Judge rules Trump administration illegally terminated billions in federal grant funding, New Jersey attorney general says
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced Friday that a federal judge ruled the Trump administration unlawfully used federal regulations to terminate billions of dollars in grant funding that Congress had appropriated for state programs and services.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts found that federal agencies do not have independent authority to revoke grants solely because they no longer align with an administration’s priorities after the grants have been awarded.
“Instead of working with us to keep the public safe and lower costs for hardworking New Jerseyans, the Trump Administration has recklessly and illegally gutted federal funding for public safety, disaster preparedness, scientific research, clean water, and more. Today’s decision is an important win for all New Jerseyans and confirms that the Trump Administration defied the law when it embarked on its campaign to gut critical federal funding to the states,” said Attorney General Davenport. “The President and his allies cannot hold critical programs hostage to their personal whims and political ideologies, destabilizing the country by yanking essential federal funding that was already awarded to the states.”
According to Davenport’s office, the lawsuit challenged the administration’s use of an Office of Management and Budget regulation to terminate grants based on changes in agency priorities after funding had already been awarded.
Judge Talwani ruled that the regulation does not independently authorize federal agencies to terminate grants because of priorities identified after the grants were issued.
The multistate lawsuit was led by New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York and argued that the administration’s interpretation of the regulation threatened hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding accepted annually by states.
According to the attorney general’s office, New Jersey has lost millions of dollars in federal funding for a variety of programs, while similar funding cuts nationwide have affected initiatives involving public safety, disaster preparedness, scientific and medical research, clean drinking water, public health, education and food insecurity.
Davenport co-led the case with the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York. The coalition also included the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, along with the District of Columbia and the governors of Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
