By Maxine Joselow · The Washington Post (c) 2025
A federal judgehas temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency from terminating at least $14 billion in climate grants approved under President Joe Biden.
U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction late Tuesday that prohibits the EPA from “unlawfully suspending or terminating” the grant awards. She also ordered Citibank, which was tasked with disbursing the funds, to release the money to the grant recipients.
The decision deals yet another setback to the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze climate spending across the government. Another federal judge ruled Tuesday that agencies must release billions in additional climate funding that had been paused since Inauguration Day.
Chutkan’s ruling marks the latest twist in an extraordinary fight over a grant program that remains central to Biden’s climate legacy. Commonly known as a “green bank,” the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fundauthorized tens of billions in grants for recipients to invest in green technologies such as solar panels, heat pumps, electric vehicles and more.
Trump’s EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, said in February that he would try to claw back $20 billion worth of these grants from Citibank, accusing the Biden administration of “tossing gold bars off the Titanic, rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door.” The Justice Department and the FBI have also launched a criminal investigation into the program, which was established by Biden’s signature 2022 climate law.
Three of the grant recipients – Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities – sued the EPA and Citibank over their inability to access the funds. The three groups, which were collectively awarded $14 billion, wrote in legal filings that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if they didn’t regain access to the money.
Beth Bafford, CEO of Climate United Fund, expressed relief at the ruling Tuesday.
“Today’s decision 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,” Bafford said in a statement. “After a year-long application process, we were hired to do a job that we’ve done for decades: investing in communities and strengthening markets. We want to get back to work.”
A spokesman for the Justice Department, which promptly appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, declined to comment. But an EPA spokeswoman voiced confidence that the appeals court would overturn the decision.
“The DC District Court does not have jurisdiction to reinstate the $20 billion Biden-Harris ‘Gold Bar’ scheme,” spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou said in an email. “These grants are terminated, and the funds belong to the U.S. taxpayer. We couldn’t be more confident in the merits of our appeal and will take every possible step to protect hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”
At a nearly three-hour court hearing two weeks ago, Justice Department civil division attorney Marcus S. Sacks argued that Chutkan lacked the authority to hear the dispute. He contended that the plaintiffs needed to bring a breach-of-contract action in Federal Claims Court.
But Chutkan appeared skeptical of this argument, and she pressed Sacks on why the federal government had not yet provided any evidence of fraud or another crime in connection with the funds.
“Here we are, weeks in, and you’re still unable to proffer me any information with regard to any kind of investigation or malfeasance,” she said.
Chutkan also raised concerns that the Justice Department failed to take the typical step of obtaining a court order to freeze the funds at Citibank. She cited reporting by The Washington Post that career prosecutors in two U.S. attorney offices refused Trump officials’ requests to launch a grand jury investigation and seek a court-ordered bank freeze, saying the officials had failed to establish a reasonable belief that a crime had been committed.
Chutkan also had tough questions for the grant recipients, including whether they would truly suffer irreparable harm without immediate access to the funds. Adam Unikowsky, a lawyer representing Climate United Fund, responded that the group had secured “stopgap funding” but was still struggling to make payroll.
“We’ve had to defer compensation of our current employees,” Unikowsky said. “We’ve had to instruct lawyers, other than me, to stop work. … We’ve had this very temporary stopgap funding, but that’s not going to take us until the final judgment. So we cannot continue.”
Climate United Fund, which received the largest grant award of nearly $7 billion, had planned to spend much of the money on deploying electric vehicles, installing solar panels and building energy-efficient affordable housing. Coalition for Green Capital, which got $5 billion, had planned to support a national network of state and local green banks and community lenders. And Power Forward Communities, which won $2 billion, had pledged to provide financial assistance for households to buy electric appliances such as heat pumps and induction stoves.
In a prior ruling last month, Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the EPA from reclaiming the money from Citibank. However, the ruling did not revive the recipients’ ability to access the funds, postponing that decision until after further court proceedings.
In the meantime, many recipients have been forced to put key projects on hold. In Southeast Alaska, for instance, Native American tribes and a nonprofit group have paused a project aimed at improving energy efficiency in the seafood sector, including by deploying electric fishing vessels and installing solar panels on seafood processing facilities.
“We are hoping that the funds will be released soon,” said Linda Behnken, president of the board of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust, which received money for the initiative from Climate United. “We’re anxious to get started with the project.”