Allentown could lose $920K grant amid uncertainty over federal funding

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Allentown officials are pausing plans for a citywide tree inventory with almost a million dollars up in the air after President Donald Trump moved to freeze trillions in federal funding.

The city stood to get a $920,800 grant from the U.S. Agriculture Department through American Forests, a national pass-through funding partner for the USDA’s Forest Service.

The organization on Wednesday ordered Allentown and more than 250 other grant recipients to “stop work and suspend all project activities” funded by the USDA’s Catalyst Fund by Feb. 20.

“You should immediately cease all activities, take affirmative steps to minimize any pending costs … and not incur any new costs or obligations” paid for by the grant, an official for American Forests said in a letter to awardees.

“We deeply understand its ramifications for your work and organization,” Benita Hussain, American Forests’ chief program officer for tree equity, said.

'Hurts kids in Allentown': Mayor

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget last month issued a directive to pause federal grants and payments for other programs.

Local lawmakers said that move put tens of millions of dollars at risk across the Lehigh Valley.

That directive came amid a wider push by Trump’s administration and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to cut funding to numerous agencies and reduce the federal workforce. 

Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk on Thursday said he is “scratching [his] head” over potentially losing the American Forests grant because Trump’s administration wants to “fight back against the Biden administration’s commitment to environmental justice.”

City officials were preparing to award a $220,000 contract to a local small business to conduct a study of all trees in Allentown, but were forced to pause those plans, Tuerk said.

That study would have guided Allentown’s future environmental efforts and made them more efficient, he said. He questioned the wisdom behind holding up funding for trees.

“Every kid knows how important trees are to clean air and clean water,” Tuerk said.

He said the move to hold up funding “ultimately hurts kids in Allentown,” which was rated the asthma capital of the United States the past two years.

'More intelligent ways' to cut waste

Planting trees in cities “isn’t the crazy, ‘woke,’ ‘radical waste in government’” that Trump and Musk have railed against and targeted with the new Department of Government Efficiency, he said.

“This is a smart investment,” Tuerk said.

“Trying to [create] efficiencies in broad strokes” by cutting programs en masse “actually creates a lot of chaos and waste and inefficiency,” he said.

“There’s a lot more intelligent ways to do this.”

Tuerk said he worries no federal program or grant “isn’t on the chopping block,” including Allentown’s $20 million Recompete award — the largest in the city’s history.

It would be “the height of insanity” to cut the Recompete grant, he said.

Tuerk called on Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation — U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Dave McCormick and U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie — to “stand up, be leaders and fight for funding” that benefits residents in Allentown and the Lehigh Valley.

“They’re there to fight for funding that benefits the people they serve,” Tuerk said.

The mayor urged them to “put pressure on the administration to be smart about the cost-cutting measures they are putting in place.”

He crediting each federal lawmaker for keeping an open dialogue with his office in recent weeks.

Tuerk lauded Gov. Josh Shapiro’s move Thursday to sue Trump, accusing the president’s administration of jeopardizing more than $5 billion in funding for Pennsylvania.

Shapiro filed the suit without new Republican Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday.

“That’s exactly the kind of leadership we need,” he said.