Pennsylvania Governor Says $2.1 Billion in Federal Funds Unfrozen by Trump Admin

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) speaks at the Labor Caucus at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place during the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago on Aug. 19, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday said the state has regained access to more than $2 billion in federal funds that were paused last month by the Trump administration.

The announcement follows Shapiro’s visit to the White House last week for a gathering of the nation’s governors, where he said he urged senior Trump officials to “follow the law and honor their agreements.” He did not provide specifics about the discussions.

“To put it simply, a deal is a deal,” Shapiro said in a statement. “The Trump administration is legally required to provide these funds to Pennsylvania. That is why I took legal action to protect Pennsylvanians.”

On Feb. 13, Pennsylvania sued the Trump administration over the funding pause, which in Pennsylvania’s case blocked state agencies from accessing $1.2 billion from the federal government, while more than $900 million was marked as under review.

According to the lawsuit, the suspended funds included money allocated for new energy and environmental projects, including a $156 million “Solar for All” grant from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. The state said it had already executed an agreement to use the money to provide solar installations for 14,000 households over a five-year period.

“The Commonwealth thus either violates its obligations to subrecipients by withholding money, or it risks being denied reimbursement later by the federal government,” the complaint states.

The pause also affected other projects Shapiro said would help rural mining communities, including funds for repairing abandoned mines and plugging old wells that leak toxic gases. Some of these projects were temporarily halted.

“As a result of the freeze, several ongoing projects in the western part of our Commonwealth—employing dozens of Pennsylvanians—had stopped work,” the governor said on Monday.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Interior, Energy, and Transporation departments for comment.

The grant was paused following a memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) urging federal agencies to temporarily pause disbursing funds while they determine if the programs align with President Donald Trump’s policies barring progressive ideologies.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” acting OMB Director Matthew Vaeth wrote in the memo, which was rescinded two days after its release. The White House has clarified that the reversal applied only to the memo itself—not to the broader effort to pause and review federal funding.

Despite the rescission of the OBM memo and the release of funds, Pennsylvania’s lawsuit remains active.

“We will continue to press our case,” Shapiro said.

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia, which represents the federal agencies named in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, in a separate lawsuit filed in Rhode Island by attorneys general from the District of Columbia and 22 Democrat-led states challenging the OMB memo, Trump administration lawyers have defended the funding pause as within the executive branch’s authority.

“By temporarily pausing funding, the Executive has not declined to spend anything,” the Justice Department argued in a court filing, adding that federal agencies could either lift the pause and continue funding the original recipient for the same amount or redirect the funds to a different recipient if deemed more appropriate.

“In either scenario, however, the Executive would still be funding the full amount appropriated by Congress.”

The Trump administration later appealed the Rhode Island case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. However, on the same day Pennsylvania filed its own lawsuit, the First Circuit dismissed the appeal upon receiving the Trump administration’s motion for a voluntary dismissal.