Sustainability Institute v. Trump

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded a district court’s injunctions that enjoined federal defendants from freezing or terminating funding awarded to plaintiffs under the Inflation Reduction Act and other laws. Regarding the permanent injunction granted on the plaintiffs’ Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claims, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the district court lacked jurisdiction because the plaintiffs’ claims were essentially contractual in nature and subject matter jurisdiction therefore was vested exclusively in the Court of Federal Claims. The Fourth Circuit found “no meaningful difference” between the district court’s order and the district court’s order in Department of Education v. California, in which the Supreme Court stayed the district court order pending appeal, finding that the federal government was likely to succeed in showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to enjoin termination of federal grants because the APA’s “limited waiver of immunity” did not extend to enforcing contractual obligations to pay money. The Fourth Circuit concluded that the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association “further confirmed” the conclusion that the district court in this case lacked jurisdiction. Regarding the plaintiffs’ claims that the federal defendants’ actions violated separation of powers and the Presentment Clauses of the Constitution and were ultra vires, the Fourth Circuit found that the constitutional claims were merely statutory claims “recast” as constitutional claims and therefore were not reviewable. The Fourth Circuit further found that because the plaintiffs failed to identify a specific prohibition on the freezing or termination of their grants, their ultra vires claim did not fall within “the painstakingly delineated procedural boundaries” of nonstatutory ultra vires review. Because the district court had focused on the freezing and termination of the plaintiffs’ particular grants, the Fourth Circuit did not express a view on the merits of the plaintiffs’ “program cancellation” theory, which alleged that the defendants effectively terminated entire programs that were statutorily mandated. The Fourth Circuit indicated the district court could consider this theory on remand.

On remand from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal district court for the District of South Carolina ruled that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidance closing the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA’s) Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) Block Grant Program in February 2025 was illegal. The court concluded that it had jurisdiction to hear the challenge to the guidance and rejected the defendants’ contention that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s rescission of the program mooted the action. The district court found that the EPA guidance was a “final and discrete” agency action subject to Administrative Procedure Act review, that the plaintiff grant recipients had Article III standing to challenge the guidance, and that “there is no doubt” that the internal guidance terminating the ECJ Program in contravention of IRA Section 7438 was arbitrary and capricious and unlawful. The court denied the plaintiffs’ requests for a permanent injunction requiring EPA to implement the ECJ Program and for an “equitable extension” of IRA Section 7438’s September 30, 2026 deadline, finding the relief “impractical” but noting that the plaintiffs were “of course free to pursue their claims for alleged unlawful termination” in the Court of Federal Claims. The court declined to consider the plaintiffs’ nonstatutory ultra vires claims.