The Trump administration says it’s revoking more federal grant dollars in Illinois — this time for electric vehicle charging stations.
On the chopping block in Illinois is a $100 million grant to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for electric vehicle charging stations and a $3.6 million grant to the Secretary of State’s office, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said.
The White House confirmed it was rescinding a total of more than $943 million in U.S. Department of Transportation funds from Illinois, Colorado, California and Minnesota, all of which are led by Democrats. The cuts, which were first reported by the New York Post, come alongside a planned $602 million in cuts to health care grants in the same states, though a federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from rescinding those grants.
The Illinois Secretary of State’s office said it had signed a contract for the execution of the $3.6 million grant with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, part of the federal transportation department, and had not been notified the grant was being rescinded.
Scott Burnham, deputy secretary of state, said the grant was intended to fund three priorities related to commercial drivers licenses in Illinois: Studying the prevention of traffic crashes and fatalities related to large trucks and buses; implementing a new test proctoring program that would mitigate fraud on the written CDL exam; and translating the written CDL exam into Spanish.
The White House, meanwhile, described the grant as “$3.6 million for the Illinois Secretary of State to conduct a research study on best practices for translating the commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) knowledge test into Spanish.”
Burnham said the exam translation portion of the grant was only worth $30,000. Furthermore, he said, the Secretary of State’s office had conducted that work with non-grant funds and already offers the written CDL exam in Spanish.
The office had planned to redirect the $30,000 to fund other grant priorities, which is permitted under its agreement with the FMCSA, Burnham said.
“The Trump administration is trying to cut funding for improving road safety, preventing crashes and saving lives in Illinois. This grant was awarded by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and executed through a legal agreement between the agency and the Secretary of State’s office,” he said in a statement.
“Attempts to cut this critical funding for political purposes is not only vindictive and irresponsible, but Illegal. The Secretary of State will fight to make sure Illinois gets every dollar that is owed.”
Earlier this week, Illinois — along with Minnesota, Colorado and California — sued over the Trump administration’s cuts to health care grants, which in Illinois included dollars that were supposed to go toward things like HIV prevention and infectious disease screenings. On Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the feds from rescinding those dollars.
A spokesperson for Gov. JB Pritzker’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the state was considering a similar lawsuit over the transportation funds.