Sen. Pete Ricketts weighs in on federal grant money being unfrozen

The White House rescinded a memo on Wednesday that froze federal loans and grant funds earlier this week. The memo caused confusion regarding its impact on federal funding before being temporarily blocked by a judge.

In a phone conference call, Nebraska U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts commented on the memo.

"There's going to be bugs to work out with regard to this order," Ricketts said. "And I expect to see the White House give us some more clarity with regard to what they're doing, similar along the lines of what they put out yesterday with their frequently asked questions."

When asked by reporters about President Donald Trump pulling back appropriations made by congress, Ricketts said he was not worried.

"When you're the executive branch and you're reviewing the policies of the previous administration, I don't think that's an uncommon or unusual thing for people to do," Ricketts said. "Sometimes you can just do it behind the scenes. Sometimes you can do it by making it more public. But I think at the end of the day, the latitude to be able to review this stuff is what you do in the executive branch when you see a change of administrations."

When asked about what he plans to do about the recent rescission, Ricketts said that he is going to wait and see.

“I'm looking to see if they're going to give us more guidance here on what the agencies ought to be doing, and we're just gonna have to sit tight so they give us that guidance,” he said.

An executive order requiring agencies to review and eliminate spending on certain ideologies such as diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as climate change are still in effect. Ricketts said he's yet to have a conversation directly with the president or his administration about the memo.