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A federal district court wrongfully blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from temporarily withholding billions of dollars in climate grants, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The District Court for Washington, D.C. granted an injunction blocking the Trump administration from withholding $16 billion in climate grants. Tuesday’s ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court finds that the lower court overstepped its authority in doing so, and that Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was acting in accordance with its role to provide “proper oversight” of how funds are distributed.
“We conclude the district court abused its discretion in issuing the injunction. The grantees are not likely to succeed on the merits because their claims are essentially contractual, and therefore jurisdiction lies exclusively in the Court of Federal Claims,” Judge Neomi Rao wrote in the court’s opinion.
“And while the district court had jurisdiction over the grantees’ constitutional claim, that claim is meritless. Moreover, the equities strongly favor the government, which on behalf of the public must ensure the proper oversight and management of this multi-billion-dollar fund,” the opinion continued.
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The case relates to EPA grants worth $16 billion awarded under the previous administration to five nonprofits to promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The nonprofits included the Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital, Power Forward Communities, Inc., Inclusiv, Inc., and Justice Climate Fund, Inc.
When Trump took office, the new EPA conducted a review of the program and sought to cut the flow of funds. The five nonprofits then sued, and the district court granted them an injunction.
Judge Rao wrote that records show that one month before Trump took office, the EPA modified the grant agreements “to make it more difficult for the government to terminate the grants.”
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The opinion also points to statements from an EPA employee who said that after Trump’s election victory, the EPA under President Joe Biden was “just trying to get the money out as fast as possible.”
“The employee compared the situation to ‘throwing gold bars off the Titanic,'” Rao wrote.
It was after that point that Trump’s EPA reviewed the grant program and sought to kill it.
“It’s fantastic to see reason prevail in the court system,” an EPA spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. “EPA has a duty to be an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars. Administrator Zeldin canceled these grants due to well-documented concerns about self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients, and intentionally reduced agency oversight. The gold bar recipients were wrong about jurisdiction all along and wrong to act so entitled to these precious public funds that belong to hardworking American taxpayers.”
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The Climate United Fund responded to the ruling shortly after it was handed down, with CEO Beth Bafford condemning the outcome. The other four organizations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“While we are disappointed by the panel’s decision, we stand firm on the merits of our case: EPA unlawfully froze and terminated funds that were legally obligated and disbursed. This is another hurdle in our fight to lower energy costs for those who need it most while creating jobs for hardworking Americans, but we will continue to press on for communities across the country that stand to benefit from clean, abundant, and affordable energy. This is not the end of our road,” Bafford wrote.
The other four nonprofits did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The cuts were only a small part of Trump’s wider effort to rein in government spending across the executive branch. In July, the EPA announced plans to cut its workforce by 23% and close its research and development office.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, EPA has taken a close look at our operations to ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a July statement.
Read the full opinion from the D.C. Circuit below (App users click here)
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