The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County is among a group of U.S. cities and nonprofit organizations suing the Trump administration for freezing federal funding.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina Charleston Division on Wednesday, cites three executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that freeze federal funding and directs federal agencies to eliminate certain federal grants and contracts.
The 11 nonprofit organizations and six U.S. cities argue that the administration’s freeze on federal funding “inflicts significant harm” on their operations, as the executive actions “prevent them from executing critical projects, carrying out their missions, planning for the future, paying their employees, contractors, or sub-awardees, and serving the communities where they are implementing these congressional priorities.”
Nashville cites two projects in the lawsuit that have been jeopardized due to the administration’s freeze on federal funding: $4.7 million in funds awarded through the Charging for Fueling Infrastructure Grant program for the Electrify Music City project and a $9.3 million Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment grant for the East Nashville Spokes project.
“With the funds frozen, Nashville cannot properly plan or fully implement its project plans,” the lawsuit reads.
Further, noting how the East Nashville Spokes project has been incorporated into the mayor’s Choose How You Move transit program, which voters passed in November, the lawsuit admits that with federal funds frozen, “this project has languished in uncertainty.”
Wally Dietz, director of Law for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, said Nashville joined the lawsuit “because the constitutional separation of powers must be maintained.”
“For more than two-hundred years, local, state, and federal governments have reliably worked together to implement programs that benefit people all over America,” Dietz said in a statement. “No President, much less a non-federal employee at a fictional agency, has the authority to freeze funds appropriated by Congress.”
When it comes to Choose How You Move, Ben Cunningham, founder of the Nashville Tea Party, previously warned about the transit plan leveraging federal funds, arguing last year that the plan’s reliance on federal funding would lead to residents’ property taxes being raised as the funds would eventually “run out.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Nashville City Hall” by Nicolas Henderson. CC BY 2.0.
