U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Groups that had received grants for projects to lower consumer energy costs, including grants to 108 credit unions, announced Thursday they are seeking a review by a full federal appeals panel of a Sept. 2 ruling against the groups’ attempt to bar the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from canceling nearly $20 billion in grants.
Inclusiv, which represents Community Development Credit Unions and is one of the plaintiffs, received $1.87 billion in August 2024 from the EPA under the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA) program, a grant program mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
In a news release Thursday, Inclusiv announced the plaintiffs filed an emergency appeal on Wednesday with the appeals court seeking to overturn the three-judge panel’s ruling by requesting a review by all 15 judges on the court.
In the Inclusiv news release, President/CEO Cathie Mahon said the Sept. 2 ruling was not unexpected, “but it is incredibly disappointing and, we believe, wrong.”
“As we continue our litigation with this new appeal to preserve this groundbreaking community based clean energy lending program, Inclusiv is also committed to continuing to support hundreds community lenders across the country in making energy affordable and accessible in rural and low-income communities,” Mahon said.
In February 2025 Inclusiv awarded its initial round of grants to 108 of about 250 credit unions eligible to receive them in 27 states and Puerto Rico.
Within weeks of taking power, Trump appointees at the EPA froze the funds, leading to the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C.
The first suits against the EPA were filed March 12. Inclusiv, which represents Community Development Credit Unions, filed its suit March 28.
Later the suits were combined into one action.
U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ruled in April in favor of Inclusiv and the other plaintiffs. The government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., and a three-judge panel heard oral arguments in May.
The government never filed an answer to the lawsuit, and in its oral arguments its lawyer said it was not asserting that the grant recipients had done anything wrong. Instead, he argued the matter did not belong before a U.S. District Court, and instead should be remanded to a federal claims court.
U.S. Appeals Court Judges Neomi Rao and Gregory G. Katsas, who were appointed to the court in Trump’s first term, agreed with the government.
“District courts have no jurisdiction to hear claims that the federal government terminated a grant agreement arbitrarily or with impunity. Claims of arbitrary grant termination are essentially contractual,” Rao wrote in the majority’s 30-page decision.
“EPA’s actions here are well within the Executive Branch’s authority and responsibility to manage the expenditure of funds and to ensure that money appropriated by Congress is properly spent for its intended purposes,” Rao wrote.
Appellate Court Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard, an Obama appointee, dissented.
“The Constitution does not allow the President or his subordinate executive agencies to unilaterally decide to take back money that Congress has appropriated and the agency already lawfully spent merely because the Executive Branch disagrees with Congress’s policy choices,” Pillard wrote in a 60-page dissent.
“The court’s holding to the contrary is unsupportable,” she wrote. “The court falls short today in its Article III duty to independently say what the law is and thereby hold the Executive Branch to account.”
America’s Credit Unions has not developed a position on the court decisions, but it had supported the grant awards to Inclusiv, Ann Petros, AmCU’s vice president of policy engagement and credit union operations, said.
“We support credit union access to green lending grants,” Petros said.
The Defense Credit Union Council declined to comment.
Contact Jim DuPlessis at JDuPlessis@cutimes.com.
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