Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation.

A South Carolina federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration’s termination of hundreds of environmental justice grants was illegal, a decision that could impact $20 million in federal funding rescinded from the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Nevada.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to terminate the $2.8 billion Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program was “arbitrary and capricious and unlawful,” U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel wrote in an order Thursday.

The federal climate program was terminated in May 2025 following two executive orders issued by President Donald Trump targeting funding for renewable energy and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the federal level.

In Nevada, the program’s termination eliminated a $20 million EPA grant that would have funded a multi-year climate resiliency plan to deliver water, energy, and food infrastructure to about 1,200 tribal members who live on the Walker River Reservation.

The funding would have weatherized and increased energy efficiency and climate resiliency for 150 homes — about 30% of all existing homes on the reservation.

States That Cut Environmental Agencies Face Crisis as Trump Deregulation Unfolds

In the ruling, the judge wrote that the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a grant program authorized by Congress under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act “for policy reasons” was a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the process by which federal........

© Truthout