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As states and local governments grapple with a federal grant freeze, Springfield, Massachusetts, is still hoping to put recently-awarded grant money to work — paving the way for a new fleet of electric buses.

Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal of the 1st district says a $9.9 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency will be “carried through” in the face of the Trump administration moving to freeze federal grant and loan spending.

Joined by Mayor Domenic Sarno and School Superintendent Dr. Sonia Dinnall, Neal was in city hall Tuesday to announce plans to use “Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Grant Program” money to help build a “clean bus network” for Springfield Public Schools, a move in partnership with transportation company First Student, Inc.

The press conference, broadcast by Focus Springfield, came on the heels of a White House memo announcing a move to pause federal grants and loans – apparently intended to allow for an ideological review of federal spending.

Neal spoke before a judge temporarily blocked it.

“I think, clearly … there's series of challenges here, but I've been an opponent of presidents, Democrat and Republican, that have tried this,” said the congressman who’s represented western Mass. since 1989. “By way of credential, I challenged Bill Clinton over the line item veto, and he’s a close then- and now-pal of mine, and this goes back to an argument that Richard Nixon had about the ability to impound spending. So this, [my] staff informs me this morning, was not really a challenge of impoundment as much as it was an alert - something along those lines. A “pause,” and I assume that this is more of getting attention, but we'll win a court case on this.”

The grant program itself stems from the Inflation Reduction Act, which Neal’s Ways and Means Committee had a large hand in drafting.

According to the congressman’s office, the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Grant Program “provides funding to replace existing internal combustion engine heavy-duty vehicles with zero-emission vehicles.” Springfield was one of five applicants from the Commonwealth applying for the program.

The money is slated to go toward not just the purchase of electric buses, but also charging equipment and workforce development training.

Sarno says it’s the latest in a series of investments in infrastructure at Springfield Public Schools.

“We're doing a lot of that work in our schools with boilers, HVAC, etc, so it moves on, toward that goal,” Sarno said. “This will help fit a number of busses, and it's going to help us move forward in not only transporting our students to and from school, but also the green footprint.” 

Superintendent Dinall says as a former science teacher, she’s thrilled to see the idea of electric vehicles she once taught students about grow from a concept to the cars and buses now being rolled out across the country.

“We know that doing what we can to reduce emissions is critical,” she said. “Removing CFCs from the atmosphere, reducing smog and all the other pollutants - not only are we leaving our beautiful country and world for our students to live in, as we educate them about their responsibility to the environment, this type of support, this type of grant, allows us to make it very real to them. Talk about making that real world connection.”

Exact timetables for when the $10 million might get spent have not been released, not withstanding the federal freeze.

Springfield School Committee members were originally set to vote Wednesday night to authorize the expenditure of at least $6.4 million of the grant money, according to a subcommittee agenda. 

Neal told reporters that the move by the White House comes off as “a bit of a facade.”

“They were saying they were going to bring to a halt the Green New Deal - there has never been a Green New Deal. There' has never been a hearing on it in Congress. There's never been a vote in Congress. The Inflation Reduction Act, which I helped to author, with Mike Thompson and Earl Blumenauer, as members of Congress - that's legislation.,” Neal said .”I think that there was a bit of a facade that was constructed over this ‘We're going to get rid of the Green New Deal.’ There is not legislation called the ‘Green New Deal.’”

A Q&A webpage hosted on the White House website regarding the memo states that while the funding freeze is not "across-the-board," it is "expressly limited to programs, projects, and activities implicated by the President’s Executive Orders" including what the Office of Management and Budget considers to be the "green new deal."

UPDATE: In the hours following the airing and publishing of this story, the OMB began circulating a new memo, stating the previous memo announcing the freeze had been rescinded.