Federal agencies are trying to keep funding frozen despite court orders temporarily blocking Donald Trump's executive orders pausing trillions of dollars in government assistance.
Administration officials insist the suspensions are lawful, but multiple lawsuits allege Trump officials are violating congressional authority over federal spending, and the uncertainty has left government agencies and organizations that rely on government funding in a state of turmoil, reported CNN.
“People are just flipping out, and most of them are being careful about what they say,” said Jason Walsh, executive director of climate and labor group the BlueGreen Alliance.
Funding for EPA grantees was paused, restarted and then paused again last Friday, which Walsh said had caused “panic, confusion and anger" all in one day.
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“Contracts are going to get broken if this doesn’t stop, and workers are going to get laid off,” Walsh said. “I didn’t anticipate how fully brazen they’d be in ignoring the courts.”
The White House and Elon Musk, who heads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, claim they're rooting out fraud and illegal spending, but two federal judges have issued temporary injunctions blocking their efforts to freeze congressionally authorized funding through the budget office, and the administration has moved to fire some officials involved in payments they oppose.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that [Trump] wants us to not process grant payments, and the way to do it is to terrify us all into thinking that we will get fired if we do our basic job functions,” said one FEMA employee. “We’re all just kind of frozen.”
The administration has shut off funding for more than 30 grant programs at the EPA, including payments for air-quality sensors for low-income communities, and a memo obtained by CNN shows the White House argues the pause is necessary to review programs approved by president Joe Biden's administration.
“This memo is clearly an attempt to find reasoning to continue to freeze grants for things they don’t like despite the court’s order – it’s their workaround,” said an EPA employee familiar with the memo.
