In 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy promised 91 tribal entities across Alaska, including eight in the Norton Sound region, millions of dollars in grants to upgrade their electric grids. Three years into the five-year program, the payouts stalled.
In the Seward Peninsula community of White Mountain, officials are losing faith in federal reassurances that the money is still coming.
On a spring day, plant operator Shane Bergamaschi moved around the small control room. The deep, monotonous thrum of a diesel generator filled the space. On a desk was a handwritten log from the past few days, recording which generator was running when, frequencies, voltages, kilowatts produced, and the generators' temperatures, which are kept in check by a newly replaced cooling system.
The staff switch between two generators—recent replacements the federal government promised to mostly pay for—for maintenance and repairs. A third generator, also due for replacement, is inoperable.
It's a major improvement from 2023, when the plant's instability peaked. Bergamaschi said the plant had constant outages and he was always worried.
"Before, we worried about it shutting off every day. Now, it is not even really a thought," Bergamaschi said. "If it turned off right now, it would be like, 'Man, what is going on?'"
An energy grid in 'dire' need for repairs
Former White Mountain City Clerk Joni Yakunin said in 2023, two of the city's generators were inoperable most of the year, and the third was in poor condition.
"We were having constant outages. It was a pretty dire situation," Yakunin said. "What made things worse is that even though the city was pretty healthy financially, it was wasting a lot of money on emergency repairs and was not really focused on long-term solutions."
In 2023, the city hired Gray Stassel Engineering to assess the plant. The engineers documented a long list of problems, including faulty wiring, cracked concrete and failing systems.
The assessment gave the community a step-by-step plan to upgrade its power system.
In 2024, Yakunin moved into grant writing for the city and found a way to pay for the work: The Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants Program. It was created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act during the Biden administration to enhance energy systems, prevent outages and strengthen the electric grid against climate-driven disasters.
The program started in 2022 and opened funding to states and tribes. It is not competitive; funds are allocated by formula, and recipients can develop project plans to upgrade and strengthen their energy grids after their applications are approved. It does require some local matching funds. In Alaska, 91 tribal entities were promised funding, as well as the state government, which typically passes grants through to electric utilities.
As upgrades to the White Mountain system were underway, the community's tribe, Native corporation and city government were promised $571,759. The money had not changed hands yet, but Yakunin said local officials were eager for White Mountain to move on to the next phase of the upgrades.
In 2024, they submitted approval to use that year's allocation toward the cooling system upgrades, which ended up costing $299,634.
The next phase in the project was new generators. Yakunin said the tribe donated remaining COVID-19 relief funds that were set to expire at the end of 2024 to help jumpstart the phase, and the city fronted the rest of the roughly $400,000 cost for two new generators.
"They wanted to move forward anyway because the money was already there," Yakunin said. "It was already approved. It was just a matter of the project itself being approved."
By the end of the year, they had spent all of the anticipated 2024 grant money on the two new generators and upgrading the cooling system. Yakunin said they haven't been reimbursed for any of that.
DOE officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Widespread uncertainty
As of early 2026, the U.S. spending database, SAM.gov, showed Alaska tribes had received less than 6% of the $58 million they were promised for Grid Resilience Formula Grants funding. That data is being compiled and monitored by the DOE Alumni Network, a nonpartisan nonprofit founded by former DOE officials after President Donald Trump began his second term.
The DOE Alumni Network has kept track of changes to Department of Energy programs since President Trump's administration froze or slashed funding for thousands of projects across the country. His administration also slashed the DOE's workforce.
An executive order from the first day of Trump's second term said early funding freezes were intended to evaluate "unduly burdensome" spending.
The courts rebuffed blanket funding freezes, but over a year later, much of the funding has still not been released
Amanda Toerdal is the community planning and development program director for the tribal consortium of Kawerak. In 2024, the nonprofit helped 16 other Norton Sound tribal entities secure roughly $2.8 million in grid resilience grants, led by the Native Village of Council.
Unlike White Mountain, Toerdal said the group did receive its 2024 funding, but they are still waiting on two more allocations. She said the consortium has had consistent contact with a DOE project manager.
"We keep hearing that it's still coming," Toerdal said. "They keep saying, 'OK, well, this money is still coming. We are going to release fiscal years 2025 and 2026 as another chunk for the final round of this.'"
But Yakunin with White Mountain said contact with the DOE and affiliated agencies has gone silent over the past year, and her faith that the funds are coming is fading.
"I'm not optimistic that we're going to get the money," Yakunin said. "I mean, I'm going to try. I'm going to try to re-establish contact with them and resubmit the projects. Something. Because we spent a lot of money, the city should get reimbursed. That money was allocated to the city. It deserves that money."
She said the city can absorb the cost if necessary, but it would largely drain its savings.
Yakunin is still hunting for grants for White Mountain. She estimates it will cost another $950,000 for the third generator, a fire suppression system and automation upgrades.