Appeals court allows EPA to claw back billions in grant money to climate groups

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The Trump administration can proceed with terminating [https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-appeals-court-allows-trumps-epa-nix-climate-grants-2025-09-02/] more than $16B in grants previously awarded to climate groups by the Biden administration, after a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that a lower court judge "abused its discretion" by issuing the injunction preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from rescinding the funds.

The D.C. Circuit judges also said the legal challenges brought by grantees Climate United, Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities were not likely to succeed in their case because it belonged in the Court of Federal Claims, not the district court.

In April, a U.S. District Court judge had issued a preliminary injunction that said the Trump administration's actions were unlawful.

The EPA has sought to terminate the grant money from the Inflation Reduction Act's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said was mismanaged and lacked oversight, and that the funds were improperly distributed by being routed through Citibank.

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