Urgent Opportunity to Unfreeze Funds

Please share widely, especially with organizations who have federal funding.

GOOD NEWS! Yesterday, our allies at Democracy Forward helped to win a powerful preliminary injunction (Please go to our website for a link to the brief) to stop all freezes, halts, or pauses carried out by the following defendant agencies until the case can be evaluated on its merits. This decision should apply to EPA, USDA, DOI, and HUD grants funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that are currently frozen, but we do not know how long it will last.

Importantly, the decision ORDERS these agencies to take immediate steps to “RESUME the processing, disbursement, and payment of already-awarded funding appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and to release awarded funds previously withheld or rendered inaccessible.” (Preliminary Injunction, p. 61.)

This current win is potentially HUGE, and we want grantees to take advantage of it! 

Here’s what grantees can do RIGHT NOW to leverage this decision to try to reinstate funding:

– Send a revised email template (Please go to our website for the link.) to your PO and the applicable agency higher-ups tailoring the highlighted sections to your individual circumstances. 

– If you need contact information, please go to our website for a document that includes email addresses for each of the agencies listed above; you just need to add your specific project officer. 

– We recommend that grantees send their email immediately (TODAY if possible) to their project officer as well as to the applicable higher-ups (Please go to our website for a list.) for your agency.  

– Continue to be vigilant in tracking harms and make sure to add those to your email template before sending the note to agency officials.

– Be sure to continue checking access to your funding, as the named agencies have to provide a status update to the court by 5 PM EST today.

– Be sure to check in with your attorney (including any pro bono assistance you are receiving through Lawyer for Good Government’s (L4GG) Fund Protection Clinic!) or any in-house counsel if you have any questions or need assistance. If you have not yet applied for L4GG’s pro bono assistance, you can do so through the link on our website.

If you are already working with an L4GG pro bono attorney on your particular matter, know that all pro bono attorneys have been notified about this case as well. However, we are sharing this update with you NOW given the time-sensitivity of this order. We do not know how long this order will last (could be days or weeks), and we want grantees to access funding if at all possible. We will continue to provide updates if this order changes.

We know that you are being asked to do so much at this moment. We are here to help and want to empower you with the information you need to preserve your rights and to access your legally-obligated funding. Please reach out to L4GG (via the link on our website) with any questions.