Sabin Center Files Amicus Brief to Support States and Local Governments in Federal Funding Freeze Case – Climate Law Blog

Last Friday, July 25, the Sabin Center filed an amicus brief on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) in support of the Plaintiff States in the case New York v. Trump. The case, brought by twenty-two states and the District of Columbia in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island (District Court), challenges the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding pursuant to the January 20, 2025 Executive Order entitled “Unleashing American Energy.” The freeze covered hundreds of billions of dollars, including critical climate-related investments under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

In March, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration. The injunction required the administration to release any frozen appropriated IRA and IIJA funds and barred it from any further interference with their disbursement. It found that a blanket freeze on appropriated funds resulted in “unrefuted evidence” of “irreparable and continuing harm” to the Plaintiff States. The Trump administration appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, seeking to vacate the preliminary injunction.

Although the challenge was brought by state attorneys general, the First Circuit’s decision on whether to uphold the preliminary injunction will also impact local governments within those states. Many rely on federal funding that their state governments administer to implement energy, infrastructure, and climate resilience projects. The Sabin Center’s amicus brief explains how local governments benefit from state-administered IRA and IIJA federal funding, how they had been impacted by the initial federal funding freeze, and how they stand to incur further harm should the court lift the injunction.

As explained in our brief, in the IRA and IIJA, Congress appropriated billions of dollars in funding for clean energy and other climate infrastructure projects. A significant share of the funding—at least $36 billion of IRA funding, for example—was earmarked for tribal, State, and local governments. Even where local governments are not direct recipients of federal funds, they remain key beneficiaries of IRA and IIJA programs administered by states. Our amicus brief details the extensive benefits local governments receive under these programs. A few key examples include:

• Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program: Under the CPRG program, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded states implementation grants to carry out actions that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For example, a coalition of the Plaintiff States—Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey—was awarded about $250,00,000 to advance the “Clean Corridor,” an effort to “deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure for commercial zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles” along the Interstate-95 freight corridor. Local governments and communities will benefit from these projects through increased charging access and reduced local pollutants produced by internal-combustion engines.
• Solar for All (SfA): Congress appropriated $7 billion to EPA to “enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy or benefit from zero-emission technologies, such as solar installations and battery storage for single- and multi-family households and community solar programs. Plaintiff States received over $2 billion in SfA grants and may use their funds to make sub-grants to local governments. Even in the absence of subgrants, the ultimate benefits of solar energy deployment are felt at the local level, in the form of cleaner air and lower utility bills for residents.
• Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) grant program: The CFI program allocates $2.5 billion in competitive funding for electric vehicle charging and alternative fuel corridor grants. State governments have been awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to implement the program in their communities. For example, Illinois was awarded almost $15,000,000 to create a state community charging program, while New York received a similar amount to implement fast-charging infrastructure. Local governments serve as critical cooperating partners in planning and implementation for the local clean energy transportation networks that the CFI supports.
• Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program: The IIJA also appropriated $10.5 billion to the Department of Energy (DOE) to ensure the continued reliability of the country’s power system in the face of increasing extreme weather events. DOE awarded grants for projects in all fifty states. For example, Hawai’i and North Carolina were awarded about $18,000,000 and $57,000,000, respectively, to enhance grid resilience and reliability, enabling local governments and their residents access to basic necessities and essential services throughout the year, during routine weather and extreme events. A modernized grid also increases energy efficiency while reducing energy costs for residents in the Plaintiff States.

The preliminary injunction issued by the District Court allowed the frozen money to flow to Plaintiff States. It also averted substantial harms to local governments and their residents—harms not specifically addressed by the District Court, yet no less concrete and imminent. If the injunction is lifted, the Trump administration could renew the federal funding freeze, again putting these funds in jeopardy. Without a formally communicated, reliable timeline for listing the freeze, local governments would face stalled or withdrawn payments for projects already underway, services already delivered, and goods already purchased. Many local governments have already planned for IRA and IIJA projects by structuring their budgets, securing commitments, and breaking ground on implementation. If the injunction is lifted, these projects would be at risk of delay, or may not move forward at all. The lack of a timeline makes these harms more acute because the lack of certainty would compromise local governments’ ability to plan, resulting in unavoidable opportunity costs. Cities may have to choose between, for example, losing out on already committed resources, laying off staff, and reducing other municipal services.

Local governments lead on tackling the climate crisis. In recent years, they’ve filled gaps in climate action, placing them at the forefront of emissions reduction and adaptation efforts, and they rely on federal funds to do so. Local emission-reducing projects funded by the IRA and IIJA include solar energy and battery storage installations that benefit disadvantaged communities through the SfA program, projects to decarbonize buildings, deploy renewable energy, reduce methane emissions at landfills, and construct EV and associated charging infrastructure. And the benefits are immense: tens of thousands of megawatts of renewable energy generation, hundreds of thousands of efficient heat-pumps, millions of tons of avoided methane emissions, and millions of tons of diverted food waste from landfills, among many other benefits. Lifting the preliminary injunction would therefore undermine local governments’ efforts to mitigate and respond to the impacts of climate change, causing further harm to the health and well-being of their residents.

In short, our amicus brief argues that lifting the preliminary injunction would inflict real harm on local governments by slowing climate progress, threatening essential services, and breaking faith in the reliability of federal commitments. Local governments have done the work to plan and launch projects. They should not be left stranded midstream, especially as the climate crisis accelerates.