Despite court orders, Trump administration freezes numerous funds
Despite recent court rulings calling for an end to the Trump administration's sweeping pause on federal grants, numerous recipients are not getting their promised cash from the government.
The administration is still not forking over money for congressionally funded programs ranging from electric vehicle charging to abandoned mine cleanup to wildfire mitigation.
Both recipients of and advocates for these funding programs say the freeze will have significant impacts, delaying — or even fully obstructing — many infrastructure projects.
“Even the pause is going to harm the implementation of these programs, because there are contractors out there who have salaries to pay and deadlines to meet and rent to pay,” said Tony Mendoza, a senior attorney at the Sierra Club.
He added that the pause could even “kill some of these projects,” whether or not the money would eventually come through.
Late last month, the White House directed federal agencies to pause “all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.”
Amid a legal challenge from 22 states, the pause was blocked in court days later.
Nevertheless, funding for a wide range of congressionally directed programs appeared to still be frozen this week.
Maren Mahoney, director of the Arizona Office of Resiliency, told The Hill on Thursday that Arizona can no longer access money from a $156 million grant that would go toward installing local solar projects, as well as additional grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that would go toward helping the state cut its greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution.
Mahoney also said that more than $150 million in federal grants for home energy efficiency and for electric appliances were halted.
She said her office is now unable to hire staff to begin subcontracting the solar grants and risks not being able to pay back HVAC workers who install heat pumps.
“We don't know when we're going to get that money back so that we would then be able to reimburse the contractors,” she said.
Washington state Commerce Director Joe Nguyen told reporters on Thursday that grants for community solar and cutting carbon emissions were frozen in his state as well.
“There are over $450 million in federal energy funds currently stalled in Washington state, and that doesn't include over $1.23 billion of ... funds that are just at risk because of federal inaction,” Nguyen said.
“There will be higher energy costs for families and businesses. We will likely lose jobs in Washington state, especially in our clean energy sector,” he added.
The EPA, which oversees the solar and carbon-reduction grant programs, said it was making at least some previously paused funds available, per the court order.
However, spokesperson Molly Vaseliou also indicated that some programs were flagged because of potential issues.
“EPA personnel have identified certain grants programs as having potential inconsistencies with necessary financial and oversight procedural requirements or grant conditions of awards or programs,” she said.
Meanwhile, last week EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin sent out a memo encouraging EPA staff to elevate concerns related to waste, fraud and abuse. Vaseliou said Zeldin “received numerous concerning responses.”
The Energy Department, which oversees the efficiency program, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a new lawsuit Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) alleged that federal agencies are “unilaterally and arbitrarily suspending or restricting … access to the congressionally appropriated grant funds” including funds to restore abandoned mine lands and clean up uncapped oil wells.
He also wrote that programs that enable the state to provide grants for clean water infrastructure, allow manufacturing companies to cut their planet-warming emissions, and support electricity in rural communities are being affected.
"There are going to be a lot of these requests for project approvals that aren't getting approved, so particularly in emergency situations, that's really problematic, because you could have an ongoing subsidence issue that's getting worse over time, or a landslide that's continuing to get worse, and the state agency won't be able to get approval to stop it," said Chelsea Barnes, director of government affairs and strategy at environmental group Appalachian Voices.
“A big part of what the Abandoned Mine Land program does is keep people safe. Millions of people live near abandoned mine lands throughout Appalachia,” she added.
A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees the abandoned mine lands and oil well programs, said in an email that the department “continues to review funding decisions to be consistent with the President’s Executive Orders.”
“The Department’s ongoing review of funding complies with all applicable laws, rules, regulations and orders,” the statement said.
One of Trump’s Day 1 executive orders called for a pause on funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as well as the Democrats’ climate, tax and health care bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
After the court orders, the Department of Transportation said it would suspend new funding for a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law program that funds electric vehicle chargers, saying it was reviewing implementation of the program.
Ryan Gallentine, managing director at trade group Advanced Energy United, which represents low carbon technology, said that the pause has caused “confusion” for the group’s members who were recipients of electric vehicle charger and clean school bus grants.
He also said “the other practical impact is that a lot of the private capital that's flying to these projects gets frozen up.”
Others have expressed confusion about whether funds are frozen at all.
Tim Farquer, the founder of Bus2Grid, which seeks to help schools electrify their fleets, said that his group has been “ghosted” by the Energy Department while it works with 13 Illinois school districts that received grants to install solar and electric buses.
He said the school districts have put a significant amount of money into planning, and if they can’t get reimbursed, it will be lost money because the schools can’t afford to install the actual technology without the grant.
Meanwhile, Mahoney, with the Arizona resiliency office, said the state hasn’t had “any communications recently” with the Energy Department program officer helping the state with its $21 million grid resiliency program.
“We don't know how to proceed, because we were about to issue sub-awards to utilities,” she said, adding that the state intends to put this money toward wildfire mitigation.
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