Attorney General Neronha, alongside a coalition of 23 attorneys general, has filed a motion to enforce an ongoing lawsuit against President Trump regarding the administration's freeze on federal funding. The coalition is challenging the indefinite pause that affects crucial programs supporting families, public safety, and essential community services.
The motion cites evidence of disruptions in state disbursements and blocked federal funds under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act (IIJA), despite a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) from the court. The coalition seeks to compel the Trump Administration to release these funds as per statutory requirements.
Attorney General Neronha emphasized their commitment: “As long as this Administration continues to break the law, we will continue our fight to uphold it.” He noted that after Judge McConnell's TRO ordered the resumption of federal funding severed by a new OMB policy, issues accessing allocated funds persist nationwide. "These lingering funding pauses are not coincidental," he stated.
Programs at risk due to these disruptions include clean energy investments, transportation infrastructure projects, critical healthcare services, and research initiatives like those at Brown University. Affected projects include NIH-funded dementia care research and studies on children's nutrition and coronary heart disease prevention.
States may face immediate financial shortfalls without access to federal assistance. In Rhode Island, for example, several Department of Environmental Management projects depend on such funding for local farming grants and food access initiatives for underserved communities.
The lawsuit involves Attorney General Neronha along with his counterparts from California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and others from Arizona to Wisconsin including the District of Columbia.