Another federal judge has demanded the Trump administration release federal funds awarded to environmental nonprofits but unavailable for some or all of the last three months.
Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island on Tuesday ordered federal agencies to resume payments of federal grants already awarded from a pair of Biden-era Congressional spending packages. The 63-page ruling also prevents named federal agencies and cabinet members from pausing future payments based on Trump’s Jan. 20 “Unleashing American Energy” executive order or future orders with similar intent.
“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,” McElroy wrote.
The order does not end the case, but seeks to resolve the short-term harms of frozen funds as the court process continues.
Other federal judges, including in Rhode Island, have reached similar conclusions in response to the flurry of lawsuits prompted by the abrupt halt of federal grants and aid since Trump took office.
This case pertains specifically to funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and already awarded to nonprofit recipients. Six environmental and health-related nonprofit groups, including three in Rhode Island, filed the federal complaint on March 14. The lawsuit alleges the frozen grant payments forced nonprofits to halt projects already underway, suspend hiring and contemplate layoffs, according to court documents.
McElroy concurred.
“The Nonprofits were left adrift as they scrambled to make sense of the Government’s actions here,” she wrote. “The pause placed critical climate, housing, and infrastructure projects in serious jeopardy, while also threatening the livelihoods of the Nonprofits’ employees as well as their fundamental missions.”
By contrast, “the Government is not harmed where an order requires them to disburse funds that Congress has appropriated and that Agencies have already awarded.”
Further damage to nonprofits’ work, including childhood lead poisoning prevention, tree planting, and local composting programs, was laid out in more detail during a three-hour hearing in McElroy’s Providence courtroom on April 3.
Attorneys representing the nonprofits, which include Rhode Island’s Childhood Lead Action Project, the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council and Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District, argued the inconsistent access to federal grants violated constitutional provisions separating powers of the federal government, with devastating consequences for the nonprofits identified in the lawsuit and hundreds of others nationwide.
Computer code holds the key?
Daniel Schwei, the U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the Trump administration and named federal agencies, countered in written and oral arguments that there was never a sweeping freeze on federal funds, simply a selective pause and review, which was within federal agencies’ powers to initiate.
McElroy rejected the administration’s arguments.
“Record evidence makes the Government’s feigned confusion on this point particularly puzzling,” she wrote. “When one grantee logged onto the [federal] portal, for instance, the code for the pause to their funds was “IRA/BIL Hold,” abbreviations for the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or “BIL”). How difficult could it really be for the Government to figure out which actions are challenged if there is already a specific computer code for these universal pauses?”
She later invoked part of an order from Rhode Island Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. in a parallel funding freeze case filed by 23 Democratic state attorneys general.
“Rather than taking a deliberate, thoughtful approach to finding these alleged unsubstantiated ‘wasteful or fraudulent expenditures,’ the Defendants abruptly froze billions of dollars of federal funding for an indefinite period. It is difficult to perceive any rationality in this decision—let alone thoughtful consideration of practical consequences,” McConnell wrote in his March 6 order requiring federal agencies to release federal grants and aid to state governments.
The Nonprofits were left adrift as they scrambled to make sense of the Government’s actions here. The pause placed critical climate, housing, and infrastructure projects in serious jeopardy, while also threatening the livelihoods of the Nonprofits’ employees as well as their fundamental missions.
Federal judges in D.C., Massachusetts and California, among others, have come to similar conclusions in separate lawsuits challenging frozen federal funds for affected groups.
McElroy acknowledged in her order the limits of the court’s power over the executive branch.
“The Court wants to be crystal clear: elections have consequences and the President is entitled to enact his agenda,” she wrote. “The judiciary does not and cannot decide whether his policies are sound.”
She continued, “But where the federal courts are constitutionally required to weigh in—meaning we, by law, have no choice but to do so—are cases ‘about the procedure’ (or lack thereof) that the Government follows in trying to enact those policies.”
While Schwei sought to limit the scope of the proposed court order only to the nonprofits named in the case, McElroy granted the plaintiffs’ request to apply her ruling more broadly based on the likely consequences for other grant recipients not named in the case.
“It would be anathema to reasonable jurisprudence that only the named Nonprofits should be protected from the irreparable harms of the likely unlawful agency actions,” she wrote.
Skye Perryman, CEO of D.C.-based Democracy Forward, which is representing the nonprofits in the case, called McElroy’s ruling a “crucial victory.”
“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,” Perryman said in a statement Tuesday. “By blocking these investments in local communities and projects, the administration is jeopardizing public health initiatives, environmental protections, and economic stability.”
Providence attorney Miriam Weizenbaum, who served as the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General’s Civil Division Chief until April 2024, is also representing the nonprofits in the case.
Matthew Nies, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, declined to comment when reached by email Wednesday.
McElroy’s order requires all federal agencies and directors named in the case to submit written updates on their compliance with her mandate no later than 5 p.m. Wednesday.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
