{"id":321,"date":"2025-05-02T15:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T19:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/?p=321"},"modified":"2025-05-05T11:59:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T15:59:55","slug":"epa-terminates-billions-of-dollars-of-climate-grants-including-social-justice-grants-under-the-ira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/2025\/05\/02\/epa-terminates-billions-of-dollars-of-climate-grants-including-social-justice-grants-under-the-ira\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA Terminates Billions of Dollars of Climate Grants, Including Social Justice Grants Under the IRA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Late last month, in an April 24, 2025 status report to the court, the Office of Mission Support of the EPA indicated that it has terminated 377 prior grants<\/strong> and that it intends to issue over 400 additional notices of termination<\/strong> for other grants made under the Inflation Reduction Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a copy of the Report – https:\/\/insideepa.com\/sites\/insideepa.com\/files\/documents\/2025\/apr\/epa2025_0758a.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All told, this represents a termination of over 40% of the active grants that the EPA was overseeing under the IRA. Per EPA officials, the value of grants provided under the IRA that have not<\/span> been terminated is over $39 billion dollars. The EPA has, thus far, declined to identify the value of the grants that have been terminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the noted terminations, per reporting by Inside the EPA, Administrator Zeldin indicated that the Trump Administration plans to cut EPA\u2019s total spending by at least 65%, noting that he clarified that this requires reductions of less than 35% from core fiscal year 2024 spending given the above cuts to one-time funding under IRA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPA is arguing that it has the authority to terminate grants under a provision in an April 15 order in the Woonasquatucket<\/span><\/strong><\/em> case that allows for pausing funds on an individualized basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That order, which generally blocked the administration\u2019s freeze on grants authorized by the IRA and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)<\/span>, enjoined EPA and the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Agriculture from \u201cfreezing, halting, or pausing on a non-individualized basis the processing and payment of funding\u201d under already-awarded IIJA and IRA grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPA stated that \u201cEPA understands the Court\u2019s Order to require that all funds appropriated under the IRA or IIJA be unfrozen unless there is a pre-existing determination (from before entry of the preliminary injunction) to pause that funding on an individualized basis for some other, independent reason (i.e., apart from the fact that it was appropriated under the IRA or IIJA),\u201d Dan Coogan, Deputy Administrator said. The \u201cstill-paused, soon-to-be-terminated IRA grants meet those criteria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coogan further indicated that all termination decisions were made on Feb. 13, March 3, March 10 and April 14 — all before<\/strong> the court\u2019s order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to EPA\u2019s filings and Inside the EPA reporting, grants slated for termination include the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program; Surveys, Studies, Investigations, Training and Special Purpose Activities Relating to Environmental Justice; Environmental Justice Government-to-Government Program; Environmental Justice Small Grant Program; Financial Assistance For Community Support Activities To Address Environmental Justice Issues; Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program; Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program; and Reducing Embodied Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Construction Materials and Products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to its statements in Woonasquatucket<\/span><\/em><\/strong>, EPA has announced that it is terminating a host of environmental justice grants at issue in another funding freeze case, The Sustainability Institute, et al. v. Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a list of the Environmental Justice grants that have been terminated by the EPA – see https:\/\/insideepa.com\/sites\/insideepa.com\/files\/documents\/2025\/apr\/epa2025_0758b.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green Spouts<\/strong> – The EPA has indicated that it will reimburse all grantees\u2019 costs incurred prior to formal notice of the termination<\/span><\/strong>. That said, it remains to be seen how many, if any, of the grant recipients will respond to the cancellation of previously approved grants and, if and\/or how many lawsuits are filed claiming damages or detrimental reliance on funds invested in projects already based on receipt of a grant award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, potential plaintiffs are likely to argue that terminating active grant contracts goes well beyond the court\u2019s order regarding \u201cfreezing, halting, or pausing\u201d funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grant recipients of frozen or terminated IRA grants have attested to widespread financial harms, including having to lay off staff, being unable to pay subcontractors and being unable to move forward with their projects due to uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the above, my view is that termination of these grants will likely lead to a host of lawsuits challenging the EPA’s authority to remove funding once said funding has already been granted. While the Administration may be hopeful that delay and the length of these court cases that challenge the EPA will lead to various non-profits losing funding and staff while challenging the validity of the funds freeze. Moreover, the loss of staff and the loss of the ability to operate and deliver services is a tricky thing to value and ascribe a number to, which will likely lead to challenges on alleged damages as being too speculative. Then again, maybe that is the idea of freezing these funds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duane Morris<\/strong> has an active Sustainability and Risk Mitigation Team to help organizations and individuals plan, respond to, and execute on your Sustainability and Risk Mitigation planning and initiatives. For more information, please contact Brad A. Molotsky, David Amerikaner, Sheila Rafferty-Wiggins, Jeff Hamera, Jolie-Anne Ansley, Robert Montejo, <\/strong>or the attorney in the firm with whom you are regularly in contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late last month, in an April 24, 2025 status report to the court, the Office of Mission Support of the EPA indicated that it has terminated 377 prior grants and that it intends to issue over 400 additional notices of termination for other grants made under the Inflation Reduction Act. For a copy of the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “EPA Terminates Billions of Dollars of Climate Grants, Including Social Justice Grants Under the IRA”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":285,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[7],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"authors":[{"term_id":7,"user_id":285,"is_guest":0,"slug":"bamolotsky","display_name":"Brad A. Molotsky","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2021\/02\/molotskybrad-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/285"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/esg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}