House Republicans dubious about the idea of “ecogrief” workshops at the Interior Department are now reinforcing their words with legislative muscle.
In a fiscal 2025 Interior-Environment appropriations bill passed by a House subcommittee Friday, GOP lawmakers included a rider that would prohibit spending money on a program “titled ‘Acknowledging Ecogrief and Developing Resistance’ or any counseling sessions, workshop, or any other meeting pertaining to ecological grief, ecogrief, or eco-resilience.”
The proposed “ecogrief” funding cutoff was likewise included in the House version of the fiscal 2024 Interior-Environment appropriations bill last year. It also comes about a year after Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee first drew attention to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s hosting of an employee workshop that touched on the idea of ecogrief.
“These blatantly partisan ideology sessions are a misuse of taxpayer dollars and extremely tone deaf,” Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), the chair of the Natural Resources panel, wrote last year in a letter joined by other GOP committee members.
