By John Weare, Keep Alliance Beautiful
ALLIANCE, Neb. - Keep Alliance Beautiful has had a tumultuous relationship with the Nebraska Environmental Trust in recent years, in particular being denied a $95,000 grant in 2022 after being funded the previous 10 years. We have received one grant award from NET since then – $62,0564 in 2025 for community beautification and environmental education.
Despite securing other funding, I would still like to have NET as a potential financial resource even if that route is far from a sure thing. The Trust was established to conserve, enhance and restore the natural environments of Nebraska. Paring down what would have been litter and trash filling our landfills through recycling has always been inline with that mission, in my opinion. However, all potential grant recipients may see the pot of money shrink.
Katie Torpy, with The Nature Conservancy in Nebraska, and Traci Bruckner, Audubon of the Great Plains, sent an email to past NET grant recipients last week concerning threats to NET funding. “The Governor’s Mid-Biennial Budget dropped and the threat to conservation and environmental groups is existential. LB1072 would transfer $32 million away from the Nebraska Environmental Trust to the Water Recreation Enhancement Fund (WREF) to backfill a self-induced $50.7 million transfer to the General Fund. If successful, this action would immediately end the Trust as we know it,” the email states. That potential transfer is more than twice the $15,387,280 awarded to 46 projects last year.
On the other side of the issue there is a proposed constitutional amendment (LR2908CA) that would protect the Trust from future transfers or “cash grabs” as Torpy and Bruckner describe them. The governor’s budget, approved by the legislature in 2025, transferred $15 million to the Department of Water Resources (now part of DWEE) from NET and the 2026 budget requests another $10 million for DWEE, the email points out.
Although DWEE has its own environmental mission, goals and grants, transfers reduce the amount of NET money available for projects throughout Nebraska. Several 2025 grants benefitted recycling directly such as awards to Keep Nebraska Beautiful (of which KAB is an affiliate) and Firstar Fiber, Inc. for the company’s Hub & Spoke that includes KAB and other rural recycling systems throughout the state. Environmental organizations and projects in Nebraska need all the help they can find. Federal funding has been at risk.
However, the U.S. Congress recently passed environmental funding without significant funding requested by President Trump. People who defend the environment and seek a cleaner more sustainable future in Nebraska should be able to depend on their state representatives. Contact your state senator about NET if you value the Trust and its impact on projects in Western Nebraska.
Our District 47 (Sioux, Box Butte, Morrill, Cheyenne, Garden, Deuel, Grant, Arthur and Keith Counties) representative, Senator Paul Strommen serves on the appropriations committee.
Contact him at: Room 1321, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509; (402) 471-2616; e-mail: [email protected]