The Trump administration is still withholding hundreds of millions of dollars from state agencies, despite a U.S. District Court order Monday that nudged federal agencies to pay up.
Officials from some of the 22 mostly Democrat-led states suing to stop the federal government from withholding their funding say they can now access previously frozen grants. But others say they still cannot access them.
Much of that money was approved under the Biden administration to pay for renewable energy and environmental cleanup projects states are counting on to help fight climate change and meet their clean energy goals.
As of Wednesday morning, Colorado still could not access more than $570 million in federal grants for home energy efficiency upgrades, power grid improvements, solar panel installations and other renewable energy and pollution reduction projects, according to Gov. Jared Polis’s (D) office.
“The Polis administration continues working to understand the extent of the funding impacted by the Trump administration’s reckless and sloppy attempt to withhold funds from Coloradans and our communities,” Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement.
State agencies’ struggles to access funds come as the Trump administration moves aggressively to fire federal workers, shut down a federal agency, and scrap spending it disagrees with or deems wasteful — all without congressional approval or deference to laws governing the executive branch.
“Bigger picture, I think this is Donald Trump testing the limits of his power, and not just the legal limits. He’s blown past the legal limits of his power a long time ago,” said Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School who served as a White House senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights under Biden. “He’s testing whether anybody’s going to try to stop him.”
The Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and Washington, D.C., suing to force the Trump administration to release money are now gearing up to argue for a longer-term preliminary injunction.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s lawyers argue that the president and his team have done nothing wrong.
The Department of Justice swiftly appealed Monday’s court order, calling it “intolerable judicial overreach.” The agency requested two different types of pauses to the order, one the First Circuit Court of Appeals denied and another that it is considering.
Democratic attorneys general teamed up to sue the Trump administration two weeks ago, after the federal Office of Management and Budget released a memo telling federal agencies to halt all grant and loan payments until they could be reviewed and deemed compliant with Trump’s executive orders.
The move threatened to cut off billions of dollars states rely on to help fund health care, schools, transportation and other programs. About 34% of the more than $3 trillion states spent last fiscal year came from the federal government, according to the latest estimates from the National Association of State Budget Officers. Fiscal Year 2024 ended on June 30 for most states.
The OMB quickly rescinded the memo. But many grants to states remained frozen, in part because some of Trump’s executive orders themselves ordered a freeze and review of certain grants.
Court filings show most of the freezes involved grants made under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, behemoth bills enacted in 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Trump has ordered federal agencies to stop disbursing funds appropriated through those laws, unless they further his energy policy goals, such as encouraging fossil fuel and mineral production, eliminating electric vehicle requirements and subsidies, and relaxing energy-efficiency standards for consumer products.
The Trump administration appears to be releasing some of the money as the multi-state lawsuit continues.
Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality was at one time blocked from accessing $26 million in federal grants, according to Caroline Oppelman, communications director for the agency. But as of Friday, only a $1.1 million air quality monitoring grant remained frozen.
“The pause on draws from this $1.1M IRA grant is not currently impacting ADEQ’s or counties’ air quality monitoring work,” Oppelman said in an email to Pluribus News.
But the Arizona Governor’s Office of Resiliency has been blocked from accessing $267 million, said Adrianna Amato, communications specialist for the office.
The funding is split across many grants, Amato said, including a program that would provide rebates to households and multi-family buildings that install energy efficient appliances and equipment, and another that funds solar panels in low-income communities.
“Right now, our funding is still inaccessible, despite having finalized contracts for our funds,” Amato said in an email to Pluribus News.
Massachusetts has over the past nine days regained access to seven federal grants funding environmental cleanup projects, air pollution research, and a recycling education program, according to the state’s Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
But state agencies as of Tuesday still could not access their $156 million grant funding the installation of solar panels in low-income communities, or two grants for air quality monitoring.
A five-year grant used to provide training and technical assistance to rape crisis centers also appears to be in limbo.
Massachusetts, which recently submitted paperwork for the second year of its grant, was initially told by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the program was frozen.
The agency then told the state it was “rescinding prior communication” to comply with the court order in the multi-state lawsuit , said Karissa Hand, press secretary for Gov. Maura Healey (D).
State officials have not yet received any updates about the grant or been awarded the money they submitted all the paperwork for, she said.
“Rape victims and survivors depend on this funding to receive lifesaving services and support — and they’re not going to get them because President Trump has cut off this funding,” Healey said in a statement provided to Pluribus News on Tuesday. “This illegal action will make women and young people less safe, here in Massachusetts and across the country.”
Correction: Adrianna Amato’s name was initially misspelled.