Four Democratic-led states are filing suit against the Trump administration and Citibank, widening a legal battle over EPA’s attempts to claw back $20 billion of Biden-era climate grants.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charges that since February, EPA has pursued a “highly irregular and illegal campaign to thwart” the $20 billion Congress appropriated for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The four states — led by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison — are suing on behalf of their states’ green banks, which were awarded GGRF grants to fund clean energy projects.
“EPA’s campaign violates fundamental constitutional guarantees of liberty in the separation of powers and flouts myriad statutory and regulatory controls on federal agencies’ management of Congressional appropriations and finalized awards,” the lawsuit charges.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has tried to terminate the grants, as part of the Trump administration’s broader push to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars from the Democrats’ 2022 climate law and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan temporarily blocked EPA’s attempt to recoup the money from GGRF, saying the agency failed to provide a “legal justification” for terminating the contracts.
