
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Another day, another loss in federal courts for the Trump administration’s continuing campaign to defy Congress and eliminate federal spending—this time on cleaning up the environment.
On April 16, environmentalists and housing advocates who sued won in U.S. District Court in Providence, R.I. Judge Mary McElroy declared Trump does not have unlimited power to impose “a funding freeze” on grants the Biden administration issued to help rehabilitate infrastructure and fund “green” projects.
Trump’s lawyers gave no reason for the freeze, except that the grants originated from two Biden laws.
So, the judge issued a nationwide injunction against Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and, most importantly, Office of Management and Budget chief Russell Vought. The injunction tells them, in effect, to start the money flowing again.
“Furthering the president’s wishes cannot be a blank check for the agencies to do as they please,” McElroy stated. They have to follow the law—the Administrative Procedure Act—to deny the grants, or to pull them back. And they didn’t.
The national total which Trump brought to a halt: $102 billion. Grants large and small were stopped. One was $500,000 to the Childhood Lead Action Project of Providence to remove lead from local homes. Lead ingestion is a known cause of cancer and brain damage.
Another grant was to a California non-profit, NCN, to combat bark beetle infestations which could destroy the state’s famed Giant Sequoia trees—a top tourist attraction whose presence pumps millions of dollars into the local economy and creates jobs.
“In 2021 and 2022, Congress passed” and Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act—”appropriating billions of dollars for infrastructure, agriculture, energy, climate, and housing initiatives. The laws established federal agencies would largely be responsible for administering them,” the judge began.
But on Jan. 25 Trump, through Vought and the others, brought the grants to a screeching halt with no notice, no hearings, and no warnings to the local enterprises—all nonprofits—who were managing the projects involved. That move broke the Administrative Procedure Act, McElroy ruled.
“Turn the funding spigots back on, at least while their case is pending,” she ordered. The arguments presented by the groups that sued suggested they are likely to win the case on its merits when it is ultimately heard in full.
“Agencies do not have unlimited authority to further a president’s agenda, nor do they have unfettered power to hamstring in perpetuity two statutes passed by Congress during the previous administration,” declared McElroy.
The judge is a former public defender and had earlier been nominated by President Barack Obama for her current position, but the Republican-controlled Senate blocked that appointment. She was eventually re-nominated by Trump six years ago, however, undercutting the ability of the White House and the right-wing media to claim her latest ruling is ideologically-motivated by a hatred for the president.
McElroy placed the blame for the funding freeze, which she said the nonprofits proved “would cause irreparable harm,” squarely on Trump and his Office of Management and Budget.
The judge first cited an OMB memo ordering the freeze. Then she rejected the administration’s second defense: Trump attorneys asked her to believe all the agencies involved acted independently and on their own to stop the dollars, all on the same day.
That “would be a remarkable—and unfathomable—coincidence…and quite the happenstance, too,” McElroy’s ruling replied.
Trump government lawyers also argued the case was just about money, not about how the government was “arbitrary and capricious” in yanking it. Wrong, said McElroy.
“The nonprofits indicate the blanket…funding freezes will result in lost jobs, a suspension of research and community initiatives, and a loss of goodwill” causing “irreparable injuries.” She concluded, “It would be legal error to construe the claims as couched pleas for monetary relief for which the nonprofits never asked.”
Skye Perryman, executive director of Democracy Forward—the same progressive lawyers’ organization which helps construct unions’ anti-Trump lawsuits—cheered the judge’s ruling.
“We are pleased a federal court has seen the Trump administration’s freeze of congressionally approved funds for what it is: Another abuse of executive power that has already inflicted harm on communities nationwide,” said Perryman.
“By blocking these investments in local communities and projects, the administration is jeopardizing public health initiatives, environmental protections, and economic stability. Today’s ruling marks a crucial victory for the rule of law and ensures these vital resources will flow to the people and projects Congress intended to support.”
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