Weld Food Bank was planning to add two refrigerated trucks and a forklift to improve distribution throughout its 4,000-square-mile service area in Northern Colorado.
Those purchases are on hold after U.S. lawmakers stripped funding for the food bank from the spending bill signed by President Donald Trump last week.
The group was one of thousands across the country that got left behind after House Republicans crafted a so-called continuing resolution to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year rather than pass an appropriations package. The bill cut all the 2025 earmarks, otherwise known as congressionally directed spending or community project funding, that lawmakers had requested.
Colorado communities were in line to receive as much as $194 million in federal funding for a wide range of projects and services, including hospitals, law enforcement, colleges, a childcare center, a local firehouse, mental health programs, wildfire research, infrastructure upgrades and much more.
Weld Food Bank, which distributed more than 16 million pounds of food last year, was counting on the $400,000 in federal money to buy the vehicles, according to Bob O’Connor, the organization’s CEO.
“Funding is very difficult right now because the need is so high. So any money that we do have available is going to try to bring food in,” O’Connor said. “Since COVID and inflation … donors [can’t] donate as much as they used to. We’re having to purchase more than we ever have in the history of the food bank.”
The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless was counting on $4 million in federal funds to help rehabilitate a building near Denver’s Civic Center Park. The group aims to convert the property into one-bedroom and studio apartments for people experiencing homelessness, according to Cathy Alderman, a spokesperson for the non-profit organization.
The total bill for the project is estimated at between $40 and $60 million, Alderman said. The federal funds would have helped close the funding gap, she said.
“Without this funding, it’s going to be very difficult for us to do that,” she said. “We had been really lucky in the past to receive congressional support for a lot of our projects, largely in the Denver area. So we were feeling pretty confident that we could get the support we needed for this project. And now we’re kind of back to the drawing board.”
An analysis of the abandoned Senate and House appropriations bills for FY25 found more than 130 Colorado projects that were slated to get funding. The Senate and House had different bills that made it out of committee and would have had to negotiate differences, but many of the projects would have been expected to get through to the final bills.
All Colorado’s Democrats requested earmarks in FY25, while Rep. Lauren Boebert was the only Republican to request them. Both former GOP Rep. Ken Buck and Doug Lamborn who were in office during the FY2025 appropriations process eschewed earmarks, otherwise known as Community Project Funding in the House and Congressional Directed Spending in the Senate.
Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper had more than 60 joint requests in the bills, totaling more than $130 million. That sum included more than $3 million to repair a powerline that was damaged during a 2018 wildfire, $2 million to renovate and remodel a property in Colorado Springs for an early care and education center, and $1.4 million for the Ute Mountain Ute tribe to develop an education program to preserve the Ute language. The senators also had a couple of individual earmarks in the bills.
Boebert had more than $6.5 million for 10 projects in the 3rd Congressional District, her old district. It included funding for the Baca Grande Water & Sanitation District for a water loss and leak detection project to just over $165,000 for the development of a Montezuma County Emergency Operations Center at the county fairgrounds and $750,000 through the EPA for New Castle to use to help replace a clay sewer line.
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow had 10 requests in the bills totalling more than $4 million for his district, while Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette had seven projects totalling more than $10 million for her district.
Democratic Reps. Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen, as well as former Rep. Yadira Caraveo had more than 10 projects approved. It’s unclear if all would have made the final cut, given that in the past appropriators tried to cap requests to 10 each.
Neguse had more than $11 million for 13 projects in his district ranging from research to water infrastructure and road improvements. Pettersen had the most with 15 projects in the appropriations bills totaling more than $14 million for her district that included improvements for Chaffee County Sheriff’s office and wildfire hazard mitigation in Jefferson County.
Caraveo, who lost her reelection bid, had more than $9 million approved for 11 projects in the 8th Congressional District, much of it for infrastructure improvements, but also funding for a victim advocate program and crime lab enhancements in Thornton.
Most offices are expected to ask local governments and groups to resubmit their requests as the Appropriations committees turn to the process of crafting and passing the 2026 fiscal year appropriations bills next month.
The office of GOP Rep. Jeff Hurd, who now represents the 3rd District, said he will likely pursue earmarks. The Office of Rep. Gabe Evans, who took over representing the 8th District, did not respond when asked if he would utilize community project funding. The projects in the 3rd and the 8th would most likely have to be resubmitted through those offices, if they choose to pursue the funding.
While Republicans kept earmarks in the 119th Congress, they have been less likely to use them with some members blasting them as “pork” and adding to the debt.
Editor’s Note: The story was updated March 18 with a reply from Rep. Hurd’s office.
