The City of New Haven will join a list of cities in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for the federal funding freeze.
Mayor Justin Elicker announced Thursday that the city will join a coalition of cities and nonprofits across the country in a federal lawsuit. The suit aims to stop federal funding freezes on environmental, climate and health projects.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, in partnership with the Public Rights Project, filed the lawsuit; “Sustainability Institute et al. vs. Trump et al.” on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. The lawsuit includes eleven community groups and six cities, including New Haven.
Elicker said New Haven was slated to receive three grants from the Environmental Protection Agency totaling more than $30 million. He said the grants are meant to be reimbursable, which means the city would be required to complete the projects before getting funding.
“All three of these are reimbursable grants. So we spend the funds and we get those funds back from the federal government. This puts municipalities like ours in an impossible situation,” Elicker said.
The grants awarded to New Haven have already entered into binding agreements with the federal government. Elicker said each project is in separate stages, and the freeze has disrupted ongoing projects because of the funding uncertainty.
A million-dollar grant awarded for environmental justice jeopardizes a project to move oil to heat pumps in gas induction stoves. The effort aims to help residents save money and address climate issues. Another $9.5 million grant for Climate Pollution Reduction funds geothermal heat pump stations around Union Station. Finally, a $20 million Community Change grant was awarded to improve climate resilience and quality of life for residents in 14 disadvantaged neighborhoods.
“It’s difficult for us to actually extend the money if we don't know if we'll get that money back. It is wrong for cities and organizations to have to be left holding the bag. When we have a federal government with a binding partnership, or what should be a binding partnership, is turning their back on our citizens,” Elicker said.
Elicker said the uncertainty has impacted the progress of critical community projects. Status uncertainty means the suspended project either won't be able to hire people to manage it or will need to let go of entire teams that have been hired.
Climate and Sustainability Director Steven Winter said the city has had to deal with suspended projects because of the inconsistency of information. He said they have seen projects’ status switch multiple times, and the uncertainty of funding has halted projects indefinitely.
“I think that there’s an effort here to deliberately create uncertainty to try to throw off otherwise worthy projects that could help New Haven residents on the basis of a political agenda grounded in denial of climate change,” Winter said. “I think that's very unfortunate on many levels but most primarily because we’re denying real people real benefits.”
