LANSING – New grants to Great Lakes states to measure harmful chemicals in marginalized communities are facing uncertainty under increased White House scrutiny of federal spending.

Last September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded a first round of $5 million across six state biomonitoring programs that measure chemicals in people.

Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin were among the recipients.

The biomonitoring programs measure heavy metals, pesticides and other harmful substances in blood and urine in “communities unequally affected by exposure,” according to the CDC announcement.

The programs were selected for another $5 million annually through 2027, the CDC said.

But a recent Trump administration effort to freeze federal grants leaves the future of the program up in the air.

The administration ordered a pause on federal grants on Jan. 27, calling it necessary to ensure spending is in line with President Donald Trump’s executive orders on civil rights, the environment and other issues.

The Office of Management and Budget rescinded the order after 23 states sued to stop it. T The states won a temporary restraining order against the freeze after the White House said it would proceed with the plan despite withdrawing the budget office order.

The freeze is temporarily blocked while the lawsuit continues.

But the back-and-forth in Washington has left state health administrators wondering whether remaining biomonitoring grant payments will be delivered by an administration that has signaled hostility toward environmental and equity programming.

“It remains unclear at this point what implications the changes in federal administration will have on this contract beyond year one,” said Erin Clary, the deputy communications director in the New York State Department of Health.

Biomonitoring helps characterize human exposures to harmful chemicals, said Patrick Parsons, the director of the Division of Environmental Health Sciences at the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center.

“The best way we can do that is by seeing what actually gets inside the body,” Parsons said. “M

New York focuses on cities including Buffalo, Rochester and Albany, which are identified as environmental justice blocks. These are areas with high poverty rates and significant minority populations which often face greater environmental health risks. The program targets these areas to fill gaps left by previous studies that did not adequately represent rural or high-poverty communities.

Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services also conducts biomonitoring to address PFAS – so-called “forever chemicals” — and metals in the population.

The state received $837,500 in 2024 from the CDC grant program and expected to receive the same amount in each of the next two years.

The state doesn’t don’t know how the change in administration will affect the grant at this time, said Betsy Wasilevich, a senior epidemiologist with the department’s Environmental Health Bureau.

The grant will fund the Michigan Chemical Exposure Monitoring program that measures nearly 200 chemicals among the participants, Wasilevich said.

“This is a project that intends to study the state as a whole, but with a special focus on populations where there’s environmental justice concerns,” she said.

Another CDC grant-funded project in Michigan focuses on pregnant adults and tests a smaller set of chemicals, including arsenic, mercury, lead and PFAS.

It aims to determine whether these chemicals are present in higher concentrations in pregnant individuals living in areas of increased environmental risk compared to other state residents.

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.

Isabella Figueroa writes for Great Lakes Echo.