Editor’s note: On Wednesday, President Trump issued a memo rescinding the funding freeze.
Attorneys General Peter Neronha of Rhode Island and Andrea Campbell of Massachusetts have joined a coalition of other AGs in suing the Trump Administration over its sudden freeze in federal spending via grants, loans, and other avenues.
“What a ham-handed way to run the government,” Neronha said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
In total, attorneys general from 22 states and Washington, D.C. joined the lawsuit, which was filed in United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island on Tuesday. They described the executive branch’s freezing of federal funds as “unconstitutional,” “unlawful,” and “reckless.”
“The president’s directive to pause federal aid, simply put, violates the separation of powers,” Campbell said. Massachusetts, she said, received more than $20 billion in federal funding last year.
The memo from the federal Office of Management and Budget said the funding pause imposed by the Executive Branch of government could have wide ranging impacts, though exactly what agencies and programs are affected remains unclear. The goal of the freeze in funding — which goes into effect Tuesday at 5 p.m. and is meant to be “temporary” — according to the memo, is to “align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities.”
The memo demands every agency analyze their federal financial assistance programs by Feb. 10 to evaluate whether policies conform with the executive orders President Donald Trump signed last week. It draws particular attention to any activities related to “foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges that the action taken by the Office of Management and Budget violates the Administrative Procedures Act.
“Defendants have no authority to impose a government-wide pause on federal
awards without regard to the individual authorizing statutes, regulations, and terms that govern each funding stream,” the complaint read. “This breathtaking freeze of all federal assistance is unauthorized, unprecedented, and not entitled to respect or deference by this Court.”
Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said in a statement that “Rhode Islanders pay their taxes and they expect to get a functioning federal government in return. It’s hard to tell if this is incompetence or mischief, but this funding freeze is illegal and unconstitutional, and every single American has a stake in getting it undone.”
Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI 1), a member of the House Committee on the Budget, called the freeze “unlawful, chaotic, and deeply harmful to the entire country.”
The freeze affects both allocation of new awards and disbursement of existing federal grants.
“If you drive on a road, you’re impacted,” Neronha said. “If you get health care, you’re impacted. If your children are being educated in our schools, you’re impacted.”
In a written statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Dan McKee said that Rhode Island agencies are “actively reviewing all programs and investments, both current and projected, that rely on federal funding to determine the true extent of this order.” The statement said that the pause will not apply to programs that provide direct benefits to taxpayers, like Social Security, Medicaid, and SNAP. But several states have reported being suddenly shut out of their Medicaid reimbursement systems.
Whether or not funding for the Washington Bridge will be impacted is not yet clear. The future of $600 million in expected federal funding for various transportation infrastructure projects in Rhode Island was already in question prior to Tuesday’s announcement.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey posted that her administration is “going to do everything we can to protect the workers, seniors and families put at risk by this action.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that he believes fire relief funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is at risk in the spending freeze.
“We need it now,” Bonta said. “We needed it yesterday, and without conditions.”
This story has been updated to include additional information gleaned from the lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday evening.
