Executive powers: Appeals court allows Trump more authority to cut grants

An appeals court has given President Donald Trump more authority to cut grants, in this case for environmental and agricultural projects.

A ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction that had halted movement in the president’s order to freeze that spending.

The lower court didn’t have authority to issue such a decision, said the ruling written by U.S. Circuit Judge Allison Jones Rushing.

The organizations designated to get grants claimed they had to have continued payment from the government, based on the grants themselves.

But Rushing said those were contractual claims and those must be litigated in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court previously rejected arguments in similar cases in which the Trump administration cut grants, the opinion cited.

According to a report at Courthousenews, the ruling said allegations about statutory and constitutional violations don’t actually change the “contractual” nature of the dispute.

The three-judge opinion was unanimous.

It is one of many legal actions brought against the Trump administration after it reduced, cut, eliminated or otherwise abbreviated funding that had been scheduled to go to a long list of private interests.

It came after Trump, on taking office, froze billions of dollars in grant funding so that his administration would have time to decide if the funding was advancing his priorities or not.

Thirteen community groups and Baltimore, San Diego and Nashville and several other cities sued in 2025.

They claimed the funds were earmarked by Congress and any cancelation violated the Constitution’s separation of powers.

A trial court judge sided with the plaintiffs originally, ordering the money to be spent.

But the Supreme Court twice already had vacated similar orders in grant disputes.

“We see no meaningful distinction between the relief ordered here and the relief ordered in those cases, which the Supreme Court determined was sufficiently contractual to trigger the Tucker Act,” Rushing said.