Press Release  AG Campbell Joins Multistate Lawsuit Challenging Trump Administration's Illegal Attempts to Terminate Critical Federal Funding for States

BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell today joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in suing the Trump Administration over its unprecedented and unlawful attempts to invoke a single provision – known as the “agency priorities clause” -- buried in the federal regulations to strip away billions of dollars in critical federal funding for states and other grantees. The lawsuit seeks to limit the Trump Administration’s use of this regulation to indiscriminately and illegally terminate critical funding for combating violent crime, educating students, protecting clean drinking water, conducting lifesaving medical and scientific research, safeguarding public health, addressing food insecurity, and much more.

“We cannot stand idly by while this President continues to launch unprecedented, unlawful attacks on Massachusetts’ residents, institutions, and economy,” said AG Campbell. Congress controls the power of the purse and appropriates funds to ensure states have adequate resources to protect our residents’ safety and health while growing our economies. Today’s lawsuit seeks broad and forward-looking relief to stop this administration’s reckless and unlawful funding cuts.”

Since January 20, at the direction of President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), federal agencies have stripped away thousands of grants they had previously awarded to states and other grantees. The Trump Administration has slashed this critical federal funding by invoking a single clause in the federal regulations of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which provides that agencies may terminate an award of federal funding if it “no longer effectuates ... agency priorities.”  Those five words have formed the basis for much of the Trump Administration’s indiscriminate campaign to unlawfully terminate critical funding expressly authorized by Congress and awarded to states.  In Massachusetts, the Trump Administration’s terminations have already cut off critical federal funding for programs that directly serve vulnerable communities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture terminated a $11 million cooperative agreement with the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, which had supported 31 projects connecting nearly 500 local farmers and producers to over 700 food distribution sites statewide, providing fresh, healthy food to residents across the Commonwealth. Similarly, the Environmental Protection Agency terminated a $1 million grant awarded to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to reduce asthma triggers in low-income communities in Springfield, Holyoke, and Chicopee—areas with high rates of asthma due to aging housing stock. Both terminations cited the Administration’s claim that these programs no longer aligned with shifting agency priorities, despite their ongoing importance to public health, food security, and community well-being.

As today’s lawsuit explains, the Trump Administration’s decision to invoke this regulation as its basis for slashing billions of dollars of critical funding to states is a dramatic departure from past practice. Before the Trump Administration, federal agencies had not terminated grants on a whim merely because the agency’s priorities shifted midway during the use of the grant. 

However, since President Trump took office, federal agencies have shifted course and claimed unfettered authority to terminate grants on a whim and with no advance notice. In February, President Trump issued an executive order formally directing agencies—and the DOGE employees assigned to these agencies—to terminate grants en masse. And federal agencies have carried out that directive by invoking the regulation as grounds for terminating entire programs based on a purported shift in agency priorities, without any notice to the states and in conflict with the federal statutes appropriating funding for these programs.

The lawsuit argues that the Trump Administration’s decision to invoke the regulation to terminate grants based on their changed agency priorities is unlawful. The lawsuit explains that the regulation does not authorize federal agencies to terminate grants based on changes in agency preferences that occur after a grant is awarded. The lawsuit also notes the importance of obtaining clarity regarding the scope of this regulation, as states collectively accept hundreds of billions of dollars a year that are at risk of termination pursuant to this regulation. 

The coalition is filing today’s lawsuit against OMB and a number of federal agencies that have unlawfully relied on this regulation to collectively slash billions of dollars in federal funding to states: the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, and State, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Science Foundation.

The coalition is filing suit in the District of Massachusetts and seeking a declaratory judgment that the OMB regulation and Defendants’ regulations do not independently authorize the Trump Administration to terminate funding based on agency priorities that were identified after the grant was awarded. The coalition is also seeking to vacate the Trump Administration’s decision—reflected in its uniform practice across all of the Defendant agencies—to invoke the regulation as grounds for terminating billions of dollars of federal funding based on purported changes in agency priorities.

Attorney General Campbell is joined in filing this lawsuit by the Attorneys General of: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

###