U.S. Sen. Patty Murray on Tuesday, March 4 shared stories from around Washington state to highlight the confusion and chaos experienced by many federal employees and organizations as a result of the new administration’s sweeping actions in the six weeks since Inauguration Day.
Murray announced earlier in the week she would be skipping President Donald Trump’s Joint Congressional Address on Tuesday. She instead held an online press conference featuring some of the Washingtonians who have been impacted by federal funding freezes and mass firings.
“This is not making us safer, it’s not making us stronger, it’s causing chaos and it is costing us jobs,” Murray told reporters. “The illegal funding freeze is choking out funding for infrastructure and energy projects, investments to lower people’s electric bills, it is grinding cancer research to a halt … it is putting our family farms and businesses in jeopardy.”
One story highlighted was that of Viva Farms, a nonprofit agricultural business incubator in Skagit County that trains and supports aspiring farmers. Viva Farms partners with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and receives 70% of its funding from federal sources. Executive director Michael Frazier said on Tuesday that losing such a significant portion of funding could result in limited programming and staff reductions for the organization.
Viva Farms can’t access millions of dollars of funding already awarded to the organization for work that has been done or is ongoing, and Frazier said his emails and calls to government agencies have gone unanswered.
“Our local food system is at risk,” Frazier said, citing the need for increased domestic food production even as Washington loses farmland to development and farmers to retirement.
Nearly 2,500 farms in Whatcom and Skagit counties generated more than $877 million in agricultural products in 2022, according to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture, and Skagit County is leading Western Washington in its efforts to preserve farmland.
On Tuesday, Murray also elevated the voices of federal employees who have been laid off or put on leave, including people who worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Park Service and Forest Service.
“This has been heartbreaking and infuriating,” Murray said. “I have spoken to so many federal workers, public servants who took so much pride in the work they do to strengthen our country, building our communities, supporting families, helping our neighbors.”
Murray said her office phones have been “ringing off the hook” as she hears from tribes, nonprofits, business owners, workers, cities and counties about the funding freezes and layoffs. In the first two weeks of February, her office received more than 78,000 emails and 37,000 calls. She is not the only legislator hearing from her constituency — in the same two-week span, Rep. Rick Larsen’s office received more than 3,000 calls and 17,000-plus emails.
Julia Tellman writes about civic issues and anything else that happens to cross her desk; contact her at juliatellman@cascadiadaily.com.
