Democratic officials from 23 states and the District of Columbia will get a Thursday hearing in a case suing to stop the Trump administration from canceling more than $11 billion in public health funding.
The states sued the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday, asking for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order to stop the cuts from taking effect. The officials claimed the administration acted unlawfully, without any analysis of benefits of the health funding or the dire consequences of termination.
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The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Thursday’s hearing will be in front of Judge Mary McElroy, who was appointed by President Trump in 2019.
HHS said the funds, totaling $11.4 billion, were primarily used for COVID-19 response including testing, vaccination and hiring community health workers. Since the pandemic was over, HHS said the funds would be rescinded.
The administration also canceled about $1 billion in grants awarded by coronavirus relief legislation and allocated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the department said last week in a statement.
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The lawsuit claims that explanation “is nonsensical” and says the administration gave “no other facts supporting termination. They contain no acknowledgment of the public health purposes for which the grants actually have been and are being used, much less an explanation of why those uses are no longer necessary.”
State and local health department leaders said the money was already in their hands. Even though the grants were initially authorized by COVID relief legislation, they were allowed to be used for non-COVID priorities, including responding to the measles outbreak in Texas.
The lawsuit argues the federal government does not have the legal authority to unilaterally rescind funding it already allocated, particularly when states have built essential health programs around the commitments.
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For instance, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state stands to lose more than $972 million. In New York, more than $400 million in critical funding has been terminated, and North Carolina officials estimated the state could lose $230 million, while Massachusetts has estimated it could lose more than $100 million.
State and local officials have said the decision to take away funding they were counting on will make it even harder for them to continue to fight infectious disease outbreaks, fund substance use disorder support programs and address other concerns.
