From Politico, March 18:
The ruling orders EPA and climate change groups to return to court to argue about the fate of the money.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to recoup $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants — dealing the latest judicial setback for President Donald Trump’s attempt to assert unilateral control over spending.
Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan prevents EPA from reclaiming money it had deposited at Citibank for the groups Climate United, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities. But the decision did not revive those groups’ ability to draw from the funds, postponing that decision until after further court proceedings.
The EPA “gave no legal justification for the termination” of the contracts, wrote Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, saying the administration had only “vaguely” outlined its allegations that the grant program was marked by waste and potential conflicts of interest.
The fight over the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund has become a major front in Trump’s battle to claw back hundreds of billions of dollars in former President Joe Biden’s climate and clean-energy agenda — with the administration seeking to override the spending decisions of past Congress that Trump disagrees with, despite decades of accepted legal tradition suggesting that this would violate the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the three nonprofit groups say they may be forced to lay off employees and cancel long-planned projects if they lose the grants that the Biden-era EPA had legally awarded to them.
But rather than declare a winner, Tuesday’s decision was merely aimed at preserving the status quo, Chutkan said. Her order does not immediately restore access to the groups’ accounts, nor does it officially kill EPA’s right to press for contract terminations in the future....
....MUCH MORE
