By MICHAEL PHILLIS, Associated Press

A federal judge says some nonprofits awarded billions for a so-called green bank to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects cannot have their contracts scrapped and must have access to some of the frozen money. The ruling is a defeat for President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, which argues the program is rife with financial mismanagement.

The order late Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan “gives us a chance to breathe after the EPA unlawfully — and without due process — terminated our awards and blocked access to funds that were appropriated by Congress and legally obligated,” said Climate United CEO Beth Bafford.

The lawsuit by Climate United Fund and other groups contends that the EPA, Administrator Lee Zeldin and Citibank, which held the grant money, illegally blocked the funds awarded last year and had jeopardized the organizations’ operations.

Related Articles

Trump says he’s joining Bessent and Lutnick for trade negotiations with Japanese at the White House

RFK Jr.’s mixed message about the measles outbreaks draws criticism from health officials

California will sue to stop Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs

Review of decision not to award Space Command to Alabama inconclusive, with Trump reversal expected

Texas judge throws out rule that would have capped credit card late fees

Chutkan said Citibank must provide the money that was due to the nonprofits before the EPA had frozen their accounts in mid-February. The EPA immediately appealed.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, commonly referred to as a “green bank,” was authorized by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under Democratic President Joe Biden. Its goals run counter to the Trump administration’s opposition to climate-friendly policies and its embrace of fossil fuels. Zeldin quickly made the bank a target, characterizing the $20 billion in grants as a “gold bar” scheme marred by conflicts of interest and potential fraud.

A federal prosecutor resigned after being asked to open a criminal investigation, saying there was not enough evidence to move ahead. The FBI and Treasury Department, in coordination with the EPA, pressured Citibank to freeze the grants, which it did, according to the nonprofits.

Last month, Zeldin announced the termination of the grants, saying “well documented incidents of misconduct, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud raise significant concerns and pose unacceptable risk.”

Chutkan paused that move, saying the government provided no significant evidence of wrongdoing. But the Republican administration, in a recent filing, asserted it was allowed to end the contracts based on oversight concerns and shifting priorities.

“EPA’s new admission that it ‘did not terminate for Plaintiffs’ noncompliance’ … confirms that EPA’s invocation of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ was arbitrary and pretextual” the nonprofits said in a court filing.

To the government, the case is “just a run-of-the-mill (albeit large) contract dispute.”

That argument is important because it could move the case to a different court that can only award a lump sum and not force the government to keep the grants in place.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Luck was in the air in Woodbury as someone recently won more than $1 million from the Gopher 5.

The golden ticket was sold at Kwik Trip on City Centre Drive. According to Minnesota Lottery, the Woodbury Kwik Trip will earn a $5,000 bonus for selling the ticket. The winning numbers drawn Wednesday, April 9, were 5-14-28-39-43 and the total prize was a $1,015,162 jackpot.

Gopher 5 tickets cost $1 to play. Jackpots start at $100,000 and grow until won, according to Minnesota Lottery.

Though drawings are held for the Gopher 5 every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the odds of winning the jackpot are one in 1,533,939, according to Minnesota Lottery.

Prizes of more than $50,000 are to be claimed in person at Minnesota Lottery headquarters in Roseville. The winning Woodbury Gopher 5 ticket was anonymously claimed Tuesday, according to Minnesota Lottery Public Affairs Director Joan Schimml.

Related Articles

Open house set for proposed Maplewood-Woodbury-Afton trail

MN robotics teams preparing to compete in the big one: FIRST Championship

Work underway on Woodbury’s new water treatment plant; traffic impacts expected

Woodbury launches a new visitors bureau and website

Stillwater schools make leadership changes

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, ERIC TUCKER and PATRICK WHITTLE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.

The lawsuit follows weeks of feuding between the Republican administration and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills that has led to threats to cut off crucial federal funding and a clash at the White House when she told President Donald Trump: “We’ll see you in court.”

Related Articles

Trump says he’s joining Bessent and Lutnick for trade negotiations with Japanese at the White House

RFK Jr.’s mixed message about the measles outbreaks draws criticism from health officials

California will sue to stop Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs

Review of decision not to award Space Command to Alabama inconclusive, with Trump reversal expected

Texas judge throws out rule that would have capped credit card late fees

The political overtones of the moment were clear, with Attorney General Pam Bondi — and several athletes who joined her on stage at the Justice Department — citing the matter as a priority for Trump. Bondi said other states, including Minnesota and California, could be sued as well.

“This has been a huge issue for him,” Bondi said of the president. “Pretty simple, girls play in girls sports, boys play in boys sports. Women play in women’s sports, men play in men’s sports.”

Trump campaigned against the participation of transgender athletes in sports in his 2024 race. As president, he has signed executive orders to do that and to use a rigid definition of the sexes, rather than gender, for federal government purposes. The orders are being challenged in court.

Trump’s departments of Education and Health and Human Services have said Maine’s education agency is violating the federal Title IX antidiscrimination law by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls teams. The Justice Department is asking the court to order the state to direct all schools to prohibit the participation of males in athletic competition designated for females.

Maine officials have refused to agree with a settlement that would have banned transgender students from sports, arguing that the law does not prevent schools from letting transgender athletes participate. Mills said Wednesday that the lawsuit was expected and is part of a pressure campaign by Washington to force Maine to ignore its own human rights laws.

“This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law,” Mills said in a statement.

FILE – Democratic Gov. Janet Mills delivers her State of the State address, Jan. 30, 2024, at the State House in Augusta, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

The government’s complaint cites as examples the case of a biological boy who in February won first place in pole vault at Maine’s indoor track and field meet and a biological male who last year began competing in female cross country races in the state and placed first in the women’s 5K.

The lawsuit reflects a stark philosophical turnabout from the position on gender identity issues taken during Democratic administrations.

Under President Joe Biden, the government tried to extend civil rights policies to protect transgender people. In 2016, the Justice Department, then led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, sued North Carolina over a law that required transgender people to use public restrooms and showers that corresponded the gender on their birth certificate.

Trump signed an executive order in February, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that gave federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with his administration’s interpretation of “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.

Bondi was joined at the news conference by former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has emerged as a public face of the opposition to transgender athletes. Gaines tied with a transgender athlete for fifth place in a 2022 NCAA championship and has testified before lawmakers across the country on the issue. She and others frame the issue as women’s rights.

During a February meeting with governors, Trump threatened to pull federal funding from Maine if the state did not comply with his executive order. Mills responded: “We’ll see you in court.”

Maine sued the administration this month after the Department of Agriculture said it was pausing some money for the state’s educational programs because of what the administration contended was Maine’s failure to comply with the Title IX law. A federal judge on Friday ordered the administration to unfreeze funds intended for a Maine child nutrition program.

Questions over the rights of transgender people have become a major political issue in the past five years.

Twenty-six states have laws or policies barring transgender girls from girls school sports. GOP-controlled states have also been banning gender-affirming health care for transgender minors and restricting bathroom use in schools and sometimes other public buildings.

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Dismissing the Queensboro Renewable Express would be an enormous mistake by the state in the face of Trump administration delays in renewable energy development.

The Ravenswood Generating Station has long contributed to excessive pollution in western Queens. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

In 1960, deep in the fight for civil rights, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached the virtue of persistence: “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving.” 

Like then, our generation’s campaign for environmental justice — the notion that our most vulnerable communities should not bear a disproportionate burden from pollution — requires perseverance. With much grit, organizations like NAACP and others have made steady progress, improving the quality of air, water, and life for millions of the most vulnerable New Yorkers. 

But today, that progress is in jeopardy. 

After decades of perseverance from organizations like mine, the new federal administration is rolling back hard-fought environmental protections. The president is pushing fossil fuels instead of the renewable energy that keeps my community — and the entire planet — safe. 

We need state and local leaders to lead and protect our most vulnerable, such as the residents of the Ravenswood and Queensbridge houses in western Queens. This community is known as “asthma alley” because it bears the burden of most of New York’s fossil-fired power generation. New York’s landmark climate and environmental justice legislation — the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act — sought to replace that power generation with renewables. The first project seeking state permits to do so is the Queensboro Renewable Express, which will, once built, deliver enough clean energy from offshore wind to power more than two million New York homes and enable the city’s largest power plant to retire fossil-fired generation, reducing local emissions. 

Unfortunately, the state agency reviewing the Queensboro Renewable Express is now questioning whether the project is needed due to the Trump administration’s delay in renewable energy development. Dismissing this important project and others like it would be an enormous mistake and waste precious time. It would also send a devastating message to other developers, signaling New York’s retreat in the face of federal opposition. 

By dismissing the project, the state wouldn’t just be sentencing western Queens to more years of health-harming pollution but also dismissing a critical job creator for the community. Black and Brown community members who have long borne the health and economic burdens of fossil fuel-fired power plants deserve an opportunity to participate in the clean energy transition through new, good-paying union jobs in the expanding renewable energy sector.

This project is not just about reducing emissions; it’s about delivering economic and environmental justice and empowering impacted communities suffering from past public policy decisions. It is no coincidence that this land use was placed in a low-income area or that public housing was placed near an objectionable land use. By comparison, there are no major power plants in higher-income neighborhoods in Queens. 

This project directs New York resources on the right side of history. That’s why Gov. Hochul must continue to stand up to President Trump and not allow New York to squander this critical time. The state must continue reviewing and permitting vital projects like the Queensboro Renewable Express so New York is prepared to hit the ground running and protect impacted communities when this dark chapter ends — and it will end. When sanity and science return to federal energy policy, New York must have shovel-ready projects like the Queensboro Renewable Express ready to go. 

Yes, we are under attack in the fight for environmental justice. But New York must stand firm and, in the face of this assault, boldly declare: “We will keep moving.” 

Natalie M. Patasaw is the Environmental Justice Chair of the NYS NAACP Conference, which has worked to advance the agenda for equality for more than 85 years.

The post Opinion: New York Must Keep Moving in the Fight for Environmental Justice appeared first on City Limits.