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County hears federal and state legislative priorities; OMB proposed grants rule draws broad concern
Summary
State and federal legislative consultants briefed the board on bills affecting forests, watersheds and possible earmarks for Lake County; Paragon warned an OMB proposed rule could centralize political review of federal grants and create major uncertainty for counties and nonprofits, prompting large-scale public comment and likely litigation.
County consultants Jeff Neal (state) and Paragon Government Relations (Hassan Sarsour and Rachel Mackey) briefed supervisors on state and federal developments affecting Lake County.
Neal highlighted AB2494 (State Demonstration Forest program) and AB2216 (Delta Conservancy boundary expansion), noting amendments to AB2494 have reduced but not eliminated county concerns about wildfire-resilience priorities and funding sufficiency. "There are still a number of worrying provisions in the bill," Neal said, urging continued negotiations with authors and stakeholders.
On the federal side, Hassan Sarsour and Rachel Mackey said Congress is approaching a compressed calendar and that Lake County has two earmark requests they believe are likely to survive (nearly $750,000 for water/wastewater infrastructure and about $500,000 for workforce housing and reentry work), contingent on a final budget. The pair also flagged the Water Resources Development Act authorization increases that could affect Army Corps projects such as Middle Creek.
Rachel Mackey gave an extended briefing on an OMB proposed rule to centralize review and discretion over competitive federal grants, saying the change could allow political appointees to cancel or block grants for vague reasons including reputational risk or DEI concerns and would require a Treasury "do-not-pay" integration for subrecipients. Mackey called the rule "an existential crisis for state and local governments, nonprofits and counties" and said California and county associations are preparing legal challenges. "There were over 500,000 public comments," she said, noting most advocacy groups expect litigation and congressional pushback.
Supervisors asked staff to continue close coordination with county advocacy partners and legislative offices to protect local funding streams. Public Works Director Lars Ewing and others thanked members of the congressional delegation for securing PG&E Rule 20A credits to help local roadwork and flagged the Middle Creek restoration as an authorization priority.
