A federal appeals court allowed the Trump administration to freeze grants to more than 30 environmental groups on Wednesday, after finding that a lower court overstepped its authority by ruling the administration had to pay out the grants.
The lawsuit is one of several across the country challenging the president’s mass cancellations of environmental grants during his first year back in the White House. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled unanimously that the claims should be brought to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, rather than a district court, and that the district court judge should never have blocked the Trump administration from canceling the funding.
“We conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate Plaintiffs’ [Administrative Procedure Act] claims challenging the freezing or termination of their grants and to order enforcement of those grants,” said the ruling, written by U.S. Circuit Judge Allison Rushing.
The appeals court tossed the preliminary injunction and the permanent injunction that had been put in place by the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, noting that the lower court “abused
its discretion in issuing both injunctions.” The three-judge panel also cited recent Supreme Court emergency docket orders allowing Trump to cut various grants and research funding, which similarly found that district courts did not have jurisdiction to hear the claims.
“There is no meaningful difference between the district court’s order here and the district court’s order in California,” the appeals court’s ruling said, citing a separate but similar case in which a lower court judge was overturned. “If the California district court lacked jurisdiction to issue its order, it follows that the district court here did as well. And our conclusion is further confirmed by the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in National Institutes of Health.”
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Wednesday’s ruling came from a panel of judges appointed by President Donald Trump and former Presidents Joe Biden and George H.W. Bush, and it marked a rare win for the Trump administration in the Fourth Circuit, which has generally ruled against the Trump administration.
The ruling also marks the latest win for the administration in its legal battles over canceling various environmental, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and other grants issued by the Biden administration. Many of the previous victories in the lawsuits have been on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.