Lawsuit challenges billions of dollars in Trump administration funding
cuts
[June 25, 2025]
By MICHAEL CASEY
BOSTON (AP) — Attorneys general from more than 20 states and Washington,
D.C. filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging billions of dollars in
funding cuts made by the Trump administration that would fund everything
from crime prevention to food security to scientific research.
The lawsuit filed in Boston is asking a judge to limit the Trump
administration from relying on an obscure clause in the federal
regulation to cut grants that don’t align with its priorities. Since
January, the lawsuit argues that the administration has used that clause
to cancel entire programs and thousands of grants that had been
previously awarded to states and grantees.
“Defendants’ decision to invoke the Clause to terminate grants based on
changed agency priorities is unlawful several times over,” the
plaintiffs argued. “The rulemaking history of the Clause makes plain
that the (Office of Management and Budget) intended for the Clause to
permit terminations in only limited circumstances and provides no
support for a broad power to terminate grants on a whim based on newly
identified agency priorities.”

The lawsuit argues the Trump administration has used the clause for the
basis of a “slash-and-burn campaign” to cut federal grants.
“Defendants have terminated thousands of grant awards made to
Plaintiffs, pulling the rug out from under the States, and taking away
critical federal funding on which States and their residents rely for
essential programs,” the lawsuit added.
The White House's Office of Management and Budget did not immediately
respond to a request made Tuesday afternoon for comment.
Rhode Island Attorney General Neronha said this lawsuit was just one of
several the coalition of mostly Democratic states have filed over
funding cuts. For the most part, they have largely succeeded in a string
of legal victories to temporarily halt cuts.
This one, though, may be the broadest challenge to those funding cuts.
“It’s no secret that this President has gone to great lengths to
intercept federal funding to the states, but what may be lesser known is
how the Trump Administration is attempting to justify their unlawful
actions,” Neronha said in a statement.
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“Nearly every lawsuit this coalition of Democratic attorneys general
has filed against the Administration is related to its unlawful and
flagrant attempts to rob Americans of basic programs and services
upon which they rely. Most often, this comes in the form of illegal
federal funding cuts, which the Administration attempts to justify
via a so-called ‘agency priorities clause."
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the lawsuit aimed to
stop funding cuts he described as indiscriminate and illegal.
“There is no ‘because I don’t like you’ or ‘because I don’t feel
like it anymore’ defunding clause in federal law that allows the
President to bypass Congress on a whim," Tong said in a statement.
“Since his first minutes in office, Trump has unilaterally defunded
our police, our schools, our healthcare, and more. He can’t do that,
and that’s why over and over again we have blocked him in court and
won back our funding.”
In Massachusetts, Attorney General Andrea Campbell said the U.S.
Department of Agriculture terminated a $11 million agreement with
the state Department of Agricultural Resources connecting hundreds
of farmers to hundreds of food distribution sites while the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency terminated a $1 million grant to the
state Department of Public Health to reduce asthma triggers in
low-income communities.
“We cannot stand idly by while this President continues to launch
unprecedented, unlawful attacks on Massachusetts’ residents,
institutions, and economy,” Campbell said in a statement.
The lawsuit argues that the OMB promulgated the use of the clause in
question to justify the cuts. The clause in question, according to
the lawsuit, refers to five words that say federal agents can
terminate grants if the award "no longer effectuates the program
goals or agency priorities.”
“The Trump Administration has claimed that five words in this
Clause—'no longer effectuates . . . agency priorities'—provide
federal agencies with virtually unfettered authority to withhold
federal funding any time they no longer wish to support the programs
for which Congress has appropriated funding,” the lawsuit said.
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