Federal Judge grants preliminary injunction to pause $11 billion cuts in public health funding

(The Center Square) - A federal judge Friday put an indefinite freeze on the Trump administration’s plan to terminate $11 billion in public health funding.

The U.S. District Court for Rhode Island granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed April 1 by the District of Columbia and 23 states, including California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington. The court on April 3 granted a temporary restraining order. Preliminary injunctions can last longer, until the court says otherwise.

In her ruling Friday, Judge Mary McElroy determined the federal government “clearly usurped Congress’s authority to spend and allocate funds” when it suddenly terminated $11 billion of public health grants on March 24. The lawsuit contends the grants were terminated with no advance notice.

The federal grants addressed everything from infectious disease outbreaks to immunization and mental and substance abuse services, McElroy said. “Without the funds, these programs could not continue.”

Congress instructed the Health and Human Services Department to spend various amounts of money in certain ways, McEloy said. She added Congress didn’t give the department the power to decide against spending the money.

"If Congress intended to charge HHS with such a determination, it would have done so at some point — like in June 2023, when it went line-by-line and rescinded some COVID-era funding but left other funding in place," McElroy wrote in her ruling. She added states are likely to succeed in court on their argument supporting Congress on this point.

“The Court presumes that ‘Congress intends to make policy decisions itself’ rather than leaving those decisions to agencies,” McEloy said, citing the 2022 precedent West Virginia v. EPA. She cited other cases as well.

California co-led the coalition that is suing the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and its leader, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta Friday praised the preliminary injunction and said the state would have lost more than $972 million if the cuts weren’t challenged.

“Critically, the court also noted that we are likely to succeed on the merits of our claims,” Bonta said in a news release.

Besides California, the other states filing the suit are Colorado, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Wisconsin. Plaintiffs also include the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.