City leaders in Benton Harbor say the fight for a terminated $20 million federal grant supporting clean energy and sustainability programs isn’t over.

The city hosted a press conference Tuesday with state Representative Joey Andrews, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy Director Phillip Roos, the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission, and Elected Officials to Protect America to call attention to what termination of the EPA grant will mean.

Mayor Marcus Muhammad read a letter of support from Senator Elissa Slotkin.

“This isn’t just about clean energy,” Muhammad read. “It’s about creating opportunity and jobs and breathing new life into places that have been ignored for too long.”

The $20 million Environmental and Climate Justice grant was to be used for renovations at the Bobo Brazil Community Center and to turn it into a pilot microgrid alternative energy project. However, the Trump administration has clawed the grant back. Muhammad said that was an affront to Congress, which approved the legislation allowing for the grant.

“The termination of the Community Change Grant was a severe miscarriage of justice. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed by Congress, signed by then President Joseph Biden, and the funds were to be appropriated.”

Muhammad read a letter from Congresswoman Haley Stevens calling the grant termination illegal. EGLE’s Phil Roos highlighted the work Benton Harbor has been doing to revitalize Ox Creek and said EGLE is pleased to be able to help support those efforts. Representative Andrews lamented the EPA funds would have been used for shovel-ready projects and warned this likely won’t be the last project impacted by Trump administration cuts.

All partners agreed to press on with efforts to revitalize Benton Harbor.

Image from the official Facebook page of Mayor Marcus Muhammad.