Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro became a hero to the state’s countless agencies and businesses and individuals who help all residents of the Commonwealth live better and safer lives. 

The federal government is accountable for approximately 40 percent of Pennsylvania’s annual spending, so given that the state had already been projecting to head fully into 2025 with a $4.5 billion shortfall, the mere concept of cuts to federal spending would further dry up the proverbial spending well in Harrisburg. Then the gauntlet came down; the Trump administration issued a memo in late January announcing the freezing of federal grants and loans in alignment with the President’s intent to dramatically whittle away at the federal budget. Although the freeze was rescinded a few days later, the brushfires remained: funding for essential services like early childhood education, pollution reduction and HIV prevention research were still in question.

Shapiro did the most honorable duty for the people of Pennsylvania. 

On Feb. 13, Shapiro sued agencies under President Trump, that included the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and Russell Vought, the new secretary of the Office of Management and Budget. Filing the suit, he said, for the rights of all Pennsylvanians, Shapiro claimed that the administration was illegally and unconstitutionally withholding billions in federal aid from the state that had already been approved by Congress – about $2.5 billion in grants and reimbursements that had already been committed to Pennsylvania. The lawsuit called the actions of the agencies “flagrantly lawless,” that they had no legal right to withhold congressionally appropriated funding and that they had no reasonable explanation for their decision. In addition, the federal government has also cut Pennsylvania’s access to $3.1 billion in funds that is obligated to the state for fiscal years 2022 to 2026.

On Feb. 24, a short 11 days removed from the lawsuit, Shapiro announced that all $2.1 billion in funding that was projected to be withheld from Pennsylvania had been unfrozen. 

“As a result of our lawsuit – and our continued pressure on and engagement with the Trump Administration... in which we demanded the administration comply with the legal injunctions currently in place and made clear that we were ready to seek immediate relief from the courts... ...every dollar we identified at the filing of our lawsuit is currently unfrozen and once again accessible to Pennsylvania state agencies, in accordance with legal injunctions currently in place,” Shapiro announced. “With the funding restored, we will now resume critical programs and infrastructure projects that have been jeopardized by this illegal freeze.”

During his address, Shapiro said that Pennsylvania can now resume the important work it does for the people of the Commonwealth, “Work that includes plugging orphaned and abandoned wells – and creating good paying jobs in the process,” he said. “Work to clean up our waterways, help our farmers deal with runoff that leads into the Chesapeake Bay, and ensure Pennsylvanians have clean water when they turn on the tap. Work to repair abandoned mines before they turn into sinkholes and endanger people’s homes and businesses so we can prevent another tragedy like what we saw in Westmoreland County in December.”

The lawsuit Gov. Josh Shapiro filed on Feb. 13 was not intended to further a political cause or form a further wedge in the partisan divide of our commonwealth. Rather, it was filed on behalf of the state’s registered Republicans and Democrats and Libertarians, its conservatives and its liberals, its men and women and transgendered, its straight and gay, its children and its elderly.

In clear retrospect, this was the people’s lawsuit, and they won.