EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has launched a brazen assault on regulations, canceled environmental grants and eliminated the agency’s environmental justice wing — all in less than two months.

The policies are in lockstep with President Donald Trump’s plan to “power the great American comeback,” lower the cost of cars and slash federal spending, Zeldin has said.

The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s officially canceling $20 billion in Biden-era climate funding that was awarded to several nonprofits.

Earlier this week, the agency announced it would “re-obligate” the funds “with enhanced controls to ensure adequate governance, transparency, and accountability.” The administration has alleged that the funds were mismanaged and issued with political bias, but so far hasn’t produced the evidence needed to legally block the funds.

Nate Powell-Palm, an organic farmer outside Belgrade, Montana, was relying on a $648,000 grant from USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service to help build a feed mill - an economic lifeline for about 150 area organic grain farmers.

But construction is on hold following the Trump Administration's freeze on some agricultural grants and loans as it conducts a broad review of federal spending.

A multibillion dollar dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and several nonprofit organizations escalated on Saturday when one group sued the E.P.A. and Citibank, seeking access to grant money that has been frozen under President Trump.

Climate United, a nonprofit organization, claimed that the E.P.A. and Citibank have illegally withheld a nearly $7 billion award announced last April. Citibank has housed the funds as part of a green financing program to finance projects that address climate change.

A federal judge Thursday blocked the Trump administration’s freezing of congressionally approved federal funding, which has affected a variety of services and programs across the country, including climate and conservation work approved under the Inflation Reduction Act. 

The USDA said more announcements about funding are forthcoming, as the agency continues to review IRA funding, “to ensure that programs are focused on supporting farmers and ranchers, not DEIA programs or far-left climate programs.”

The lack of movement troubles Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government — an organization of lawyers based in Washington, D.C., working to “protect and strengthen democratic institutions.”

An environmental policy official from the Biden White House has joined the nonprofit Lawyers for Good Government to help lead the organization's climate change and environmental justice initiatives.

Ryan Hathaway joined Lawyers for Good Government, which coordinates large-scale pro bono and advocacy efforts, as its director of environment and climate justice, the group said Tuesday.

Ryan Hathaway has joined Lawyers for Good Government as director of environment and climate justice. He previously served at the Interior Department and as director of the White House Interagency Council on Environmental Justice.

After a month of President Donald Trump’s time in office, federal officials are beginning to make good on efforts to shrink the federal government. Recent changes include canceled contracts at the U.S. EPA and new announcements regarding workforce reductions. 

Groups representing the public sector have pushed back on some of these changes. Lawyers for Good Government reported receiving more than 230 requests for legal assistance from organizations struggling to access climate and clean energy grants. Lawsuits to ensure EPA program funds are disbursed remain ongoing.

The Trump EPA is trying to cancel $20 billion dollars of funding in what’s known as the “Green Bank”, which provides loans for local clean energy, energy efficiency upgrades and more. Without providing evidence, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin accused the program of being rife with fraud and waste. Jillian Blanchard, Vice President of Climate Change and Environmental Justice at Lawyers for Good Government, joins Hosts Steve Curwood and Jenni Doering to discuss the impacts to nonprofits and private contractors who are unable to access their funds.

President Donald Trump’s promised assault on federal climate policies is sweeping across Washington, state capitals and private industry with a speed that’s surprising even some of his supporters and critics — and could leave an impact on the planet’s future well after his presidency.

“This shock and awe campaign will undo decades of bipartisan and international efforts to curb greenhouse gases and, if left unchecked, will lead to the planet warming far beyond manageable levels,” said Jillian Blanchard, who runs the climate change program at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit watchdog group.

President Donald Trump’s freeze on federal funding shows little sign of thawing for climate, energy and environmental justice programs.

Despite two federal court orders directing the administration to resume distributing federal grants and loans, at least $19 billion in Environmental Protection Agency funding to thousands of state and local governments and nonprofits remained on hold as of Feb. 14, said environmental and legal advocates who are tracking the issue.

An open letter, prepared by American lawyers and spearheaded by Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), addresses critical concerns regarding recent executive actions that potentially threaten constitutional democracy and the rule of law in the United States.

“A lot of the grantees impacted are … rural community farmers in Massachusetts and Arizona, [or] small nonprofits on the ground trying to implement air monitoring programs,” said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit legal advocacy group. “These are entities that don’t have a financial buffer. If they suffer significant delays, they will go under, they will go bankrupt, the programs will not happen.”

At least temporarily staving off what many saw as a crushing blow to U.S. biomedical research, a federal judge yesterday suspended a plan by President Donald Trump’s administration to slash billions of dollars in payments from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that now go to universities to cover the overhead costs of research.

In contrast, the Trump administration is likely to argue “that lean budgets lead to innovation, and that [research institutions] are overly reliant on the nanny state,” says Khadijah Silver, supervising attorney for civil rights at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal policy services. But they disagree with those arguments and are doubtful they will work. “I am wracking my head trying to imagine how [the plaintiffs] would not prevail.”

“Today’s enforcement order is a significant victory that must be heeded in order to restore a broad range of frozen federal funding, from climate initiatives to NIH [National Institutes of Health] research grants,” said Khadijah Silver, a civil rights attorney at Lawyers for Good Government, a network of pro bono attorneys that has opposed the funding freeze.

Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, said that by freezing the grants, the Trump administration had broken a binding contract. “It is illegal to pause legally obligated funds for policy reasons without congressional approval, which is what is happening,” she said.

The administration has not always stated policy reasons though. Instead, in some cases, it has blamed the grinding machinery of government bureaucracy.

State officials, solar and electric vehicle businesses, and government workers told Business Insider that their funding remains frozen following Trump's executive order pausing hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, grants, and tax credits for renewable energy projects under the IRA. And even though several federal judges have temporarily blocked a more sweeping spending pause, uncertainty persists among financial grantees.

Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, said her team has fielded more than 100 inquiries from groups awarded grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department, and the Agriculture Department.

Multiple judges have issued orders blocking the federal funding freeze, but state leaders have reported that they continue to be locked out of the government’s payment system.

Jillian Blanchard, Lawyers for Good Government’s vice president for climate change and environmental justice, said IRA payouts for grant recipients at the Energy and Agriculture departments had also reported being unable to access funds.

Lawyers for Good Government, which provides nonprofits, state and local governments and affected communities with legal resources, has fielded more than 100 calls from people concerned about their funding, the organization said in a press release. 

Jillian Blanchard, the group’s vice president of Climate Change and Environmental Justice, issued a statement: “In spite of the federal judges pausing Trump’s unlawful funding freeze, many organizations remain in real-time disarray. Hundreds are still unable to access the funding they were promised, leaving workers unpaid and critical projects unfinanced, even if the projects are already in progress or had funds already earmarked.”

EPA is not the only agency that has halted payouts from the IRA and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, said Jillian Blanchard, vice president for climate change and environmental justice with Lawyers for Good Government. She said grant recipients at the Agriculture and Energy departments are also reporting that they can't access funds.

“People cannot get into their accounts. They can't access funding. They're waiting on invoices to be paid. No one will call them back,” she said.

Legal experts claim that the Trump administration’s move to choke congressionally appropriated funding from federal agencies is “unconstitutional” and “unauthorized by law.”

“Ninety-five percent of the funding going to EPA has not only been appropriated but is locked in, legally obligated grant funding,” Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice for Lawyers for Good Government, told CBS. “The Constitution does not give the president a line item veto over Congress’s spending decision.”

Many of the Trump administration’s early actions, including the climate and energy spending freeze and erasure of DEI programs, were described in Project 2025, a policy blueprint developed by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.

For Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at the Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit coalition of attorneys, law students, and activists, Project 2025 also hints at an unsettling end goal of the administration’s actions: The Trump administration may be putting grantees in a financial bind that prevents them from meeting their contractual obligations as a pretext for canceling those contracts.

The Trump administration is battling with state attorneys general in court to allow its funding pause plan to continue. But despite a judge issuing a temporary restraining order on the pause, federal employees are being told not to respond to any grantee whose funding is related to the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, according to Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice for Lawyers for Good Government.

“In 2024, Willkie attorneys worked on more than 735 pro bono matters with over 245 new pro bono matters opened in 2024 alone,” the firm crows. A partial list says it all:

“Lawyers for Racial Justice, a long-term initiative through the Lawyers for Good Government, addressing issues such as voting rights, immigration and police reform.

There is a growing concern among grant recipients that if they are unable to receive certain approvals for required plans and goals, they will fall out of compliance and lose funding.

"These actions are unconstitutional and are unauthorized by law," said Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice for Lawyers For Good Government, a nonprofit of thousands of pro-bono lawyers across the country that is working with the unions to help protect government employees and their jobs.