Trump administration ordered to unfreeze funds authorized under Biden-era climate laws

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze funds under Biden-era laws authorizing massive investments in climate-friendly projects. 

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, an appointee of President Trump during his first term, on Tuesday ordered five federal agencies to immediately resume disbursing already-awarded funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, two of the Biden administration's hallmark climate laws.

She also blocked the Trump administration from reinstating the funding freeze “under a different name.” 

“The Court wants to be crystal clear: elections have consequences and the President is entitled to enact his agenda,” McElroy wrote. “The judiciary does not and cannot decide whether his policies are sound.” 

However, “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,” she said.  

Several environmental nonprofits that received grants under the laws sued after the administration froze those funds so agencies could review their spending to make sure it lined up with Trump’s agenda. They’re backed by the left-leaning legal watchdog Democracy Forward. 

In her order, McElroy said the government’s “about-face” on the funding became known to grant recipients via a “combination of confusion and silence” as organizations began realizing their funds were inaccessible. 

She rejected the Justice Department's arguments that the groups’ complaints amount to a contract dispute and should be considered by a different court, an argument the government has made in several lawsuits challenging the funding freeze. 

“Since the Court finds that the proper source of the Nonprofits’ rights is federal statute and regulations and because the relief sought is injunctive in nature, the Court determines that the ‘essence’ of the action is not contractual in nature,” she wrote, affirming that her court has jurisdiction to weigh the matter.  

The agencies blocked from withholding the funds are the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

The other defendants, the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council, were ordered to provide written notice of the court’s preliminary injunction to all agencies who received the memorandum barring disbursement of the funds.

Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, called the ruling a “crucial victory for the rule of law” in a statement Tuesday. 

“We are pleased that 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,” she said.