The executive director of Studio Two Three revealed last night that the nonprofit arts center was, thanks to new directives from the Donald Trump administration, losing a large grant they expected from last year’s federal budget cycle.

“Studio Two Three has lost a $200,000 grant that was going to do energy efficient improvements on this building,” Ashley Hawkins told the estimated crowd of 100 in attendance for a special community discussion where climate and sustainability experts focused on the negative environmental impacts of Trump’s recent executive orders.

Studio Two Three’s 160,000-square foot building in Manchester was originally constructed in 1939 as the Bainbridge Vocational School. The money to overhaul its energy efficiency was to be provided through a Renew America Nonprofits Grant funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). “We were in the final stages waiting for final approval,” Hawkins stated after the event.

Because the money was allocated during a previous budget cycle, she adds, the stoppage could theoretically be challenged in court. “But it’s highly unlikely we will get the funds now.”

Studio Two Three’s situation is a local example of the effects of the incoming Trump administration’s shift away from, and outright hostility toward, climate change mitigation.

In a Jan. 20 executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy,” Trump paused the disbursement of funds associated with his predecessor Joe Biden’s “Green New Deal” a.k.a. the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. He also disbanded the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, took measures to halt wind energy initiatives, and issued a directive to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on mitigating climate change, among other things.

Two federal court orders have since rescinded Trump’s halting of nearly $19 billion in Environmental Protection Agency funding to thousands of state and local governments and nonprofits. But Inside Climate News, the nation’s oldest and largest, dedicated climate news service, reports this week that the money is still not being allocated. The administration, it reported on Feb. 16, “is resorting to a new tactic [of] labeling individual programs as nefarious or fraudulent. Although that approach has met with some success—a federal judge last week allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to freeze $80 million in funding from a migrant shelter program in New York—legal experts said courts will be looking for specifics and evidence, not broad assertions that programs are improper.”

The advice offered up to concerned attendees on Monday night? Get educated and organize.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do, to see what’s going to move forward,” said Jennifer Morand, the Central Virginia Field Manager at the Virginia League of Conservation Voters (VLC). “We have $4 billion worth of investments coming to Virginia, and we have people on both sides of the aisle who want to see that come to fruition.” These investments include The Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund, initiatives to build electric school buses, and funding through the Supporting America’s School Infrastructure (SASI) program that would improve conditions in aging public school buildings. “We’re confident that we can defend these programs. We also have an important [statewide] election coming this year.”

Joining the VLC on the panel were representatives from Clean Virginia, Virginia Interfaith Power and Light, and the Richmond City Office of Sustainability. Panelists fielded questions from the crowd on topics ranging from local sustainability efforts to environmental equity. Also in attendance, manning tables with petitions and information, were reps from Third Act Virginia, Green Action VCU, Electrify RVA/Beyond Methane, Sunrise Richmond, Plan RVA and Repair Cafe RVA.

Among those in attendance was Katherine Jordan, city council representative for Richmond’s second district and a member of Richmond’s Green City Commission. “My constituents care a lot about this topic,” she said after the presentation. “It’s hard to know exactly what’s going to happen because there’s so much whiplash on things, like executive orders that have been walked back and challenged in court. I would encourage people to focus on where they can make an impact right now, and that’s with our legislature, which is now finalizing the [state] budget, and locally in our city with our budget. We’re also having a zoning rewrite which will have a big impact… so there are ways for people to get involved regardless of what’s happening in D.C.”

This was the second community conversation about Trump’s executive orders held at Studio Two Three; a video of the event will be available Thursday on the venue’s website at www.studiotwothree.org. The studio’s first conversation, on Jan. 29, focused on directives targeting and limiting protections for the LGBTQIA+ community. A planned third panel discussion, exploring reproductive rights endangered by the new administration, will happen later this month, the date to be determined.