Feb 7 (Reuters) – Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia on Friday asked a federal judge to enforce his order blocking U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from freezing federal grants, loans and other funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their emergency motion, opens new tab<\/u><\/a> came the day after the states told U.S. District Judge John McConnell<\/u><\/a> in Providence, Rhode Island that the administration was not fully complying with the order and that billions of dollars in funding remained unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McConnell, an appointee of Democratic former president Barack Obama, ordered the administration to respond to the states’ motion by Sunday. He had said at a Thursday hearing that he stood ready to enforce his January 31 temporary restraining order<\/u><\/a> blocking the funding freeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The states originally sued the administration over a memorandum from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget announcing a wide-ranging freeze of federal spending. Soon after the lawsuit was filed, OMB rescinded that memo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the states’ motion, the Trump administration has claimed that McConnell’s restraining order does not apply to certain infrastructure and environmental funding that was frozen by a different OMB memo, opens new tab<\/u><\/a>, which the states had not directly challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has also said that some funding has been delayed for “operational and administrative reasons,” according to the motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The still-frozen funds include $4.5 billion for a home electrification rebate program, at least some of $7 billion for rooftop solar panels, $5 billion supporting state, local and Native American tribal governments’ greenhouse gas reduction measures and $117.5 million for air quality monitoring, the motion said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n