Plaintiffs are continuing to press the Trump administration in federal court to restore $3 billion in grant funding for environmental and climate justice programs that would benefit underserved communities, as a Sept. 30 deadline nears.
The plaintiffs in the litigation over the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program filed a motion late Tuesday asking the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina in Charleston to effectively put on hold the grants’ original expiration date at the end of September. Last week the plaintiffs filed a separate petition in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking the full court to reconsider a previous ruling by a three-judge panel of the court that prevented the disbursement of the funding.
The Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program, established in 2022 as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, offered grants for community-driven initiatives such as enhancing natural disaster preparedness, expanding workforce development opportunities, improving air quality, mitigating stormwater and flood damage and combating high energy costs.
The Trump administration canceled the program in 2025 as part of a widespread dismantling of environmental and equity-related initiatives across the federal government. The litigation was filed soon after on behalf of grant recipients who were forced to stop or could not begin work on urgently needed projects. Among the grant recipients was a Florida community that aimed to address local water pollution and drinking water problems related to a legacy of segregation and systemic lack of investment.
