More than $1 billion in federal EPA funding awarded to California-based agencies and organizations to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels and make climate-friendly investments in working-class communities has been frozen and could be eliminated under a Day One executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
The funds from former President Joe Biden’s landmark climate and job creation initiatives were pledged to pay for such things as chargers to power cargo-carrying electric trucks, solar panels on residential buildings and fossil fuel-powered school buses and home appliances such as electric stoves to replace gas-fueled models in hard-pressed neighborhoods.
“If these grants don’t get funded, not only will there be impacts to much needed air pollution reductions in the South Coast Air Basin, but it will also impact manufacturing jobs across the country,” said Jack Chin, a spokesperson for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which oversees a vast swath of Southern California and received half a billion dollars in funding from the EPA in 2024.
“We will continue to work with EPA wherever possible to ensure that these programs are implemented as originally intended,” Chin wrote in an email to Capital & Main.
Trump’s order rescinded all 12 climate and environmental justice executive orders issued by Biden, including one implementing provisions of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The order specifically threatens grant money across the nation for electric vehicle charging stations and any program that might limit purchases of natural gas appliances, such as stoves and hot water heaters.
A week after the order was signed, the White House Office of Management and Budget ordered a “pause” in federal grants and loans that are inconsistent with Trump’s agenda. California, New York and twenty other states have since filed suit, arguing the pause is illegal and violates the 1974 Impoundment Act because it ignores a requirement that Congress review the president’s decision to withhold any funds it already authorized.
The Inflation Reduction Act, signed in 2022, made $3 billion available for environmental justice programs and partnerships, as well as $4.8 billion to reduce “climate pollution,” specifically greenhouse gases that linger in the atmosphere and trap heat, and a $7 billion Solar for All program to support solar panel installations benefitting nearly 1 million households in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
Trump’s White House is on the verge of firing EPA staff with probationary status, and has removed prominent agency references to environmental justice and climate change. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt referred to related investments as “the green new scam” in her inaugural press briefing.
Trump’s order directs agencies to pause funds until the Office of Management and Budget reviews them. Russel Vought, who will lead the Office of Management and Budget, previously said he wants “funding to be shut down” at the EPA.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in videos obtained by ProPublica. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
In a report issued in November by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republicans blasted Inflation Reduction Act grant programs for supporting nonprofits that “indoctrinate” communities with “radical rush-to-green energy policies” at the expense of fossil fuels. With the White House and Congress under Republican control, such programs are likely to die.
“There were some who felt that perhaps targeting the Inflation Reduction Act was not a first day priority, but obviously they were proven wrong,” said Romany Webb, deputy director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law who studied Biden’s now threatened rollout of $142 billion in grants, loans and other programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and shore up climate change defenses.
In a report issued last July, Webb and her colleagues analyzed how much money the EPA had awarded through programs including Climate Pollution Reduction Grants and Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants — two pots of money from which California regulatory agencies and nonprofit groups were set to receive millions of dollars.
In a Jan. 27 email to Capital & Main, the EPA Press Office wrote, “EPA is working diligently to implement President Trump’s ‘Unleashing American Energy’ Executive Order in coordination with the Office of Management and Budget. The agency has paused all funding actions related to the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at this time. EPA is continuing to work with OMB as they review processes, policies, and programs, as required by the Executive Order.”
A nearly identical email was sent to some Inflation Reduction Act grant recipients who have been unable to obtain their award funding.
There are only limited circumstances under which a federal agency can legally cancel an obligated award. The Trump administration could launch an audit of a recipient to search for any breach of contract to justify terminating the award, or simply claim the government’s priorities have changed, though those actions can be challenged in court. More simply, federal agencies can slow funds by decimating staffing responsible for delivering the award money or dragging out the reimbursement process.
The largest California award at risk is a nearly $500 million grant for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. In a July press release, the Biden administration said the award was for charging stations and zero-emission battery electric trucks, freight-carrying vehicles, cargo-handling equipment and trains to deliver goods. The air district earmarked $58.7 million in December for rebates to boost battery-electric cargo vehicles and a “workforce development program” through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. It had planned to draw down the grant by submitting reimbursement requests to the EPA.
Chin, the air district spokesperson, said local regulators have been unable “to directly speak with EPA personnel for further guidance and clarification” regarding the awards. In addition, $1 million for air monitoring and $24.8 million for zero-emission electric school buses serving Southern California districts are on hold — the latter part of a $135 million grant for the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicle program across the state. Other affected recipients include the Los Angeles Unified School District, the cities of Oakland, Pasadena and Pico Rivera and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.
Another major award — nearly $250 million for the California Public Utilities Commission to encourage solar installation equipment in disadvantaged communities — was part of a larger $7 billion Solar for All program to reduce emissions nationwide by the equivalent of taking 7 million cars off the road.
Adam Kent, a director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the program was “100% intended” to flow to low-income and disadvantaged communities, who could expect to see their utility bills fall. On Jan. 28, the climate news site Heatmap reported that all Solar for All funds were frozen along with disbursements for dozens of other energy and climate related programs. “This pause is stopping everybody in their tracks,” Kent said.
The California Public Utilities Commission did not respond to multiple inquiries on whether the state is able to draw on its award.
The halt to funding is also affecting projects that have nothing to do with renewable energy or electric vehicles. For example, a $20 million project in the small farmworker community of Pajaro in Northern California, funded with a Community Change Grant Program award, would consolidate municipal water systems and remove pollutants such as iron and arsenic from drinking wells. It is one of more than $100 million awarded to nonprofits and local regulators across the state.
Those programs, 15 in all, range from installing a microgrid at a community center in Bakersfield and geothermal-powered greenhouses in the eastern Coachella Valley, to training students at Los Angeles Trade Technical College in removing lead from buildings, creating a public park in Sacramento and implementing a bike share program on San Francisco’s Treasure Island. All but six include some measures targeted in Trump’s executive order, such as electrifying public transit buses or ferries, encouraging electric bike and vehicle sharing, and installing electric appliances in homes.
But even those without such climate features are threatened, including a $20 million grant to build an evacuation center powered by solar panels and surrounded by a sustainable garden on the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County. “We desperately need this in our area,” said Geoff Alexander, the executive director of Dos Pueblos Institute, which received the grant alongside the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.
Smaller awards are aimed at building the capacity of residents to engage in local decision making. These programs came under fire from the Republican-dominated House Energy and Commerce Committee, which claimed in November that they encourage community members “to echo the [nonprofit’s] opinions and policy preferences rather than empower them to express their own view.”
Two California-based organizations, the Climate Justice Alliance and the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, were singled out in the committee’s report for promoting “progressive ideology” and “anti-Republican” bias. Each was set to get $50 million, to be dispensed among smaller groups working on environmental justice in California and other states.
As funding hangs in the balance, congressional Democrats have only begun addressing Trump’s withholding of money.
Rep. Judy Chu, a Democrat whose district includes the community of Altadena devastated by a climate change-fueled wildfire, said it “would be such a tragedy” if grants were disrupted. In her district, the nonprofit group ActiveSGV was awarded $20 million for expanding tree canopy at school yards, providing incentives for purchasing electric bikes, installing solar panels and cooling materials on dozens of homes and propping up public water stations.
“These funds not only would have decarbonized transportation in the freight sector, but in my [district] would have implemented local sustainability projects like rain gardens and rain capture systems to reduce pollution and help fight climate change,” Chu told Capital & Main.
With a hostile government in power, it’s important that officials and advocates continue to push for these investments, including from philanthropic donors, said Rachel Jacobson, lead researcher of state climate policy for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “One thing we need to do is fight to not lose that money, and another thing we need to do is make sure that if that fight is unsuccessful, that we don’t lose those projects entirely,” Jacobson said.
