A federal judge in Rhode Island will temporarily block the Trump administration from cutting $11 billion in public health grants to the states, including nearly $160 million that Washington was due to get.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, said Thursday that she plans to grant the court order sought by Washington and 22 other states, plus the District of Columbia.
“They make a case, a strong case, for the fact that they will succeed on the merits, so I’m going to grant the temporary restraining order,” said McElroy, who plans to issue a written ruling later.
The lawsuit, filed by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and 23 other state attorneys general, alleges that the Trump administration terminated the funding — which had been approved by Congress — with no warning or legally valid explanation, throwing state health agencies into chaos.
“This administration’s attacks on public health are not over, but today’s order should give Washingtonians confidence that programs that prevent the spread of infectious diseases, support mental health and get people out of substance abuse will continue to be funded for now,” Brown said in a prepared statement Thursday evening.
In Washington, the $160 million is slated to fund disease tracking and response, immunization, substance abuse treatment and mental health services. In King County alone, the cuts would mean the loss of 45 community health workers, the director of the local public health department said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Kane, representing the federal government, objected to the temporary restraining order in court. But she said she was limited in the argument she could make against it, adding that her office was unable to thoroughly review the thousands of documents under the time limitation.
The funding was initially passed as part of COVID-19-related legislation, though it has since been used more broadly for disease prevention and other health care efforts. Last week, the federal Department of Health and Human Services wrote that it was rescinding any remaining funding because, “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and H.H.S. will no longer waste billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic.”
Brown’s lawsuit argues Congress was capable of making the funding contingent on the pandemic but declined to do so. None of the funds, passed by Congress, were tied to the end of the pandemic, Brown writes.
The Trump administration’s rationale for canceling the grants contains “no acknowledgment of the public health purposes for which the grants actually have and are being used, much less an explanation of why those uses are no longer necessary,” the lawsuit says. “There is no indication that Congress intended Defendants to rely on the pandemic being ‘over’ as a reason to rescind public health grants.”
Brown has sued the Trump administration at least eight times since both took office in January. He has secured at least preliminary victories in six of those cases.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
#Judge #blocks #Trumps #11B #health #cuts #states
