CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PRESS
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it’s cancelling $93 million already allocated for solar energy projects for low-income Arkansas and Mississippi communities.
Attorneys with public interest law group Lawyers for Good Government is looking to work with Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund awardees to sue the Trump Administration over the move.
The Trump Administration says it will end a $7 billion program to help low-income households and communities get access to affordable solar energy. The move is part of President Trump’s effort to reverse former President Biden’s climate agenda and boost fossil fuels instead.
“We and many others are prepared to take them to court,” says Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environment justice at Lawyers for Good Government, which is working with grantees. Blanchard says the new law “rescinded only a much smaller portion of money — of unobligated funds.”
The hour-long hearing focused on the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction and the EPA’s motion to dismiss.
The plaintiffs argued the grant terminations are unlawful because Congress had already appropriated the funding, while the EPA argued that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law on July 4 codified the cuts, according to Katherine Christopher, supervising attorney for Climate Change and Environmental Justice Lawyers for Good Government, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs.
The $7B program builds low-cost solar projects to slash bills for nearly 1 million families and help bolster the grid. The Trump administration is trying to end it.
Rumors that the EPA plans to terminate Solar for All have been swirling for months, said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit coalition of attorneys, law students, and activists that’s challenging other EPA funding cuts.
A U.S. District Court judge in Washington hears arguments over the cancellation of funding for flood mitigation and other projects. Among them are those that would have benefited Southwest Virginia.
Ben Grillot, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, alongside attorneys from Earthjustice, the Public Rights Project and Lawyers for Good Government, argued that Trump’s orders violated the Constitution’s separation of powers by having the executive branch void congressionally mandated spending.
Attorneys for environmental infrastructure grant recipients told a D.C. federal judge Tuesday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's own emails show that a proposed class action challenging the blanket termination of a climate justice and resilience grant program.
Several non-profit legal advocacy groups – EarthJustice, Southern Environmental Law Center, Public Rights Project and Lawyers for Good Government – filed the proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that the wholesale termination violated the separation of powers and is therefore unconstitutional. They also argue that the Trump administration’s decision was both “arbitrary and capricious” – in other words, made without proper reasoning or consideration of the consequences, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Nonprofits and state agencies involved in the solar initiative say they’ve been warned grants could be terminated this week.
Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environment justice at Lawyers for Good Government, which has worked closely with grantees, said outreach to EPA was ongoing. And some grant recipients said they were still hopeful that the agency would let the project continue.
"Programs who just want money to make sure they have clean air, clean water,” said Jullian Blanchard.
Several organizations, including "Lawyers for Good Government" have joined forces to file a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, hoping to restore funding.
"These projects are about protecting American people from things that they shouldn't have to pay for themselves,” Blanchard said.
City officials on Wednesday announced Sacramento had joined the lawsuit filed by Earthjustice, Southern Environmental Law Center, Public Rights Project and Lawyers for Good Government.
Lawyers for Good Government filed a class action joined by Health Resources in Action and Springfield officials. It aims to get back $3 billion in federal funding for 350 grant recipients under the Environmental and Climate Justice Program.
Legacy Land Conservancy has filed a formal appeal with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Appeals Division (NAD) a month after the federal government’s decision to rescind a $24.6 million grant aimed at protecting 4,000 acres of southeast Michigan farmland and forest.
Groups such as Air Alliance Houston, Earthjustice, Southern Environmental Law Center, Public Rights Project, and Lawyers for Good Government filed the challenge on behalf of the Environmental and Climate Justice grant recipients, to seek the nationwide restoration of the program and to require the administration to reinstate awarded grant agreements.
“We are proud to stand alongside our partners and these plaintiffs to fight for the communities who have been unlawfully denied the resources Congress promised them. This is a blatant, illegal attempt to sidestep federal law and strip critical funding away from the communities who need it most,” said Jillian Blanchard, Vice President of the Climate Change and Environmental Justice Program at Lawyers for Good Government.
The suit, filed by Southern Environmental Law Center, Earthjustice, Public Rights Project and Lawyers for Good Government, includes a number of legal arguments for why canceling the $3 billion in grants for illegal — but the central tenant is that the money was appropriated by Congress with a very specific framework for how it should be awarded, and that cannot be undone simply because the President disagrees with then programs.
“EPA’s termination of the program is unlawful,” the suit reads. “It violates bedrock separation-of-powers principles by effectively repealing a congressional enactment and impounding funds based on nothing more than the President’s disagreement with policies Congress duly enacted.”
The Southern Environmental Law Center, Earthjustice, Public Rights Project and Lawyers for Good Government filed the lawsuit, which calls on the court to compel the EPA to reinstate the grants on behalf of 350 recipients and also provide resources to help the funded programs succeed. The complaint names as defendants the EPA and Zeldin. Representatives for the EPA declined to comment on pending litigation.
“The EPA’s termination of the program is unlawful,” the complaint says. “It violates the bedrock separation-of-powers principles by effectively repealing a congressional enactment and impounding funds based on nothing more than the President’s disagreement with policies Congress duly enacted.”
Jillian Blanchard, a vice president at the Climate Change and Environmental Justice program at Lawyers for Good Government, called the termination of the EPA grants "unconstitutional" and said in a statement it was "not only destabilizing local projects addressing pollution, public health, and climate resilience," but also violates "core principles of administrative law and the separation of powers."
Her group joined EarthJustice, the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Public Rights Project to file the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The Trump administration is taking the unusual step of trying to cut funding and eliminate programs it dislikes by using routine administrative actions to block billions in EPA grants that the previous administration signed binding contracts to pay.
“It appears that this administration is trying to completely usurp Congress’ power of the purse and unwind everything that the last Congress passed,” said Jillian Blanchard, vice president for climate change and environment justice at Lawyers for Good Government, who is representing some grant recipients.
Late last week, the Trump administration issued a plan to streamline and modernize the technology undergirding environmental review and permit processes required for infrastructure projects like roads, bridges and power plants. The new plan builds on Biden-era work, but how implementation goes during Trump-era workforce reductions remains to be seen.
The Trump administration has already canceled nearly 400 EPA grants awarded for a range of environmental causes. Some grant recipients have begun to fight back. Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit that offers to connect federal grantees with attorneys or legal advice when their funding is threatened, has received requests for assistance from more than 600 organizations, and the list is constantly growing.
This week I chatted with Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice with Lawyers for Good Government, an organization that has been supporting beneficiaries of the Inflation Reduction Act navigate the uncertainties surrounding tax credits and grant programs under the Trump administration. The reason I wanted to chat with Jillian is simple: the IRA is under threat for the first time under a Republican Congress. I wanted to understand how solar and wind projects could be impacted by the House Republican reconciliation bill and putting IRA tax credits in doubt. I learned a lot.
Every single environmental justice grant made by the Environmental Protection Agency during the Biden Administration could be cancelled if the agency’s new administrator, Lee Zeldin, has his way. This most recent court filing suggests an even broader attack on Biden-era funding, but Ryan Hathaway, the director for climate and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, which has been working with many organizations with EPA funding at risk, says that the number has been inflated.
Some of the grants had not only been awarded, but the money had been paid out too. However, “most money has not been paid out because the IRA grants were much bigger,” Hathaway says. “However, there are lots of grants by volume that are pretty far along in their work.”
Experts have questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold federal dollars. “Only Congress has the power of the purse,” said Jillian Blanchard, a lawyer and the vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit that supports pro-bono attorneys. Many grant winners already have a signed legal agreement with the federal government, and in addition to infringing on Congress’ authority, Blanchard said withholding those funds violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
Last week, the US Department of the Interior announced that it would speed up the approval process for certain fossil fuel projects, proclaiming that environmental analyses that previously would have taken years must now be taken down to, at maximum, a month. While the new procedures are seemingly a gift to the industry, this may actually be terrible news for pipeline developers, drillers, and miners.
“Lawyers are going to have a field day with this,” says Hathaway, who now works as a director at Lawyers for Good Government, a legal nonprofit dedicated to progressive advocacy.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to cancel a total of 781 grants issued under President Joe Biden, EPA lawyers wrote in a little-noticed court filing last week, nearly twice the number previously reported. Before canceling any grants, the EPA is required to conduct a detailed review of each grant award. Yet several lawyers and experts raised concerns that the EPA has not, in fact, conducted such a review and that the agency has misled the court.
“I can tell you from working with many, many of those grantees that the review has never happened,” said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit group that has provided free legal assistance to several grant recipients.
“We sincerely thank Congressman Deluzio and his office for their steadfast advocacy in helping to secure the release of frozen federal funds,” said Lucy de Barbaro, E3 Director. “We are also deeply grateful to the many lawyers and organizations who swiftly mobilized and worked tirelessly to challenge the funding freezes in courts. In particular, we are thankful for the invaluable insight and groundwork provided by Lawyers for Good Government and the Environmental Protection Network.
When the Trump administration froze nearly $3 trillion in federal assistance funds in January, including those provided by the IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure law, 23 attorneys general (including those in Republican-led Vermont and Nevada) sued, and a judge ordered the money released.
Disbursing these sorts of funds isn’t optional — it is required, because Congress passed legislation allocating them. To stop the flow of money, Congress would have to change the laws. “It’s just costing the taxpayers millions of dollars to address these lawsuits for congressionally authorized funds that were critical to addressing the climate crisis,” said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a coalition of 125,000 attorneys, students, and activists.
The White House denied reports that it is considering revoking the tax-exempt status of environmental nonprofits, E&E News reported. Despite rumors that the administration would issue an executive order as soon as Tuesday, an official confirmed to the publication that “no such orders are being drafted or considered at this time.”
I spoke to Jillian Blanchard, the vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, earlier on Tuesday about such a hypothetical move by the administration. “The president doesn’t have that authority,” she told me, noting that “there’s an actual law against them directing Treasury to pull tax status.” But Blanchard said that while it isn’t accurate that an executive order could, with the stroke of a pen, take away environmental groups’ tax-exempt status, “part of the process here is trying to fear-monger and get people afraid to give money to 501(c)(3)s.” She suggested nonprofit groups prepare for whatever may be ahead by staying informed, potentially seeking pro bono assistance from groups like Lawyers for Good Government, and getting their tax documentation in order — just in case.
Trump administration attorneys knew they were on uncertain legal ground as they strategized ways to keep eight nonprofit groups from spending $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants that had already left the federal coffers, according to internal government emails obtained by POLITICO.
On top of changes to foreign trade, the Trump administration’s freezing of federal grant programs has squeezed groups of farmers that were counting on USDA assistance to support or expand their operations.
Several federal agencies have suspended or terminated grants, but “USDA has been one of the most aggressive,” said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at nonprofit Lawyers for Good Government.
Newsweek has reported on some of the other projects affected by the GGRF freeze include solar arrays for homes on the Navajo Nation, energy efficiency improvements for affordable housing in New Mexico and Texas, and a geothermal heating project at a community health clinic in Minneapolis.
Jillian Blanchard, Climate Change and Environmental Justice Program lead for the nonprofit group Lawyers for Good Government, told Newsweek that losing the GGRF funding would lead to losses of jobs and revenue in each of the host communities.