"A coalition of nonprofits and municipal, county and tribal governments is joining forces to challenge the Trump administration's attempt to claw back $3 billion in environmental justice grants. The environmental legal advocacy group Earthjustice has sued the Environmental Protection Agency in a class action lawsuit filed in US District Court in Washington, DC. The suit accuses the EPA of unconstitutionally freezing grants awarded under the Environmental and Climate Justice Program, a part of former President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act of 2022."
""The EPA unilaterally decided to eliminate this program that was statutorily created by Congress and they were directed to implement. Because of different policy priorities, they decided to ignore that direction," Hana Vizcarra, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, told NPQ. The grant program has funded or was slated to fund more than 350 projects across the country, including pollution monitoring, tree planting, lead abatement, and electrifying school bus fleets."
"The block grant program was backed by advocates of environmental justice, the effort to direct resources to poor communities, often communities of color that have disproportionately suffered harmful effects from industry. The program was also meant to help communities mitigate the impacts of climate change. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin pulled the plug on the program in the early days of the Trump administration amid a funding freeze widely targeting policies accused of supporting "Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering.""
A coalition of nonprofits and municipal, county and tribal governments is suing the EPA for freezing $3 billion in Environmental and Climate Justice Program grants. Earthjustice filed a class action in US District Court in Washington, DC, arguing the agency unconstitutionally halted grants created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The grant program funded or planned over 350 projects nationwide, including pollution monitoring, tree planting, lead abatement, and electrifying school bus fleets. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin ended the program early in the administration amid a broader funding freeze targeting policies labeled as ideological priorities. The EPA also announced it would no longer endorse the scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health.
Read at Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
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