Our future depends on frozen federal funding
Historic federal funding is strengthening communities across the country with projects that address local air and water pollution, help localities adapt to climate change, create local jobs, enhance mobility, and support the small farmers and growers we depend on.
The Constitution couldn’t be clearer: Congress controls this federal spending — not the president.
Yet the Trump administration is unlawfully ignoring this fundamental principle by freezing funds Congress invested in a host of important projects around the country, including everything from energy-efficient affordable housing projects to food access programs.
That’s why we’re suing the administration. We’re teaming up with co-counsel from the Public Rights Project, representing 13 nonprofits and 6 cities across the nation.
There are currently more questions than answers for grant recipients. None of the Trump administration’s memos, directives, or initiatives considered how much funding would be frozen or terminated, nor which programs or recipients would be affected.
Because of the lack of transparency and communication from federal agencies, it remains unclear which of an ongoing series of agency actions are responsible for the freeze at any given time.
This chaotic freeze of funding is destroying our clients’ ability to create jobs and improve American lives. It sends a message that our government can’t be trusted.
Kym Meyer, SELC’s Litigation Director
Community impacts
With crucial investments in climate change adaptation and economic growth at stake, here’s how the federal funding freeze is harming organizations and communities on the ground:
- Climate change is here: We’re already grappling with devastating impacts from climate-driven extreme weather in the South and beyond. These funds are essential to providing a livable climate for future generations.
- Our economy hangs in the balance: More than $20 billion in federal funding has been committed to the South through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.
- Good American jobs: Investments from this historic funding has spurred an additional $78 billion in private sector growth and supports more than 432,000 jobs in our region.
“We simply can’t afford any more delay,” adds Meyer. “The government must get these funds flowing again.”
From the City of Nashville, Tennessee, to a nonprofit organization that supports local farmers in Pennsylvania, here are some of the clients we’re representing, plus how they’ve been impacted by the freeze.
More impacts on the ground
The Sustainability Institute – North Charleston, South Carolina
This nonprofit has a mission of advancing sustainable and resilient communities while building the next generation of conservation leaders. Their funds are for critically needed affordable housing, weatherization, and residential retrofits in a historic Black neighborhood that has suffered decades of racial segregation and environmental injustices.
Continued freezes and disruptions to our work would be catastrophic and equivalent to the government turning its back on the housing, jobs, and other economic, environmental, and social impacts that are set to be delivered.
Bryan Cordell, Sustainability Institute Executive Director
Frozen funds: $11.4 million
- A Community Change Grant will help develop energy efficient affordable homes for people in the Union Heights neighborhood, a former plantation site from after the civil war, where 99 percent of the community is Black; reduce greenhouse gas emissions by weatherizing and retrofitting homes; and reconnect the community that was fragmented by the construction of Interstate 26, among other projects.
The City of Nashville, Tennessee
Home to iconic Southern institutions like the Grand Ole Opry and Fisk University, Nashville is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country.
Frozen funds: $14 million
- In August of 2024, Nashville was awarded $4.7 million for their project to Electrify Music City, which would upgrade, improve, and expand public electric vehicle charging infrastructure under the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant program.
- A few months later in January 2025, Nashville also won a highly competitive $9.3 million grant for their East Nashville Spokes project under the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program to help fund a multi-modal, safe transit connection effort that includes protected bike lanes. This project would connect neighborhoods in the city so residents can have safer, better transit access to their jobs.
Metro Nashville filed this suit because the constitutional separation of powers must be maintained. No President, much less a non-federal employee at a fictional agency, has the authority to freeze funds appropriated by Congress.
Wally Dietz, Nashville & Davidson County Director of Law
Pasa Sustainable Agriculture (Pasa) – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pasa’s mission is to support farmers in creating economically viable, environmentally sound, and community-focused farms and food systems. And here’s a prime example.
Frozen funds: $59.5 million
- In 2023, Pasa applied for and was awarded a five-year U.S. Department of Agriculture grant of over $55 million through the IRA-funded Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities Program.
- In 2024, USDA increased the award amount to just over $59. 5 million. With this funding, Pasa plans to implement a project to support over 20,000 small to mid-scale underserved farmers from Maine to South Carolina. Funds will help farmers implement conservation practices that increase efficiency and productivity and reduce and sequester greenhouse gases. Funding under that grant is currently paused.
Pasa has spent decades building trust, delivering on our promises, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the farmers we serve. This legal challenge is not just about us — it’s about every farmer, every community, and every promise that should never have been broken.
Hannah Smith-Brubaker, Pasa Executive Director
CleanAIRE NC – Charlotte, North Carolina
This statewide nonprofit advocates for the health of all North Carolinians by pursuing equitable and collaborative solutions that address climate change and air pollution.
Frozen funds: $500,000
- CleanAIRE was awarded a $500,000 Environmental Justice Problem Solving Grant on June 2, 2024, to monitor the air and address health impacts in four impacted communities across north Mecklenburg County. This group will also work with partners to train Community Health Workers as lead “AirKeepers,” and conduct a Health Impact Assessment with Lake Norman Community Health Clinic, Mecklenburg County Health Department, Atrium Health, and North Carolina State University.
These funds represent a promise we’ve made to north Mecklenburg County communities that have partnered with us, shared their stories, and are relying on us for critical services and information about the air they breathe. Even a temporary disruption to this work jeopardizes our ability to fulfill those commitments.
Jeffrey Robbins, Clean AIRE Executive Director
Earth Island Institute – Berkeley, California
This nonprofit provides resources to grassroots environmental projects, offering fiscal sponsorship and support to over 75 initiatives worldwide focused on conservation, climate action, wildlife protection, sustainable food systems, Indigenous rights, and environmental justice.
Frozen funds: $5,670,506
- For a community project integrating traditional knowledge with modern technology, EPA Region 9 awarded Earth Institute a $3,073,914 Community Change Grant that would promote intergenerational learning and collaborative problem-solving within the Wai’anae community in Hawaii.
- Earth Island is also a statutory partner to Alabama’s West Anniston Foundation, which received a $2,596,592 Environmental and Climate Justice Block grant to provide training programs that enhance community engagement with their local government. These funds also address environmental and health issues in the primarily Black and low wealth community of West Anniston.
In both cases, we are trying to find out what we don’t know about pollutants in the neighborhoods, where and how people are being exposed, and by what. We also know that if communities can’t stand up and speak to their own issues, no one else will.
Sarah Diefendorf, Director, The Capacity Collaborative @ Earth Island Institute
This unlawful funding freeze is causing significant harm to these organizations: preventing them from executing critical projects, carrying out their missions, planning for the future, paying their employees, contractors, or sub-awardees, and serving the communities where they are implementing these congressional priorities.
Our future depends on these funds
All communities deserve clean water, clean air, and the opportunity to move critical projects forward that ensure these. That’s why we just filed a preliminary injunction that demands the Trump administration to unfreeze these funds that are making impactful change in areas of critical need.
“This is about more than the Trump administration breaking our founding separation of powers principles,” says Meyer. “Our communities, economy, and future generations will suffer most without the funds the government is holding hostage.”
No one voted for dirty air and water.