Kotzebue, Alaska, gets three months a year to buy all its diesel, and tribal clean energy money was cut

Kotzebue, a small city on a gravel spit in northwest Alaska north of the Arctic Circle, gets three months each year to buy all the diesel fuel it will burn over the following twelve months. Ice keeps freight barges away for most of the year, and the town is reachable only by air and sea. Federal cuts to tribal clean energy programs have since left one of its main attempts to reduce that dependence on hold.

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Diesel supplies about 75% of Kotzebue’s power, and residents spend roughly 20% of their income on energy.

Kotzebue’s diesel window and an energy burden three times higher

The reporting comes from Joseph Lee, whose story ran at Canary Media after first appearing at Grist on Nov. 3. It says the 20% energy burden is more than three times the average for low-income households nationwide, citing a Department of Energy affordability tool. Chad Nordlum, energy project manager for the Native Village of Kotzebue, said the community is largely at the mercy of world markets and can do nothing about diesel prices, but can produce its own energy. A late barge or a spike in fuel costs lands directly on household budgets in a place with no road to a cheaper supplier.

The $20 million wind grant and its cancellation

The Native Village of Kotzebue was awarded a $20 million Environmental Protection Agency grant, part of a roughly $150 million package for Alaska tribal infrastructure announced in 2024. Local station KOTZ reported on May 28, 2025 that the EPA terminated it. The project was meant to build two 1-megawatt wind turbines whose power would be sold to Kotzebue Electric Association, and Nordlum said the tribe received a notice terminating the funding. He also said the project would keep money in the community instead of sending millions of dollars out for diesel.

Canary Media reports the project remains paused more than a year later. Nordlum said the wind project would cut the town’s reliance on diesel to about 40 to 50%, and that the town has to get a handle on energy prices and availability. The tribe and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium told KOTZ in 2025 that they planned to dispute the termination. No source read for this article reports a decision restoring the money.

Brookings count of $468.7 million cut in Indian Country

Kotzebue is one entry in a larger ledger. A Brookings Metro analysis dated Oct. 16, 2026, found that the Department of Government Efficiency de-obligated $468.7 million across 1,597 grants and contracts in Indian Country. Tribes and Native organizations lost 12.1% of obligated funding under canceled awards, against 8.3% for non-Native recipients. Natural resources and environment accounted for more than 65% of the cuts, against 40% overall, and the EPA supplied more than half of the Native-recipient cancellations. Alaska, Virginia and Wisconsin had the most Native-focused dollars de-obligated.

Robert Maxim, a Mashpee Wampanoag fellow at Brookings Metro, told Canary Media the funding was not being cut on the basis of race or DEI, and called underinvestment the default for the U.S. rather than a blip. His colleague Glencora Haskins said the cancellations reflected a very surface-level view of what many of the programs were doing. A separate Brookings report, published Aug. 11, 2026, says the One Big Beautiful Bill Act significantly reduced clean energy investments in Tribal communities. Canary Media puts Biden-era funding for tribal climate, energy and infrastructure at over $700 million, a figure the Brookings pages read for this article do not repeat.

Kotzebue does generate some power locally. KOTZ reports that renewables supply up to 30% of the utility’s energy from a solar farm and two large wind turbines, and the canceled project would have added two more 1-megawatt turbines selling to Kotzebue Electric Association. Closing the gap between that figure and the 75% diesel share that Canary Media reports is what the $20 million was meant to pay for.

Brookings argues the pattern is not accidental. Its authors say tribes’ slower drawdown of funds may have left more money exposed to cancellation, that in 12 states Tribes and Native organizations lost more than half of their obligated funding under affected awards, and that Oregon exceeded 90%. They contend the cuts conflict with federal trust and treaty obligations and recommend formula funding and a bar on terminating grants over changed agency priorities.

Solar for All, the Hopi Tribe and the 600-home grant

The Hopi Tribe shows how cancellation works at household scale. NPR reported in October 2025 that Hopi had been approved for a $25 million Solar for All grant to put solar panels and batteries on about 600 homes. On Aug. 7, 2025, the EPA sent termination letters to every Solar for All awardee, and Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency no longer had authority to administer the program or its funds. Canary Media says the entire $7 billion program was canceled.

Hopi can now power around 100 homes through a smaller Tribal Electrification Program grant, which forces officials to decide who gets electricity. Tribal Chairman Tim Nuvangyaoma called that hard news to deliver, and Vice Chairman Craig Andrews said the tribe should not be making such choices. Pilar Thomas, a tribal energy attorney, argued that the grant money was fully obligated and Congress cannot rescind obligated funds. Whether courts or Congress restore any of it is unresolved, and Kotzebue’s wind turbines remain unbuilt with no restart date in any source read for this article.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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