Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced on Tuesday that Colorado has joined a coalition of 21 states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration to limit its attempts to strip away billions of dollars in critical federal funding for states.
Since Jan. 20, at the direction of President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, federal agencies have stripped away thousands of grants they had previously awarded to states and grantees. The administration has slashed this funding by invoking a federal regulation, which provides that agencies may terminate an award of federal funding if it “no longer effectuates ... agency priorities.”
Weiser said those five words have formed the basis for much of the administration’s campaign to terminate critical funding expressly called for by Congress.
“The Trump administration’s decision to invoke a highly questionable regulation for terminating funds based on their changed ‘agency priorities’ is unlawful. We are challenging this action because Colorado and other states accept hundreds of billions of dollars a year to combat violent crime, educate students, protect clean drinking water, conduct lifesaving medical and scientific research, and safeguard public health. All these priorities are at risk of funding cuts based on the misuse of this regulation,” Weiser said.
The government’s decision to invoke this regulation as its basis for slashing billions of dollars of critical funding to states is a departure from past practice, the lawsuit alleges. Historically, federal agencies had not terminated grants merely because the administration changed — and an agency’s priorities shifted — midway during the use of the grant.
Since President Trump took office, however, federal agencies have shifted course and claimed authority to terminate grants with no advance notice. In February, the president issued an executive order formally directing agencies — and the DOGE employees assigned to these agencies — to terminate grants.
The coalition filed today’s lawsuit against the Office of Management and Budget and several federal agencies including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, and State, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Endowment for the Humanities and National Science Foundation.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts seeks a judgment that the challenged regulation does not independently authorize the Trump administration to terminate funding based on changed agency priorities that were identified after the grant was awarded.
Colorado joins Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the state of Pennsylvania in filing this lawsuit.
(Source: Colorado Attorney General’s office.)
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