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

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.