Laura Glesby file photo
Steve Winter and Justin Elicker, celebrating court's block of Trump's "illegal and unjustified" funding freeze.
Another federal judge has ruled for New Haven and against the Trump administration, ordering the feds to reinstate three environmental grants totaling $31 million.
Judge Richard Mark Gergel, of the U.S. District Court of South Carolina, Charleston Division, handed down that order Tuesday in the ongoing federal court case The Sustainability Institute et al. v. Donald J. Trump.
Gergel’s order calls for the Trump administration to reinstate roughly three dozen grants that had been awarded to the City of New Haven, the City of Baltimore, and a handful of other municipalities and nonprofits through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
According to a press release sent out by Mayor Justin Elicker on Wednesday, this order applies to three federal grants the city has been awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): a $20 million Community Change grant, designed to promote energy-efficient homes and green transportation; a $9.5 million Climate Pollution Reduction grant to build out geothermal heat pumps for Union Station; and a $1 million Environmental Justice Government-to-Government grant, designed to help New Haveners transition their homes from oil to heat pumps.
New Haven had joined with fellow plaintiffs — like Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; Madison, Wisconsin; and San Diego, California — in suing the federal government in March, alleging that the Trump administration had illegally frozen or terminated the congressionally appropriated funds underlying these grants.
Federal lawyers did not contest the plaintiffs’ claims that the Trump administration had acted in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) in regards to 32 of the 38 relevant grants. However, they sought to get the district court from holding off on issuing “injunctive relief” for the plaintiffs while the Trump administration appealed the court’s jurisdiction under the APA.
Ultimately, Gergel decided to grant “permanent injunctive relief” for these 32 grants — including the three awarded to New Haven.
“Plaintiffs have produced substantial, highly persuasive evidence to support their claims that their grant funds were frozen and/or terminated because Defendants disfavored previously authorized congressional appropriations and that such actions were outside of the legal authority of the agency Defendants and in violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers,” Gergel wrote.
In response to the Trump administration’s request for the district court to hold off on granting injunctive relief, he wrote, “the public interest lies in upholding the rule of law and providing an effective remedy for those injured by the unlawful actions of government officials. For these reasons, Defendants motion to stay is denied.”
Click here to read Gergel’s order in full.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration appealed the district court’s decision the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
“Contrary to President Trump’s executive orders and actions, the way we ‘Unleash American Energy’ is by leveraging our country’s own renewable resources, including solar, wind and geothermal,” Elicker is quoted as saying in Wednesday’s celebratory press release. “It’s better for our pocketbooks, our environment and our national security, and we are encouraged that this ruling will allow New Haven and other cities and nonprofits across the nation to do exactly that.”
City climate czar Steve Winter was also quoted in Wednesday’s press release, stating, “I’m thrilled that the court has blocked the Trump administration’s illegal and unjustified freeze of funding for important climate change and clean energy projects in New Haven. The work that our team does every day in partnership with City agencies and community partners helps improve air quality, lower energy bills, and address our climate crisis.”
This marks the second time in two months that a federal judge has sided with New Haven in one of a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration. In late April, a federal judge in California ruled that the Trump administration can’t withhold funds from New Haven, San Francisco, and a dozen other cities just because they are“sanctuary jurisdictions” that limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
New Haven has been represented in both of these federal cases by Public Rights Project.