Trump executive orders might freeze funding for OKC electric vehicle study: What to know

Yahoo

05-02-2025

President Donald Trump's recent executive orders may jeopardize planned funding for Oklahoma City's electric vehicle and permit-ready resilient home projects.
Last Tuesday, the Oklahoma City Council approved a request from the city's Office of Sustainability to advertise for help with the Electric Vehicle Fleet and Facilities Study and Strategic Plan. The project would look into where the city might be able to save money with electric vehicles and what role the city could play in adding vehicle charging stations to city-owned facilities.
The next day, just as the request for proposal was released, city staff realized they might have to step back after Trump's executive order froze funding for various programs dispersing and receiving federal grants.
'Our hope is that we can still do the project,' said T.O. Bowman, program planner at the city's sustainability office. 'But where we are right now is there's a lot of uncertainty created by the freeze that I think a lot of people across the country, a lot of municipalities and grant recipients, are attempting to navigate right now.'
Trump freezes federal aid: How are Oklahomans affected? What to know
The city's electric vehicle study and plan was expected to see support through more than $306,000 in federal grant reimbursement funding, as per an award agreement from the U.S. Department of Energy. Bowman said city staff became concerned when they saw that the federal entity awarding the grant, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program, was among the swath of programs listed in a memo being targeted for review by the Trump administration.
"And then we got a question from one of the potential proposers that asked if the city would consider delaying or pausing this (request for proposal) until we have more information, because what it does is put private firms in a burdensome situation," Bowman said. "After we talked with the planning director and our legal guidance and the city manager's office, we determined we didn't feel comfortable putting that burden on proposers."
The request for the electric vehicle study is now set to be canceled, Bowman said. In addition, the city's sustainability office was preparing to pursue a permit-ready resilient housing plan, which Bowman said would have supplemented the current consideration for accessory dwelling units in the city's housing ordinances. That, too, is now on hold.
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If official communication from the Energy Department confirms that the award will be honored and the city can move forward with the project, sustainability planners will bring the proposal back to council for reapproval. Bowman said that another possible funding source could be identified but that it would not be internal, given the city's current hiring freeze and the budget cuts that are likely to come in the 2026 fiscal year.
"We're not completely abandoning the project entirely, but the funding that was going to support it is enough in question that we didn't feel like it makes sense to ask potential proposers to dedicate their time and effort and money pursuing something that may not ultimately have money on this same timeline," Bowman said.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC electric vehicle study might lose funding due to federal freeze