On August 14, 2025, the federal district court for the District of Columbia granted in part a motion for a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit seeking to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from terminating six grants under various programs. The court preliminarily set aside the terminations or announced termination of the grants and enjoined enforcement of the terminations. The district court first concluded that it had jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claims, rejecting the defendants’ arguments that the claims were “essentially contractual” and that the Court of Federal Claims therefore had exclusive jurisdiction over the claims under the Tucker Act. On the merits, the court found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on claims that all five of the already terminated grants were likely terminated arbitrarily and capriciously because the terminations “clearly lacked sufficient explanation,” and that the terminations of two grants were contrary to statute. In particular, for a $28 million grant awarded under the Urban and Community Forestry Assistance program, the court concluded that “through the Cooperative Forestry Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress clearly intended for USDA to expend money promoting tree coverage in urban areas for the purposes of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and thus mitigating ‘global warming trends,’ which are commonly referred to as ‘climate change.’” The court found that USDA terminated the grant “for addressing these very issues Congress intended for such programs to address.” The court found, however, that the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on constitutional due process claims because they likely could not show they had constitutionally protected property interests. In addition, the court found the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on claims under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) that the defendants violated their grantmaking regulations or that the defendants’ policy and practice of terminating grants violated the APA. The court further found that the plaintiffs demonstrated irreparable harm, and that the balance of the equities and public interest weighed in favor of granting relief to the plaintiffs. The court denied a motion by the plaintiffs for expedited discovery, finding that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate entitlement to discovery on the merits of the claims. 

Action seeking to stop the U.S. Department of Agriculture from terminating hundreds of grants awarded under a variety of programs, including the National Resources Conservation Service’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program.

Urban Sustainability Directors Network v. U.S. Department of Agriculture

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D.C. Federal Court Enjoined Termination of Department of Agriculture Grants

Filed

United States of America

District of Columbia

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Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

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A loan is a policy instrument where funds are provided to a borrower with the expectation of repaying the principal plus interest.

Zoning and spatial planning are both methods for guiding the distribution of people and activities in a space, and are regulatory restriction.

Using laws and the legal system more broadly to protect vulnerable entities

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Actions or measures to adapt terrestrial systems to climate change.

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Hot temperature extremes are daily maximum temperatures  that were exceeded on average once in a decade or once in 50 years, and includes heatwaves.

A long-lived, colourless gas, chiefly emitted from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and cement production.

Extreme weather refers to events where a weather variable exceeds (or falls below) a threshold. Meaning it is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

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People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

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Activities that relate to the production of goods and services from forests.

Slow onset events evolve gradually from incremental changes over many years or from increased frequency or intensity of recurring events. As defined in the Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), slow onset events include risks and impacts from rising temperatures, desertification, biodiversity loss, land and forest degradation, glacial retreat, ocean acidification, sea level rise, and salinization.

D.C. Federal Court Enjoined Termination of Department of Agriculture Grants

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience

Finance