Shortly before midnight on April 15, United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia, Tanya S. Chutkan dealt Donald Trump’s administration another in a series of lower court losses. The court issued a preliminary injunction that blocked Trump’s effort to claw back $20 billion in federal funding for vital climate and green energy programs and usurp the power of the U.S. Congress, and required the immediate release of the now frozen funds.
Within 24-hours, the Trump administration filed an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court, winning a partial victory which requires that the funds remain frozen while it examines Judge Chutkan’s ruling.
Two weeks earlier, Judge Chutkan told a chastened Trump administration lawyer, “I’ve asked you repeatedly, and you’ve been very candid with me, in saying that you don’t know what the evidence is of waste, fraud, and abuse, and violation of the law, and corruption… Here we are, weeks in, and you’re still unable to proffer me any information.”
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Chutkan is a former public defender and Harvard Law School faculty member. She has served for over a decade on the U.S. District Court for D.C., where she presided over Trump’s federal election subversion case and several January 6 insurrection cases. She controls her courtroom through a combination of congenial humor, incisive questioning, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the law.
She is rarely rattled, but lost her patience with the administration’s lawyer Marcus Sacks as he admitted — yet again — that the government had absolutely no evidence to present supporting its repeated claims of potentially criminal charges. The claims impact dozens of small and large, local and national nonprofit organizations — including some of the most highly-respected and well-known service organizations in the nation — working throughout the country to implement the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the most far-reaching climate and environmental justice law in U.S. history.Editor’s picks
It was the third hearing before the court in the consolidated case of Climate United v. Citibank in which the plaintiffs — including the nonprofits and several state attorneys general — are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the third time the Trump administration failed to proffer any evidence to support its allegations against them.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has tried to seize and ultimately froze $20 billion in congressionally appropriated and contractually obligated funds held in the nonprofits’ bank accounts at Citibank — actions that Georgetown constitutional law professor David Super calls “spectacularly illegal.” The administration has canceled the nonprofits’ grants following a visit to the EPA from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), engaged in a public campaign of harassment and intimidation with the help of a right-wing media smear operation, and launched an FBI investigation into many of the nonprofits’ activities. A veteran U.S. prosecutor was forced to resign, and three temporary restraining orders had already been placed on the administration by the court. Despite it all, the administration came up with nothing to show for its very public assault.
Asked if the government had any new information to offer regarding the reasons for terminating the nonprofits’ grants, Sacks replied, “We do not, Your honor.”
Asked if the government had followed the law when it terminated the grants, Sacks replied, “That’s a complicated question.”
With that astounding admission, I felt the air leave the courtroom as 50 people simultaneously sucked in their breath, stopped moving, and an emotion somewhere between stunned and an angrier, “I told you so!” passed between those gathered before the court.Related Content
Judge Chutkan had already found that the EPA likely violated the law when it terminated these grants. Since the first temporary restraining order issued on March 18, the court has enjoined the administration from canceling the grants and attempting to seize the funds from Citibank. The preliminary injunction requires that those funds be released as Judge Chutkan considers a final ruling on the merits of the case. The D.C. Court of Appeals interjected, rescinding (for now) only that part of the injunction that unfroze the funds, following on the heels of a similar U.S. Supreme Court ruling on April 4.
“If the current president wants to ask Congress to repeal the IRA and the funding that goes along with it, he is free to do so, but no president or federal agency can single-handedly undo an act of Congress, much less in the improper and disgraceful way this president and EPA have tried to go about it,” said Attorney General of Minnesota Keith Ellison in a statement last month. “We are also holding Citibank accountable for improperly complying with the government’s campaign of intimidation and freezing funds that it is required by law to release.”
If Judge Chutkan ultimately rules against the administration, as she seems poised to do, it could be a significant victory in the effort to restrain Trump’s increasingly fascist presidency, regularly obstructing the rule of law and usurping unprecedented authority from the U.S. Congress. Trump is defying the Constitution, refusing to implement laws and court orders he dislikes. He refuses to distribute congressionally appropriated funds — which he would rather give away as tax cuts to the world’s largest corporations and wealthiest individuals, including his biggest political financial supporter and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. He is yet again acting at the behest of the fossil fuel industry in its best efforts to stay relevant long after its time has passed.
This particular scheme involves Trump’s effort to claw back the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The Fund includes billions of dollars to create a national network of lenders, including state and local “green banks,” capable of not only financing projects to reduce climate and air pollution and build the green energy economy, but also ensure that its benefits reach all Americans, including those who have not only borne the brunt of the harms of the fossil fuel industry, but have also been largely shut out the transition away from its products.
Trump does have more cards up his sleeve — namely a majority in the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump scored his first Supreme Court victory of his second term on April 4 in a ruling that may signal the court’s intention to greenlight not only his attacks on federal funding, but also on programs that address racial inequality.
Michele Goodwin, Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy at Georgetown Law School, says that the Supreme Court ruling raises critical concerns about the court’s willingness to intervene on behalf of the president, “When Donald Trump says, jump, is it that this is a court that will say, ‘How high would you like for us to jump, Mr. President?’”
So, What Exactly is a “Green” Bank?
Last June, John Legend could be seen casually walking through the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He wasn’t there for a gig or a social visit. He was on a tour with local nonprofit organization, Jubilee Housing, as part of his HUMANLEVEL Initiative, which aims to raise awareness and encourage public and private stakeholders to invest in solutions to ensure everyone has access to safe, affordable homes.
On March 25, I joined Jubilee Housing on the same tour to learn about its work with the D.C. Green Bank. The D.C. government established the D.C. Green Bank in 2018 to lend money to meet the District’s 100 percent renewable energy sustainability goals by using public funds to mobilize private investment, becoming the first U.S. city with its own Green Bank. The D.C. Green Bank is among the dozens of nonprofits that received a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund award whose accounts are frozen at Citibank. It received a $10 million award in January that was frozen in February. So that I could see first-hand what these and other Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds will ultimately support, I visited a project already well-underway and undertaken with its existing funds. (Representatives of the D.C. Green Bank declined to be interviewed for this article.)
Jubilee Housing is a 50-year-old affordable housing and service organization. “It’s pretty incredible when you think about how much it costs to live anywhere, but D.C. in particular,” communications manager Jennifer Shannon tells me. “We provide deeply affordable housing for individuals and families earning just 30 percent or less of the median,” or about $45,000 or less a year for a family of four in D.C., she explains.
With the help of a $3 million loan from the D.C. Green Bank Jubilee is transforming the King Emmanuel Baptist Church and an adjacent building into deeply affordable and energy-efficient green housing. Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony a few weeks earlier, King Emmanuel Pastor Daryl Bell said, “for the individuals who are coming to this place, you’re putting seeds in their life, seeds of hope.”
“Instead of redlining people out, we green-line them in,” Jim Knight, President and CEO of Jubilee shares later by email.
Carting blue hard hats and fluorescent yellow vests, I join Shannon and several other Jubilee staff to take the short walk from their office over to the church through the heart of Adams Morgan. Inside King Emmanuel, purple velvet pews, a functioning pipe organ, and colorful paintings depicting the life of Jesus are mixed in with piles of insulation recently pulled out of the wall, stacks of color swatches, and the efficient buzz of construction workers. Next-door, the additional 52-unit construction is also well underway, with the smell of fresh paint hitting us as we walk along cement floors passing by drywall, exposed aluminum pipes, and construction plans tapped to the walls.
“I had a gentleman in here earlier today who was getting ready to move into the new building, and he had himself, his wife, three children, and a grandma — six of them. Right now, they have one bedroom, but he’s getting a four-bedroom,” Jordan Shahin, vice president of Jubilee’s Real Estate Development, tells me.
D.C. Green Bank’s loan provides the financing for all of the green components of the construction. These high-performance energy efficiency upgrades reduce electricity costs and carbon emissions. They include energy-efficient appliances and lighting, HVAC heating and cooling systems, high-efficiency insulation, a rooftop solar system, and even a working farm.
Tim Tutt is the Managing Director of Jubilee Farms. He has a warm congeniality and a shock of white hair. Though he doesn’t mention it, I’m not surprised to learn that he holds a Doctor of Ministry with a focus on Public Theology and is an ordained clergyperson, having served as the pastor of several churches.
Tutt explains that the farm will include two large greenhouses growing some 13,000 plants a month year-round. Residents will grow the food, prepare, and serve it in a communal kitchen. For those residents coming home from incarceration (nearly 60 percent of D.C.’s unhoused population was formerly incarcerated), this will be part of workforce reentry training, earning food handler and food prep certification. They’ll eat the food they grow, package some into delivery boxes for other residents of affordable housing, and sell produce at farmers markets and to restaurants to raise income. “When you can feed your neighbor, there’s a sense of camaraderie, there’s a lot of pride,” Tutt says.
“What you need to imagine in here are four big fish tanks with koi swimming around, pooping like we hope they do with abandon,” Tutt says, a huge smile overtaking his face as he gestures to the now-empty basement. The water is pumped out of the fish tanks and up to the plants that grow in towers on the roof with the fish poop serving as fertilizer. No pesticides, combined with locally grown and eaten food, means less fossil fuels burned.
Shahin explains that many banks lack the resources, knowledge, or will to make green investments. “It’s challenging because it costs more, and the cost is all upfront,” he tells me. Add rising interest rates and “these extras are the first thing to go,” Shahin says. “So, it’s great that there’s programs like the D.C. Green Bank and others that are helping us bridge that gap and get over that hump.”
The financing also attracts private investors. “When they see multiple capital sources in the stack — especially the D.C. Green Bank, which is very well known in our area — it makes them more excited to be part of the project,” he adds, and, like any other bank loan, “D.C. Green Bank will get its money back, plus interest,” which it then reinvests into other projects.
“It’s better for our residents, better for the environment, and allows us to recapture some of the savings. The building uses less energy, it’s more efficient, we don’t have as many issues with stormwater management, so we can really benefit,” Shahin adds.
They are also fortunate. Unlike most of the nation, D.C. has an established local Green Bank with experienced green lenders, and Jubilee’s loan was not reliant on its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds.
The staff are understandably reluctant to enter the fray of the political storm surrounding the fund. But Tutt says, “We certainly are glad for the most possible money to come into the pipeline to do this type of work. It fits with our mission, our ethos, our way of caring for the world and our way of being good neighbors. The more federal money, the better.”
A Nation of Green Banks and Lenders
In April 2024, the EPA awarded three nonprofit coalitions a total of $14 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to support existing and establish new green banks, lenders, and projects across the country. Like all IRA grants, at least 40 percent of these funds must reach environmental justice and other underserved communities.
Two newly formed coalitions — Climate United Fund and Power Forward Communities — received $7 billion and $2 billion, respectively. The Coalition for Green Capital, a coalition of local green banks and lenders formed in 2009, received a $5 billion award.
The D.C. Green Bank is a member of the Coalition for Green Capital and, through it, received itsGreenhouse Gas Reduction Fund award.
Andreas Karelas is the executive director of RE-volv, which received a (frozen) $300,000 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund award through the Climate United Fund for pre-development work to help get local solar projects off the ground and finance-ready in traditionally underserved communities, including low-income and communities of color, that have a hard time getting financing for their projects. Karelas has spent the better part of the last 15 years watching a growing divide between those able to benefit from the burgeoning green energy economy and those left out. He sees the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund as “a once-in-a-lifetime, historic opportunity” to bridge the gap.
Fossil fuels are the primary cause of the climate crisis. Nearly seven in ten Americans want the U.S. economy to transition from fossil fuels to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is an important tool to achieve that end.
Asked why it’s now under attack by the Trump administration, Karelas tells me matter-of-factly, “I think the fossil fuel industry is scared.”
Last year, then-candidate Trump brazenly told 20 fossil fuel company executives that for $1 billion in support for his campaign he’d give them lucrative tax and regulatory favors. High among the industry’s priorities is the expansion and continuation of Trump’s 2017 tax law, which will cost trillions of dollars. On his first day in office, amid a slew of executive orders, Trump ordered the immediate halt of the disbursement of all IRA funds — part of a broad, government-wide freeze of federal funding issued despite the Constitution explicitly giving Congress the power to appropriate funding. Lawsuits have resulted in several wins, unlocking funds that are now flowing again, including the IRA’s Solar for All program.
The $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds are unique among EPA programs. Using a model common to the Treasury Department, it designated Citibank as a fiscal agent of the U.S. government and distributed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds to the bank which holds the money in separate accounts opened by the grantees. Citi is one of the world’s leading fossil fuel financiers and, as such, the focus of extensive protest. It is not an IRA awardee and is not a part of the Green Bank effort.
In order to claw back the $20 billion, the Trump administration enlisted the FBI to convince Citibank to freeze its clients’ accounts, sought a court order to seize the funds, and canceled the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund contracts.
Weaponizing Justice: Trump Calls-in the FBI
On February 12, Musk’s DOGE team was reportedly granted unprecedented access to the EPA’s contracting system, as it sought to identify and terminate contracts that ran counter to Trump’s executive orders.
On the same day, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin posted a video on Musk’s platform, X, announcing that he had found “billions of taxpayer dollars parked at a financial institution by the Biden-Harris Administration.” He cited a sting operation by the conservative misinformation operation Project Veritas, which covertly filmed a former EPA staffer, at what looks like a party, describing the agency’s effort to disburse IRA funds at the end of the Biden administration as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”
Zeldin said he was calling for the immediate return of the entire balance and was referring the matter to the Department of Justice. “The days of irresponsibly shoveling boat loads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” he said.
Over the next six weeks, Fox aired at least 56 separate segments discussing the $20 billion climate funding — the vast majority of which “explicitly or implicitly” framed the funding “as fraudulent, wasteful, or abusive,” reports Media Matters.
What unfolded next is now well-documented in numerous press reports and court submissions.
On February 18, veteran U.S. prosecutor Denise Cheung resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., ending a more than two decade-long career at the DOJ. She refused to follow an order by Trump-appointee, acting U.S. Attorney General for D.C., Ed Martin, to force Citibank to freeze the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund bank accounts, citing insufficient evidence of criminal activity.
Martin is a MAGA loyalist and ring-wing activist with no previous prosecutorial experience. He delivered a speech at the U.S. Capitol on the eve of the Jan. 6. attack and has since overseen the dismissal of hundreds of Jan. 6 cases, including one of his own clients. He’s described his team of prosecutors as “President Trump’s lawyers.”
Martin reportedly instructed Cheung to open a criminal investigation and issue grand jury subpoenas based at least in part of the Project Veritas video. Cheung consulted with the FBI but could not determine that any probable cause existed for securing a warrant that could freeze the nonprofits accounts at Citibank. She determined that a “recommendation” letter from the FBI to Citibank to impose a 30-day freeze was a compromise position. When Martin demanded she send a follow-up letter that required Citibank to institute a freeze and Cheung refused, Martin demanded her resignation.
Martin then personally submitted a warrant application to seize the funds from Citibank, but was refused by a U.S. magistrate judge, who cited a lack of evidence. Trump’s former personal attorney and then-Acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove, reportedly asked another U.S. Attorney’s office to launch a grand-jury investigation and pursue the same investigation and warrant application, which they, too, refused to do.
Martin sent letters to at least two awardee organizations ordering the groups to turn over records to the FBI, according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
The apparent attorney-shopping finally landed at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, under the leadership of Hayden O’Byrne. At the request of O’Byrne’s office, the FBI has questioned current and former EPA employees, and has subpoenaed certain Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund recipients to appear in federal court. A representative of one awardee organization tells me that several of its employees have been questioned by the FBI.
O’Byrne was appointed on January 27, the same day he signed a motion to dismiss the Palm Beach classified documents case against two of Trump’s employees. The Miami Herald describes O’Byrne as a member of the conservative Federalist Society and his office as having “lost a half dozen senior career prosecutors… causing a brain drain and leadership void,” with morale sinking “to a new low.”
Upon receiving two letters from the FBI on February 17 that listed 36 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund awardees, Citibank promptly froze all of the accounts. Several of the groups then sued. On the eve of the first court hearing, the EPA canceled their grants, claiming “substantial concerns regarding program integrity, the award process, programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse, and misalignment with the agency’s priorities.”
Democrats in Congress led by Sens. Whitehouse and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) accused the EPA of “lawlessness and a disdain for the Constitution.” They demanded the restoration of all Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (and IRA) funds and investigations into the DOJ’s actions. Markey denounced the administration’s weaponization of the FBI to carry out “a literal bank heist,” declaring its investigation “McCarthyesque” and an “illegal and unethical witch hunt.”
“When the federal government signs on the dotted line that this is a contract, is that something that we and all people globally can rely upon or not?” posits Dale Bryk, Senior Attorney at Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program. “Which goes to the question of do we operate under the rule of law in this country, or don’t we?”
Lasting Harm
The administration’s attacks have forced Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund recipient groups to shutter planned projects, freeze salaries and benefits, and face imminent staff layoffs and even closure, in addition to the potentially crippling reputational harm both to the organizations and the entire project of green banking and finance. Ensnared in Trump’s net are little-known nonprofits; two of the nation’s most well-known service organizations, Habitat for Humanity and United Way; and Democrat Stacey Abrams.
Without this money, “projects won’t get funded,” Kari Groth Swan tells me. Swan is the executive director of the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority, also known as Minnesota’s Green Bank. The bank received a (frozen) $25 million Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund award from the Coalition for Green Capital, which “constitutes 20 percent of our budget,” she says.
Dr. Antony Stately is a member of the Ojibwe and Oneida tribes and CEO of the Native American Community Clinic in south Minneapolis. Stately is awaiting a (frozen) Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund award from Climate United Fund to provide key financing for a new clinic that he plans to build using solar and geothermal energy that will include affordable housing.
He tells me about two large freeways and other local polluting environmental conditions that contribute to the poor health and high risk of his clients, including asthma, lung disease, obesity, and diabetes. The ability to “create a zero-carbon footprint was an instrumental game changer for us,” he says. “It means we wouldn’t be producing more toxins in the environment by creating a building that relied on other forms of fuel.”
Trump and Musk chose Stacey Abrams as the focal point of their public vendetta against the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, repeatedly accusing the Georgia Democrat of improperly directing and profiting off its funds.
Abrams previously worked for Rewiring America, an electrification nonprofit and one of five organizations that formed Project Forward Communities to apply for and win a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund award focused on affordable single-family and multi-family housing. The coalition included Habitat for Humanity, United Way, and two of the nation’s largest Community Development Financial Institutions.
Abrams “has not received a penny of this EPA grant,” according to Tim Mayopoulos, the CEO of Power Forward, and did little more than help identify potential partners for the coalition. She left Rewiring America in December.
Habitat for Humanity and United Way left the coalition in March.
In separate statements, spokespeople for Habitat for Humanity International and United Way Worldwide (UWW) tell me that the decision to leave the coalition was made in order to avert the impact of an unprecedented legal battle with the federal government on the pursuit of their respective core missions. They express their support for the coalition, with Habitat sharing its confidence that “these issues will be resolved favorably,” and UWW praising the coalition partners for “their nonpartisan focus on putting money back in the pockets of everyday Americans through improving home energy efficiency, lowering home energy costs, and boosting local economies.”
An official with Power Forward calls the federal government’s actions both unprecedented and unfounded, putting all grantees in impossible positions. Habitat for Humanity may revisit its role with the coalition if the litigation is resolved favorably, but United Way Worldwide, which received the smallest sub-award of all the partners, advised that it could no longer be involved due to the impact of the litigation on their broader philanthropic efforts.
Sources also confirm that neither Habitat Capital nor Habitat for Humanity International (separate recipients of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund funds) have received direct FBI inquiries related to the fund.
Like many others interviewed for this article, Phil Aroneanu, Chief Strategy and Partnerships Officer at Climate United Fund, says, “We want to get back to work.” He says the largest costs of inaction will be to job creation, clean air and water, and particularly to communities that have long been underserved and overburdened.
Mustafa Santiago Ali spent 24-years at the EPA building and curating the federal government’s work on environmental justice begun under the George H.W. Bush administration. Reflecting on the Trump administration’s focused assault on environmental justice targeting communities of color and lower wealth white communities, he tells me, “We knew that they were going to go after vulnerable people and vulnerable and marginalized communities. It’s short-sighted because we have so many challenges on the environmental and climate front that, if not addressed, will end up costing our country in both dollars and lives. It places a clearer vision on whom they see as sacrificial. They’ve always been clear about who they are.”
Not Our Priority
Despite all of the events that unfolded over the last two and a half months, by the time the Trump administration arrived in Judge Chutkan’s courtroom on April 2, it abandoned its claims of wrongdoing against the nonprofits. “This remarkable concession means that the grounds for termination” set out by the EPA when it canceled the contracts “were not only disparaging, but known by EPA to be false,” wrote plaintiffs in their brief to the court.Trending Stories
Trump has not stopped the FBI and other investigations into the nonprofits, which remain ongoing. But for now, the EPA’s claim whittles down largely to just one: The new administration has different priorities.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to argue — I certainly wouldn’t find that EPA can’t change direction and decide that a particular program no longer suited the agency’s goals. But you have to comply with the law when you do that, and that’s the crux of the issue here,” Judge Chutkan concluded.
