Lawmakers scramble to gauge impacts of Trump’s funding freeze

By Andres Picon | 01/29/2025 06:29 AM EST

A federal judge blocked the freeze, but Democrats and Republicans are trying to figure out how it could affect programs.

Senate Democratic leaders during a press conference.

Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray of Washington, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York with other Democrats during a press conference Tuesday against the White House's pause on spending across agencies. Jacquelyn Martin/AP

A wave of confusion and outrage swept through the Capitol on Tuesday as lawmakers scrambled to make sense of the Trump administration’s directive freezing funding for thousands of federal programs, including on energy, climate and disaster relief.

The memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget, issued late Monday, infuriated Democrats, who quickly declared a “constitutional crisis,” accusing President Donald Trump of usurping Congress’ spending authority. They announced legal action led by state attorneys general and signaled they could retaliate by playing hardball with Trump’s nominees coming up for votes.

The directive also prompted questions from members of both parties about how exactly the pause in grant and loan disbursements would work and whom it could impact. While most Republicans defended the move, several said they were caught off-guard and expressed concerns about the looming impacts on their constituents.

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A federal judge temporarily blocked the funding pause, minutes before it was due to go into effect, until Feb. 3, allowing time for litigation to play out. But the directive’s repercussions for federal programs, nongovernmental organizations, individuals and government funding at large are poised to continue to roil Congress over the coming weeks.

It comes at an especially tricky time for Congress, with lawmakers in the middle of parallel negotiations over a Republican budget reconciliation package and a government funding deal that’s due by March 14.

“The blast radius of this terrible decision is virtually limitless, and its impact will be felt over and over again,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“This is cruelty, this is lawlessness. This is a heist done on a national scale,” he said. “We’re going to fight this in every way that we can.”

The OMB memo marks the most significant step taken yet by the Trump administration to move toward impoundment, a maneuver to restrict funds appropriated by Congress. The directives do not explicitly claim impoundment authority as the basis for the pauses, and the White House said Tuesday that it believes its actions are “within the confines of the law.”

Both Trump and Russell Vought, his pick to lead OMB, have said they want to consider such action to claw back funding for clean energy and climate programs, among other programs.

Vought said during his confirmation hearing last week that the Trump administration would be implementing a legal “review” to test the limits of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a law that generally bars the president from withholding congressionally approved spending.

And the memo follows a string of executive orders last week mandating that agencies halt funding already approved by Congress as part of former President Joe Biden’s climate and infrastructure laws.

The Senate Budget Committee is set to vote Thursday on advancing Vought’s confirmation to the full Senate. Schumer and all committee Democrats signed on to a letter Tuesday calling for Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to delay the vote by two weeks “so the Committee may get full responses to the questions Mr. Vought has thus far refused to answer.” Graham said he did not plan to postpone the vote.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) had some doubts about the administration’s actions.

“I think there is benefit in taking a look at federal spending and to see if we can be more efficient,” she said. “But this is far too sweeping and it will have an adverse effect on the delivery of services and programs.”

But for the most part, Republican leaders Tuesday denied that the move had anything to do with impoundment and urged patience as the ramifications of the sweeping funding freeze began to come into focus.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds her first daily briefing.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday. | Samuel Corum for POLITICO

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt stressed to reporters that the pause is meant to allow for a review of the Biden administration’s spending, and that assistance that goes directly to individuals without going through state governments or nonprofits — Social Security, Medicare and food assistance, for example — will not be impacted.

“We’ll see what the extent of it is and what they intend to do in a more fulsome way, but for now, I think this is kind of a preliminary step that I think most administrations take,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

He pointed to Biden freezing border wall funding when he first took office and stated that it’s “a normal practice at the beginning of [an] administration.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) pointed to Biden’s early moves to restrict offshore oil and gas production. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) said he “paused and audited grants” when he was Trump’s Interior secretary during the president’s first term. He praised Trump for going after Biden’s “green agenda boondoggles.”

“A new administration is always trying to be able to look at what we’re currently doing, what’s happening at every agency,” Lankford said. “The easiest way to do that is to say, ‘Pause; tell me what everything is before you restart it.’”

‘Congress may as well adjourn’

OMB’s directives to state agencies would temporarily withhold funds for programs covered by Trump’s early executive orders, including those that advance “Marxist equity, [gender identity issues], and green new deal social engineering policies” — but not those that go directly to individuals.

They offer exemptions on a case-by-case basis and state that the pauses are subject to what is “permissible under applicable law.” Each agency was required to submit a report on all programs that could be affected by Feb. 10.

Democrats repeatedly blasted the sweeping breadth of the directive, the ambiguity around which programs would be impacted, and the lack of meaningful notice to agencies and nonprofits. They said it was alarming, problematic and illegal. They also stressed that many federal funding programs do go to individuals, even if not directly.

Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, called it “the most direct assault on the authority of Congress, I believe, in the history of the United States.”

“If this stands,” he said, “the Congress may as well adjourn.”

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine).
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) at the Capitol. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Senate Democrats discussed the issue during their weekly lunch Tuesday. House Democrats, who are away on recess this week, will hold a call Wednesday afternoon to discuss next steps, including an appropriations strategy, a litigation strategy and a communications strategy, according to a letter that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) sent to colleagues.

The Democratic fury could end up causing additional heartburn for Republicans trying to quickly confirm Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

On Tuesday, 22 Democrats voted “no” on confirming Transportation Secretary nominee Sean Duffy after previously voting unanimously with Republicans to fast-track the vote. Several said they changed their vote because they did not want to support a nominee who would back Trump’s efforts.

Trump’s picks to lead EPA and the departments of Energy and the Interior — Lee Zeldin, Chris Wright and Doug Burgum, respectively — are due to have their Senate confirmation votes in the coming days.

Indeed, a number of lawmakers expressed concern Tuesday about energy and environment programs that could suffer because of OMB’s actions. Democrats mentioned disaster assistance, grants to help low-income people pay their energy bills, loans and grants for clean energy projects, and federal funds for infrastructure and resilience projects as funding buckets that are now at risk.

“All of these programs look imperiled to me,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), an architect of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits. “It’s obviously going to hurt. It’s going to be another setback.”

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said, “This overreach is unconstitutional and hurts the thousands of Californians who have been devastated by the recent fires.”

Trump posted a montage of him meeting with victims of the Los Angeles-area fires on his Truth Social account Tuesday. The video ended with Trump saying, “I’m going to give you everything you want; I’m going to give you more than any president would have ever given you.”

‘A little disruption’

More moderate Republicans stressed Tuesday that the funding freeze appeared to be temporary — at least for some programs — and expressed a sense of optimism that certain programs, like disaster relief, would be allowed to continue.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who has advocated for more disaster assistance for his home state since it was ravaged by Hurricane Helene, said he thinks OMB’s orders would not affect short-term disaster aid.

“I just can’t imagine they’re going to tap the brakes on that in California and some of these other [states],” he said. “Honestly, there’s no margin for any of the individual assistance; we gotta get it out the door. Some of the other ones, I could see an argument for pausing it.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he disagreed with the Trump administration’s move. | Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said the directive amounted to “a little disruption” and said he hoped the freeze would be reversed promptly.

“You talk to real people with real jobs, with missions, and I’ve heard from people in my district this morning asking me about it,” he said from the Republican retreat near Miami. “This stuff is appropriated by Congress, and it’s already been signed into law, so I’ll just say I disagree with it.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) similarly said she expected the pause to be short-lived. She also noted that her staff had been unable to reach anyone in the Trump administration to explain it to them Tuesday morning.

North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer, who is close with Trump, described the pause as “a pretty major test of separation of powers,” as well as a “test of [Trump’s] power.”

But “clearly,” he said, “an all-encompassing freeze on grant programs and appropriations can’t long endure.”

Appropriations impacts

During a press conference with other Democratic leaders Tuesday, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, hinted at the damage the OMB memo or future impoundment orders could do to the appropriations process.

“Can you imagine what it’s going to be like for any of us — either under this administration or future administrations of any kind — if [spending] agreements mean nothing?” she said.

Democratic and Republican spending leaders have recently restarted negotiations on fiscal 2025 funding, hoping to strike a deal before the March deadline. They were tens of billions of dollars apart when talks stalled last year.

“We cannot function as a democracy in this country if we cannot respect and abide by our ability to make agreements in Congress,” Murray said. “Congress holds the power of the purse; that is very clear in the Constitution.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), chair of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, rebuffed Murray and other Democrats’ concerns and said, “About 90 percent of this stuff is just political bullshit.”

“I don’t think it’ll have any impact [on the appropriations process],” he said of the OMB directive. “Sen. Murray needs to understand — and I think she does — that right now, for the next six months to a year, we’re going to have a lot of competing interests.”

Reporters Timothy Cama, Zack Colman, Garrett Downs and Nico Portuondo contributed.