the federal law with greater protections. While a Supreme Court decision overturning ICWA on sweeping equal protection grounds would likely invalidate those state laws as well, other outcomes — such as a ruling that the federal law exceeded Congress’s authority — could leave state protections in place.

“A lot of states and tribes are trying to take ICWA as it exists right now and put it into state law,” said Kate Fort, director of the Indian Law Clinic at Michigan State University, who is representing intervening tribes in the Supreme Court case. “It’s really, really hard to predict a ruling because the court has so many opportunities in front of it, and it’s very difficult to advise states and tribes on how to preemptively protect themselves.”

Lawmakers in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah also have put forward bills this year to codify or strengthen ICWA protections.

“The (child custody) system has been the bane of our existence,” said Montana state Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, a Democrat and member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe. “Native individuals who got caught up in that system were misplaced into a society that was foreign to them, deprived of their culture and history, of who they are.”

Windy Boy is sponsoring a bill that would duplicate the federal ICWA’s protections in state law. The measure has passed the House and sits in a Senate committee. Montana legislators also are considering an “ICWA for all” proposal that would apply some protections to both tribal and non-tribal child custody cases. Windy Boy said the measures can coexist.

In Utah, lawmakers failed to advance an ICWA bill, despite support from Gov. Spencer Cox and Attorney General Sean Reyes, both Republicans, and tribal leaders in the state. Utah is among 23 states that have submitted an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold ICWA.

“We are now going to have to react, rather than be proactive,” said state Rep. Christine Watkins, the Republican who sponsored the bill. “I had legislators come up to me and say they didn’t want to allow people of other ethnicities to call the shots. There’s a real fear that (Native kids could be removed from tribal communities), and I will tell you that a lot of legislators don’t care.”

In a committee hearing on the bill earlier this year, some lawmakers said they supported the measure’s intent, but had concerns about specific wording or felt it was premature to act before a Supreme Court ruling.

“It creates this dual competing system in our state where tribal children are treated one way and other children are treated differently,” said state Rep. Nelson Abbott, a Republican. While adding that the dual systems were “not necessarily a problem,” he said the language of the bill, such as a section that defers to tribal customs in defining extended family members, was not clear enough to be applied effectively.

Watkins and ICWA supporters say they’ve heard from opponents that decisions in custody cases should be based on what’s best for the child, not tribal preference. Such arguments, they say, rely on false assumptions.

“To think that those situations where a child is harmed or endangered only happen in a tribal home is just a mistaken perception,” said Wyoming state Rep. Lloyd Larsen, a Republican who worked with Ellis to pass the state law this year. “What we heard from our agencies that have a long history working with the tribes is they think it would be a tragedy if ICWA was overturned.”

Arguments that ICWA shows racial preference also are misguided, said Kastelic, with the National Indian Child Welfare Association.

“There’s a political relationship that tribes have with their citizen children,” she said. “Tribal nations are best positioned to inform court decisions about what’s in the best interest of their citizens.”

Fort, the Indian law expert, said state child welfare agencies in regions with large tribal populations largely support ICWA and have developed working relationships with tribes. In some cases, those agencies have urged lawmakers to ensure those partnerships can continue even if ICWA is struck down.

“ICWA forces states and tribes to work together,” she said. “Just by proximity and needing to work together for kids, you end up developing better relationships. At minimum, the status quo would be the preference.”