Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council v. U.S. Department of Agriculture

The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and vacated in part a preliminary injunction that blocked certain federal agencies from categorically freezing the processing and payment of funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. As a threshold matter, the court found that both the individual nonprofit plaintiffs and the National Council of Nonprofits, which premised its standing on the standing of its members, had standing for their Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claims, though the court said the National Council of Nonprofits could not assert claims against the Department of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) because it did not identify members who received financial assistance from HUD. The First Circuit then rejected the federal government’s arguments that the plaintiffs impermissibly split their claims between two proceedings, that they did not challenge a “final agency action” that was subject to judicial review, and that the challenged actions were “committed to agency discretion by law” and were therefore not subject to judicial review. In addition, the First Circuit found that the district court did not err in determining that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the challenged actions were arbitrary and capricious. The First Circuit further found that the plaintiffs showed that the effects of the loss of funding were irreparable harms and that the federal government did not show that the district court abused its discretion when it found that the equities favored the plaintiffs. Although the First Circuit affirmed the grant of “universal” injunctive relief that provided relief to nonparties, the court concluded that the court’s directive requiring monetary payments exceeded the court’s authority under the APA.

On November 4, 2025, the federal district court for the District of Rhode Island ordered the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to resume processing and payment of Green and Resilient Retrofit Program awards in accordance with its previous orders, notwithstanding the current lapse in appropriations. The plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce on October 16 in which they argued that work to unfreeze the GRRP awards in compliance with the court’s orders was clearly activity “authorized by law” that could continue during the federal government shutdown.

After holding a fourth status conference on May 5 about compliance with the preliminary injunction, the court issued an order explaining its determination that EPA did not violate the preliminary injunction by terminating approximately 800 grants. The court said the preliminary injunction fundamentally concerned “pauses, not terminations” and that the EPA’s termination of “only about 800 of the approximately 3,000 IIJA and IRA grants that were previously frozen … suggests to the Court that a more thoroughgoing individualized review had taken place between the mass freeze and the Court’s order enjoining it.” The court said the terminations created “fundamentally different legal issues” than the funding freezes and that the organizations could file another lawsuit to challenge the terminations.