BOSTON — Attorneys general from more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging billions of dollars in funding cuts made by the Trump administration that would fund everything from crime prevention to food security to scientific research.
The lawsuit filed in Boston is asking a judge to limit the Trump administration from relying on an obscure clause in the federal regulation to cut grants that don’t align with its priorities. Since January, the lawsuit argues that the administration has used that clause to cancel entire programs and thousands of grants that had been previously awarded to states and grantees.
“Defendants’ decision to invoke the Clause to terminate grants based on changed agency priorities is unlawful several times over,” the plaintiffs argued. “The rulemaking history of the Clause makes plain that the (Office of Management and Budget) intended for the Clause to permit terminations in only limited circumstances and provides no support for a broad power to terminate grants on a whim based on newly identified agency priorities.”
The lawsuit argues the Trump administration has used the clause for the basis of a “slash-and-burn campaign” to cut federal grants.
“Defendants have terminated thousands of grant awards made to Plaintiffs, pulling the rug out from under the States, and taking away critical federal funding on which States and their residents rely for essential programs,” the lawsuit added.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to a request made Tuesday afternoon for comment.
Rhode Island Attorney General Neronha said this lawsuit was just one of several the coalition of mostly Democratic states have filed over funding cuts. For the most part, they have largely succeeded in a string of legal victories to temporarily halt cuts.
This one, though, may be the broadest challenge to those funding cuts.
“It’s no secret that this President has gone to great lengths to intercept federal funding to the states, but what may be lesser known is how the Trump Administration is attempting to justify their unlawful actions,” Neronha said in a statement. “Nearly every lawsuit this coalition of Democratic attorneys general has filed against the Administration is related to its unlawful and flagrant attempts to rob Americans of basic programs and services upon which they rely. Most often, this comes in the form of illegal federal funding cuts, which the Administration attempts to justify via a so-called ‘agency priorities clause.”
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the lawsuit aimed to stop funding cuts he described as indiscriminate and illegal.
“There is no ‘because I don’t like you’ or ‘because I don’t feel like it anymore’ defunding clause in federal law that allows the President to bypass Congress on a whim,” Tong said in a statement. “Since his first minutes in office, Trump has unilaterally defunded our police, our schools, our healthcare, and more. He can’t do that, and that’s why over and over again we have blocked him in court and won back our funding.”
In Massachusetts, Attorney General Andrea Campbell said the U.S. Department of Agriculture terminated a $11 million agreement with the state Department of Agricultural Resources connecting hundreds of farmers to hundreds of food distribution sites while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency terminated a $1 million grant to the state Department of Public Health to reduce asthma triggers in low-income communities.
“We cannot stand idly by while this President continues to launch unprecedented, unlawful attacks on Massachusetts’ residents, institutions, and economy,” Campbell said in a statement.
The lawsuit argues that the OMB promulgated the use of the clause in question to justify the cuts. The clause in question, according to the lawsuit, refers to five words that say federal agents can terminate grants if the award “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
“The Trump Administration has claimed that five words in this Clause—’no longer effectuates . . . agency priorities’—provide federal agencies with virtually unfettered authority to withhold federal funding any time they no longer wish to support the programs for which Congress has appropriated funding,” the lawsuit said.
Attorney General Campbell is joined in filing this lawsuit by the Attorneys General of: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Story by Michael Casey, Associated Press
