Utah received its largest environmental grant ever last year to clean up Salt Lake City’s notoriously dirty air. But the state says it is holding off on spending any of that money due to questions about President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze.
The Utah Department of Environmental Quality is not spending hundreds of millions of federal dollars, not because those funds are frozen, but because of uncertainty over Trump’s federal funding freeze.
Utah received its largest environmental grant ever last year to clean up Salt Lake City’s notoriously dirty air. But the state says it is holding off on spending any of that money due to questions about President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze.
That $110 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality would replace diesel-powered equipment, like trucks and trains, with cleaner electric alternatives at the Salt Lake City Intermodal Terminal.
The transition away from burning diesel, which produces pollutants that degrade the atmosphere and public health, is intended to improve air quality along the Wasatch Front — which the American Lung Association reports experiences some of the worst ozone and particle pollution in the U.S.
“This grant signifies a tremendous leap forward for Utah, where environmental stewardship and economic vitality go hand in hand,” said Kim Shelley, who was the Department of Environmental Quality’s executive director when the grant was announced.
Those dollars are part of the nearly $477 million in federal funding that the state Department of Environmental Quality says is in limbo as of March 7, according to a list obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through an open records request. Much of the funding comes from two Biden-era laws — the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump has specifically sought to dismantle, and the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — but not all.
Trump’s push to slash federal spending has resulted in frozen grants and general confusion about when — or if — those dollars will flow into the state.
Ashley Sumner, director of communications for the state department, clarified that Utah’s $477 million in funding has not been frozen. “There’s a changing landscape at the federal level, and that’s creating a bit of uncertainty in how to effectively move forward and responsibly move forward,” she said.
“For the most part,” Sumner continued, “we are not making any new obligations with this funding or commitments, or doing new hiring or entering into new contracts…we are being very conservative about how we manage the funding.”
The Trump administration ordered a federal funding pause on money approved by Congress for schools, hospitals and environmental projects in late January. The White House later rescinded a memo that halted federal funds and federal judges have temporarily blocked the freeze, The Associated Press reported. Despite those barriers, the Trump administration has continued to withhold funds, ProPublica found.
All but two of the 37 federal grants to Utah’s Department of Environmental Quality were awarded by the EPA. Lee Zeldin, leader of the federal agency under Trump, has drastically rolled back grants and funding.
The state department had spent $71.5 million of that total federal grant funding as of March 7, leaving about $405 million stranded. Sumner said that the department’s programs have continued “in full effect using existing resources.”
Including that $110 million grant for the Salt Lake City Intermodal Terminal, the state environmental quality department was awarded $260.4 million to replace emissions-heavy vehicles — such as school buses and “vocational vehicles” — with cleaner electric or natural gas-powered alternatives. The vast majority of that money, about $245 million, came from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Trump’s EPA announced Wednesday that it is rolling back Biden-era incentives encouraging Americans to buy electric vehicles to reduce emissions and confront climate change.
Another major chunk of the federal grant funding — about $164 million across 12 grants — is earmarked for Utah’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and Clean Water State Revolving Fund. These funds go to municipalities for projects like drinking water planning and wastewater treatment. Two grants specifically addressed the replacement of lead service lines that bring water to houses in Utah, which the EPA has worked to replace nationwide. About $110 million of that funding remains unspent.
Other funding that remains paused includes about $18 million for small or disadvantaged community water systems through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to address contaminants, including PFAS — long-lasting chemicals that have been linked to health risks — and another $5 million to “revitalize the Jordan River.”
Sumner added that the department has been in touch with the EPA — the federal partner that has awarded the state agency most of the grants — about the status of the funding. But the future remains unclear.
“Currently, I’m not aware of any threat [to grant projects] because of a lack of funding, but that could be a concern in the future,” she said. “We do have to commit to certain activities and program development …and eventually that would require contracting or hiring.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s office declined to comment.
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