Sacramento joins lawsuit to restore climate justice grants ended by Trump’s EPA
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- Sacramento joined a nationwide lawsuit over termination of federal climate grants.
- The city planned to use the grant funds to expand its tree canopy under a 2045 goal.
- The class-action lawsuit seeks to restore funding for 350 projects across the United States.
Sacramento joined a nationwide class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to terminate billions of dollars in federal climate justice grants, which would’ve included funding for an expansion of the tree canopy in California’s capital city.
City officials on Wednesday announced Sacramento had joined the lawsuit filed by Earthjustice, Southern Environmental Law Center, Public Rights Project and Lawyers for Good Government.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental and Climate Justice grants, authorized by Congress, provided $3 billion to help communities across the country combat environmental degradation and prepare for the impacts of climate change.
President Donald Trump’s EPA this year decided to terminate those grants, jeopardizing community projects aimed at combating pollution, climate change and environmental inequity, Sacramento officials said.
“The Environmental Protection Agency’s unilateral termination of the City of Sacramento’s grant is inexplicable,” City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood said in a news release. “The city joined this litigation to ensure the Trump Administration honors its commitments because every day that goes by without access to the grant is one less day of tree growth and tree canopy – the impacts of which will be felt for generations to come.”
The city’s plan was to use the climate justice grant funds to expand Sacramento’s tree canopy. City officials said the funding aligned with Sacramento’s Urban Forest Plan, which calls for increasing the citywide tree canopy from 19% to 35% by 2045.
Other projects throughout the country that would be funded by the federal grants included replacing lead pipes to building pollution alert systems, job training in clean energy and community-driven resilience strategies.
The lawsuit seeks class certification on behalf of all 350 awardees whose grants were abruptly ended. The coalition of organizations joining the lawsuit includes nonprofits, tribes and local governments from regions throughout the United States.
