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- By Brian Edwards
- Energy | Environment
A federal judge has questioned the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to terminate $20 billion in climate grants, including $1.5 billion committed to Native communities, citing the Trump administration’s failure to provide evidence of wrongdoing.
During a Wednesday hearing in a D.C. court, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan pressed EPA lawyers to substantiate claims of fraud or abuse used to justify canceling the grants.
“Can you proffer any evidence that (the grant) was illegal, or evidence of abuse or fraud or bribery … other than the fact that Mr. Zeldin doesn’t like it?” Chutkan asked. When an administration lawyer referred only to information in the termination letter sent to the nonprofit that filed the litigation, Chutkan called the reasoning “pretty circular.”
The hearing stemmed from a lawsuit filed on Saturday by Climated United Fund, which was awarded $6.97 billion through the EPA’s National Clean Investment Fund program. The Bethesda, Md.-based nonprofit, which lost access to its grant funds on Feb. 18, committed $620 million — about 10% of its award — to finance energy projects in Native communities.
“This is the EPA's latest attempt to unlawfully dismantle the congressionally appropriated National Clean Investment Fund,” Climate United CEO Beth Bafford told Tribal Business News. “Our legally binding contract with the EPA cannot be lawfully terminated based on unsupported claims and misinformation.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who is named a defendant in the suit, announced the terminations of the grants Tuesday night, claiming the previous administration "parked tens of billions of taxpayer dollars at an outside financial institution in a manner that deliberately reduced the ability of EPA to conduct proper oversight."
While Judge Chutkan did not grant Climate United the temporary restraining order it requested, she ordered the EPA to provide evidence of alleged wrongdoing by Monday evening, saying, “I don't have the credible evidence that's required,” according to a report in The Guardian.
Chutkan also directed Climate United to amend its lawsuit, which is one of three legal challenges involving Zeldin’s attempt to cancel more than $20 billion in grants meant to fund clean energy loans in low-income communities.
The Coalition for Green Capital filed a lawsuit on Monday over its terminated $5 billion grant, calling the EPA's action "patently and plainly unlawful on its face." On Tuesday, Power Forward Communities, which was awarded $2 billion in funding, filed suit on Tuesday in New York.
For tribal communities, the grant terminations represent a significant setback to energy sovereignty efforts. According to EPA documents, the Native CDFI Network was allocated $400 million to support clean energy projects with loans across Native communities in 27 states, focusing on distributed energy, net-zero buildings, and zero-emissions transportation in tribal areas with high energy costs.
Climate United had already approved 22 awards to tribes and Native-serving organizations across 18 states and committed $63 million for solar power plants in partnership with tribal governments, with initial projects planned in Eastern Oregon and Idaho.
