FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
PRESS CONTACT:
nicole@focalpointstrategygroup.com
Washington, D.C. – This week, the Trump administration has intensified its efforts to concentrate power in the executive branch. In a move that has drawn widespread criticism, President Trump has frozen billions of dollars in Energy Department loans for clean energy projects. This decision has had far-reaching consequences for Americans across the country, with only a few notable exceptions. Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana and Montana Renewables have garnered attention after successfully lobbying the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funds for the state’s clean energy initiative.
The funding in question had already been allocated by Congress to Montana’s clean energy project, along with other initiatives nationwide, as part of the legislative branch’s constitutional responsibility over federal spending. These freezes represent yet another chapter in the Trump-Musk administration’s ongoing efforts to undermine Congress’s constitutional authority and further centralize power in the executive.
Congressional Integrity Project Senior Advisor Kyle Herrig issued the following statement on behalf of the Checks and Balances War Room:
“As Republican Senator Daines boasts over lobbying the administration to unfreeze federal funds for Montana—funds already approved by Daines and his colleagues in Congress– Trump’s consolidation of power inches ever closer to his vision of an imperial presidency.
The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE have now created a partisan litmus test for projects to access unfrozen federal funding—one that only Senator Daines and fellow Republicans seem able to pass. This is a blatant example of government weaponization and an open invitation to corruption.
Senator Daines and congressional Republicans may need a refresher on the Constitution’s allocation of the power of the purse before pleading for federal funds from the White House. Or perhaps they’re simply content to cede their authority to Donald Trump. But as this week’s federal court ruling emphasized, the government must be reopened for all Americans, not just those in Republican-controlled states.”