Near Atlanta, the diverse suburb of Morrow, Georgia, is an EV charging desert. If you live in an apartment in one neighborhood and own an electric car, you might have to drive 20 minutes to get to a public charger.
That’s why a local green bank wanted to support a new charging station in the area. It should have been a simple project, beginning with a small group of six chargers. Then came Trump.
“We’re talking about a project that could have been up and running by now,” says Reginald Parker, president of Freedmen Capital Foundation, a green bank in Georgia. “It had a month’s delay. Over the last month, prices have gone up. The market has changed tremendously. And that type of uncertainty for the project adds costs that small businesses, in general, are not ready for.”
Exactly the type of project that the green bank wanted to support
Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan bill that Congress passed in 2022, there was funding for the work. Last year, the first national green bank opened with $5 billion in funding from the IRA. The organization started creating a network of state and local green banks. (Despite the name, these aren’t typical banks with deposits. Instead, they’re institutions that make green loans for projects like community solar installations or green building retrofits.) Freedman Capital Foundation, named after a late-1800s bank established for formerly enslaved people, was chosen to be part of the network.
The new charging station was exactly the type of project that the green bank wanted to support. “The communities that are EV charging deserts are the first and hardest hit by climate impacts,” Parker says. Helping residents switch to EVs can help cut emissions. It can also reduce air pollution and help people save money on fuel. “It also builds energy independence,” he says. “Oil and gas are derived from some foreign sources. Electricity is all domestic.”
One part of the charger project had already been funded. A grant from the Department of Transportation helped cover the cost for the local utility to set up the electric infrastructure needed for the chargers. The small organization that will operate the charging station, called TABT, is paying to install the chargers. The last piece of the funding—the money to cover a loan for the equipment—came from the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program created by the IRA.
Trump pauses IRA funds
On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order telling agencies to pause all funds under the IRA. At first, grantees under the EPA program could still access the money sitting in their accounts. But in February, Trump-appointed EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said that the EPA would revoke contracts for the fund. The agency made baseless accusations of fraud. It froze $20 billion in grants. Citibank, directed by the government, froze the money in the account of Coalition for Green Capital, the nonprofit running the national green bank.
Freedmen Capital Foundation was able to get its funds from the nonprofit just before that account was frozen. But the EPA warned it not to move forward on projects. “Everything had to stop,” says Parker. At the same time, some of the EPA’s grantees, including the Coalition for Green Capital, sued to force Citibank to unfreeze the money. A federal judge blocked the freeze. Appeals are still underway, and the money at Citibank still isn’t accessible. But the first court order meant that Freedmen was able to begin using the money it already had. (Another piece of its funds, for technical assistance, got stuck in the freeze.)
In March, the utility finished upgrading the electric infrastructure needed for the chargers. If the project had happened normally, TABT could have ordered the chargers in advance. Installation could have started right away; the process could have taken as little as a week, and the chargers could be in use now. But because of the delays from the EPA’s actions, nothing was ready to go.
‘Instead of making investments, we are wasting time and resources’
Freedmen Capital Foundation has been scrambling to finalize the loan for the project. Trump’s chaotic rollout of tariffs means that the cost of supplies for making EV chargers—from steel to electronics—will jump. “If we weren’t able to move within the next week or two, the owner would be subjected to higher prices,” Parker says.
Despite the delays, the project is unusual in that it’s able to move forward. Most projects that were set to receive funding through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund are now stuck in limbo, waiting for the next stage in a lawsuit. A judge may issue a preliminary injunction this week that allows organizations to access their money, though the government will immediately appeal and could try to claw the money back.
“From solar energy in Arkansas to hydropower in Alaska, local projects that lower energy costs and support domestic manufacturing aren’t currently able to move forward, forcing communities to wait for the jobs and economic opportunity they’re counting on,” says Brooke Durham, a spokesperson for Climate United, a nonprofit that received a $6.97 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant that was frozen. “Instead of making investments and delivering on those promises, we are wasting time and resources fighting an unnecessary battle in court. This program isn’t about politics; it’s about saving money for hard-working Americans who are struggling to pay for groceries and keep the lights on.”
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