Maine joins 23 other states to sue Trump administration for cutting health grants
Maine and 23 other states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Trump administration's U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for cutting nearly $11 billion in critical public health grants to the states.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey says the grant terminations, which came with no warning or legally valid explanation, have quickly caused chaos for state health agencies that continue to rely on the funds for a wide range of public health needs such as infectious disease management, fortifying emergency preparedness, providing mental health and substance abuse services, and modernizing public health infrastructure.
According to Frey, Maine stands to lose more than $91 million from these cancellations by HHS. If the funding is not restored, important state public health programs and initiatives will have to be dissolved or disbanded, including programming impacting vaccine distribution and disease monitoring and response and rural health services, among others.
Frey says the HHS cuts threaten the urgent public health needs of states around the country at a time when emerging disease threats—such as measles and bird flu—are on the rise.
According to Frey, Congress authorized and appropriated new and increased funding for these grants in COVID-19-related legislation to support critical public health needs.
Many of the grants are from specific programs created by Congress, such as block grants to states for mental health and substance abuse and addiction services.
"Yet, with no legal authority or explanation, Secretary Kennedy’s HHS agencies on March 24 arbitrarily terminated these grants “for cause” effective immediately claiming that the pandemic is over and the grants are no longer necessary," Frey said.
In their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, the coalition of attorneys general claim the mass terminations violate federal law because the end of the pandemic is not a “for cause” basis for ending the grants, especially since none of the appropriated funds are tied to the end of the pandemic which occurred more than a year ago. Frey states HHS’ position, up until a few days ago, was that the end of the pandemic did not affect the availability of these grant funds.
"Moreover, for some of the grants, termination 'for cause' is not a permissible basis for termination, yet the federal government unlawfully terminated them," Frey said.
With this lawsuit, Attorney General Frey and the coalition are seeking a temporary restraining order to invalidate Secretary Kennedy’s and HHS’ mass grant terminations in the suing states, arguing that the actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act. The states are also asking the court to prevent HHS from maintaining or reinstating the terminations and any agency actions implementing them.
The suit is led by Attorney General Phil Weiser of Colorado, Attorney General Rob Bonta of California, Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Attorney General Peter Neronha of Rhode Island, and Attorney General Nick Brown of Washington. In addition to Maine, they are joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and Oregon, and Wisconsin, and the Governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
