Every time Trump, or more accurately, the Trump Administration, loses a ruling in federal district court, every news outlet puts out front page news. But you have to search hard to find news coverage of when he wins these cases on appeal.
You may recall the case of the $20 billion (with a “b”) in EPA “climate grants” that the outgoing Biden Administration tried to shove out the door in their final days back in January. They went so far as parking the money with Citibank in the hopes that new EPA leadership couldn’t claw it back.
They did, but would-be grantees ran to court and found a friendly judge to rule against Trump. Now the federal DC Court of Appeals says, not so fast. From Politico,
Appeals court sides with EPA in climate grant terminations fight.
They report,
A federal appellate court on Tuesday sided with the Environmental Protection Agency in the pitched legal battle over Administrator Lee Zeldin’s termination of $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants, a major victory for the Trump administration’s bid to cancel hundreds of environmental grants and boost fossil fuel production.
The Citibank angle,
Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had issued an injunction against Zeldin’s terminations in April, ruling that he had violated the law and the Constitution. Chutkan’s injunction was stayed while EPA appealed, preventing any money from moving out of the accounts at Citibank where the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund dollars were held.
That district-level decision, which had no practical effect, is the one you heard about, portrayed as a devastating loss for Trump at the time.
Politico wants you to know that EPA/Trump could still lose on further appeal, and that Orange Man is still bad.
From the Appeals Court decision,
But a split panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday reversed Chutkan, saying she should not have issued the injunction.
“The grantees are not likely to succeed on the merits because their claims are essentially contractual, and therefore jurisdiction lies exclusively in the Court of Federal Claims.”
The lawfare will continue.
