‘Major Questions Doctrine’: Judge Orders Trump to Restart Climate, Green Energy Funding

Agriculture (USDA)Business News/Analysis Energy (DOE)Environmental Protection Agency Federal Agency/Executive Branch Federal Litigation Federal Regulation Housing and Urban Development (HUD)Interior Department Office of Management and Budget (OMB)Opinions Policy White House

April 16, 2025

Print This Article Share it With Friends

by Stephen Dinan (The Washington Times) A federal judge ordered the administration Tuesday to reopen the “spigots” for climate and clean energy funding programs, ruling against President Trump’s funding pause.

Judge Mary S. McElroy, a Trump appointee to the court in Rhode Island, said Mr. Trump’s team cut too many corners in pursuing the funding freeze, failing to justify the decision to hit the brakes on billions of dollars in spending to carry out programs that Congress had approved.

The judge said the agencies have some wiggle room to do smaller-scale funding pauses, but in cases with “vast economic and political significance” like this one, the Supreme Court has “urged lower courts to be skeptical” of the agencies’ claims.

“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,” the judge wrote.

She said the case triggers what’s known as the “major questions doctrine.” That’s a legal theory that big issues must be decided by Congress, not the administration, even in cases where the law seems to allow some leeway for the president to act.

That’s the same doctrine the Supreme Court used in 2023 to strike down President Biden’s attempt to forgive $400 billion in student loans.

The judge’s decision, a preliminary injunction, keeps the money flowing while the case develops further.

The two laws at issue were the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was approved in 2021 with some bipartisan support, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which was driven entirely by Democrats. Both were signed by Mr. Biden.

...

Mr. Trump’s executive orders changed all that, urging agencies to suspend spending from the two laws.

Groups that had been receiving funding sued, saying they’d lost access to money that was rightfully theirs.

Judge McElroy’s preliminary injunction applies not only to the plaintiffs but to all of the money in the programs. READ MORE

Related articles

Excerpt from Washington Post: Environmental nonprofit groups filed the lawsuit last month in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island after the federal government froze funds approved by Congress under two Biden-era laws to fight climate change and improve infrastructure, among other goals. President Donald Trump paused the awards given through the two statutes — the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — with an executive order on his first day in office.

The lawsuit names as defendants the Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Housing departments, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Management and Budget. It alleges that the funding freeze they carried out was illegal and imperiled climate and infrastructure projects, including programs to protect ancient trees and monitor species that can infest and kill them.

...

The group said in a news release that McElroy’s injunction secures the “largest release of this critical funding to date.”

...

In the complaint, the groups alleged that the agencies carrying out the funding freeze were violating the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal statute that imposes requirements for government rulemaking. The nonprofits detailed how they’d used funding from the IRA and the IIJA for projects across the country, including to protect giant sequoias, train workers on lead safety, improve air quality for senior residents and clear vegetation to reduce fire risk.

The funding freeze, the groups said in their lawsuit, had already caused “real and irreparable harm.”

...

“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. READ MORE

Excerpt from Associated Press/Yahoo! News: A federal judge says some nonprofits awarded billions for a so-called green bank to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects cannot have their contracts scrapped and must have access to some of the frozen money. The ruling is a defeat for President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency, which argues the program is rife with financial mismanagement.

The order late Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan "gives us a chance to breathe after the EPA unlawfully — and without due process — terminated our awards and blocked access to funds that were appropriated by Congress and legally obligated,” said Climate United CEO Beth Bafford.

The lawsuit by Climate United Fund and other groups contends that the EPA, Administrator Lee Zeldin and Citibank, which held the grant money, illegally blocked the funds awarded last year and had jeopardized the organizations' operations.

...

Chutkan said Citibank must provide the money that was due to the nonprofits before the EPA had frozen their accounts in mid-February. The EPA immediately appealed.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, commonly referred to as a “green bank,” was authorized by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under Democratic President Joe Biden. Its goals run counter to the Trump administration’s opposition to climate-friendly policies and its embrace of fossil fuels. Zeldin quickly made the bank a target, characterizing the $20 billion in grants as a “gold bar” scheme marred by conflicts of interest and potential fraud.

A federal prosecutor resigned after being asked to open a criminal investigation, saying there was not enough evidence to move ahead. The FBI and Treasury Department, in coordination with the EPA, pressured Citibank to freeze the grants, which it did, according to the nonprofits.

...

Chutkan paused that move, saying the government provided no significant evidence of wrongdoing. But the Republican administration, in a recent filing, asserted it was allowed to end the contracts based on oversight concerns and shifting priorities.

“EPA’s new admission that it ‘did not terminate for Plaintiffs’ noncompliance’ ... confirms that EPA’s invocation of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ was arbitrary and pretextual” the nonprofits said in a court filing.

To the government, the case is “just a run-of-the-mill (albeit large) contract dispute.”

That argument is important because it could move the case to a different court that can only award a lump sum and not force the government to keep the grants in place. READ MORE

Excerpt from New York Times: The E.P.A. is allowed to freeze the grants if it uncovers evidence of waste, fraud or abuse. Judge Chutkan, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, asked the agency to produce evidence of that, but it has not offered anything concrete, despite investigations by the Department of Justice, the F.B.I. and the agency’s Office of Inspector General.

...

Judge McElroy, who was appointed by President Trump in 2018, imposed a deadline of 5 p.m. E. D.T on Wednesday for the agencies to report back on their compliance with the order. READ MORE

Excerpt from CNN: Chutkan also scrutinized the EPA’s procedure for abruptly terminating the $20 billion grant program in March, specifically its failure to give awardees advance notice before announcing the cancellation.

“If EPA had concerns about oversight and the funding, the way to do it is either get a court order — which you didn’t do — or go through the procedures for termination,” Chutkan told DOJ attorneys. “You haven’t done that. You’re putting the cart before the horse.”

The EPA could still shut down the program in the future, the judge noted, as long as it follows proper procedures and gives nonprofits advance notice of its plans.

Sparked by a video from the right-wing activist group Project Veritas, Zeldin has adopted a theory that the Biden administration unlawfully awarded $20 billion to progressive ventures. In the video, a Biden-era EPA employee — filmed without their knowledge — compared the rush to get Congress’s climate law funding out the door before Trump took office to “tossing gold bars off the Titanic.”

“It’s a clear-cut case of waste and abuse,” Zeldin told Fox News in February. “The entire scheme, in my opinion, is criminal. We found the gold bars; we want them back.”

As CNN has reported, the congressionally appropriated funds come from a 2022 law — the Inflation Reduction Act. The money is intended to be distributed to small, nonprofit lenders that focus on energy efficiency and clean energy projects — several of which are in Republican-led states, including Missouri, Indiana, Utah, Ohio, Georgia and North Carolina.

Projects awaiting funding include initiatives to set up solar power for churches and help small independent grocery stores upgrade aging refrigeration systems — providing cost savings for the businesses as well as their customers. READ MORE

Excerpt from E&E NewsPM: A federal judge Wednesday temporarily halted the Department of Energy's plans to cut approximately $405 million in annual research funds to colleges and universities, dealing a setback to Trump administration efforts to reduce spending.

Judge Allison Burroughs of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ordered DOE not to cut “indirect costs” for projects, which cover administrative and building expenses tied to research. On Friday, DOE said it would cap those costs to colleges and universities at 15 percent, down from more than 30 percent. The plan could affect more than 300 universities and research on everything from climate change to fusion.

The policy would create “immediate and irreparable injury,” wrote Burroughs, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

DOE should not terminate “any grants pursuant to the rate cap policy or based on a grantee’s refusal to accept an indirect cost rate less than their negotiated rate,” added Burroughs. READ MORE