{"id":158,"date":"2025-02-03T18:50:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T22:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/?p=158"},"modified":"2025-02-03T19:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T23:10:08","slug":"court-grants-state-attorneys-general-tro-enjoining-administrations-funding-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/2025\/02\/03\/court-grants-state-attorneys-general-tro-enjoining-administrations-funding-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Grants State Attorneys General TRO Enjoining Administration\u2019s Funding \u201cFreeze\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On January 31, 2025, Judge John McConnell<\/a> of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted the TRO<\/a> sought by 22 state attorneys general and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia challenging the Trump Administration\u2019s \u201cpause\u201d or \u201cfreeze\u201d of grant funding payments<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court found that the attorneys general had a likelihood of success on the merits on their claims that the pause violated the Administrative Procedure Act, is arbitrary and capricious; violates separation of powers; and violates the Constitution\u2019s Spending, Presentment, and Take Care clauses.  The Court reached its determination \u201c[b]ecause of the breadth and ambiguity of the \u2018pause,\u2019\u201d and therefore anchored its reasoning \u201cbased on the effect it will have on many\u2014but perhaps not all\u2014grants and programs it is intended to cover.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In rejecting the Administration\u2019s argument that the Rescission Memo<\/a> from OMB mooted the case, the Court relied upon a tweet by the White House Press Secretary \u2013and an email from the EPA sent after the Rescission Memo stating that money would not be disbursed while the EPA determined how to implement the funding \u201cfreeze\u201d memo from OMB.\u00a0 The Court found that \u201cthe OMB Directive that the States challenge here [is] still in full force and effect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To address the Administration\u2019s statements that the \u201cfreeze\u201d or \u201cpause\u201d would continue notwithstanding the Rescission Memo, the scope of the TRO prohibits the Trump Administration Defendants from \u201creissuing, adopting, implementing, or otherwise giving effect to the OMB Directive under any other name or title or through any other Defendants (or agency supervised, administered, or controlled by any Defendant), such as the continued implementation identified by the White House Press Secretary\u2019s statement of January 29, 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 31, 2025, Judge John McConnell of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted the TRO sought by 22 state attorneys general and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia challenging the Trump Administration\u2019s \u201cpause\u201d or \u201cfreeze\u201d of grant funding payments.\u00a0 The Court found that the attorneys general … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Court Grants State Attorneys General TRO Enjoining Administration\u2019s Funding \u201cFreeze\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[71,73,72,55,74],"ppma_author":[9,8],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-district-court","tag-omb","tag-rescission-memo","tag-rhode-island","tag-tro"],"authors":[{"term_id":9,"user_id":61,"is_guest":0,"slug":"dwalworth","display_name":"Daniel R. Walworth","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2024\/06\/walworthdaniel-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""},{"term_id":8,"user_id":341,"is_guest":0,"slug":"chcasey","display_name":"Christopher H. Casey","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2024\/06\/caseychris-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/stateattorneysgeneral\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}