UPDATE 12:17 p.m. Wednesday: The Trump administration has withdrawn its freeze on federal grants.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that a federal judge in Washington, D.C. temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s directive to freeze as much as $3 trillion in federal grants and loans.
A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s directive to freeze federal funds to municipalities and nonprofits minutes before it was set to take effect Tuesday.
The judge’s ruling came as Houston and Harris County officials scrambled to determine the potential impact of the president’s pause on federal grants and aid, a move local officials had said could hold up hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.
The judge’s order expires Monday. If allowed to proceed, the administration’s pause – and potential future elimination of federal money – could have far-reaching impacts on the city and county’s operating budgets and constituent services.
The White House memo directly mentions a pause on foreign aid and federal assistance to nonprofits while going further to pause programs including, but not limited to, “DEI, woke gender ideology and the green new deal.” The pause is not meant to have a sweeping, across-the-board impact on federal programs, according to a second memo from the administration, but local officials said the directive is too vague.
Local governments in Houston and across the country worked against a 4 p.m. (Central Time) deadline Tuesday to identify what programs and services could be impacted.
“It is impossible to put into words how far-reaching this could be. There are so many programs that are partially or fully funded federally,” Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said. “This has the potential to freeze Harris County.”
Menefee said the pause could put some public housing initiatives, infrastructure projects and a $250 million grant for solar panels at risk. Earlier this month, the county received a $2 million federal grant to assess the safety of more than a dozen railroad crossings in the area following the death of a Milby High School student who was struck by a train on his way to school. That funding also could be at risk, the county attorney said.
Menefee said his office also got a letter and notification from the U.S. Department of Energy that said recipients had to “stop everything” under Trump’s order.
The city still is working to determine how much of its upcoming funding will be affected, officials from the mayor and controller’s offices said. City Controller Chris Hollins said Houston’s grant management is decentralized, meaning individual departments handle their own grant programs, with some support from the finance department.
With the upcoming budget already facing a $230 million shortfall, a pause or eventual elimination of federal funds to existing programs could have significant effects.
A freeze of grant funds could present potential health and safety impacts, Hollins said.
District K City Councilmember Tiffany Thomas called the pause “deeply concerning.”
“These funds are critical to advancing programs that directly impact affordable housing, disaster recovery, infrastructure improvements and economic development in our communities — ensuring our tax dollars return to us in meaningful ways,” Thomas said.
Thomas said she worried federal partnerships, such as the Bissonnet Safe Streets Project, and aid programs, such as housing funds to pay for disaster repairs, would be jeopardized.
Harris County also is finalizing the potential financial impact but Menefee’s office described it as a “large portion” of the county’s budget.
Menefee said his office is considering what legal action to take and has consulted with at least one attorney general about partnering in litigation. At least seven state attorneys general, including those in New York and California, announced plans to file a lawsuit against Trump’s order. The National Council of Nonprofits already filed for a temporary restraining order Tuesday.
The original memo released by the federal Office of Management and Budget on Monday ordered the analysis of federal programs to ensure funds went toward the administration’s top priorities and were in line with a slew of executive orders released in the first days of Trump’s presidency.
Federal agencies have until Feb. 10 to provide reports to the office about the paused allocations. It is unclear when awards officially could be canceled.
Menefee said it effectively is a “pencils down” situation on federal funding because the county doesn’t want to find itself improperly — or illegally — spending federal money.
“This freeze means even money that is already obligated and fully committed, it is now frozen and the grantees — local governments — have to immediately stop everything related to additional obligating or dispersing,” Menefee said.
Nonprofit organizations that fill gaps in city services also could be at risk, as some partnerships dependent on federal funding already have been paused.
Grant funding the Houston Health Department and the Black United Fund of Texas received from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last August, for example, has been halted, said Velika Thomas, chief financial officer for Black United Front of Texas.
The $20 million, which came from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, is meant to help disadvantaged communities address environmental and climate justice issues through specific projects.
In Houston, the funding was directed to boost energy resilience in Greater Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens, and includes a partnership with Houston Community College-Northeast to train residents in those neighborhoods in solar projects. The orientation for the first 22-week program was Saturday and the first class is scheduled to begin Feb. 10.
“I spoke with my EPA rep today and they were saying that funding has been paused,” Velika Thomas said. “We were able to get our program started for our 40 participants and we’ll just have to start looking for more funding to actually put them to work after they complete the funding.”
Councilmember Thomas, who chairs council’s Housing and Affordability Committee, said she feared a pause also would disrupt nonprofit and public school programs, including Meals on Wheels, Head Start, workforce development and support for those experiencing HIV/AIDS.
“I am committed to joining my voice with our Houston congressional delegation to urge the Trump Administration to reconsider this pause,” the council member said. “It places an undue burden on cities like Houston, which are working tirelessly to meet the needs of their residents.”
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