Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit Wednesday, claiming that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has engaged in a “highly irregular and illegal campaign” against state green banks by blocking funds allocated by Congress.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, also includes attorneys general from California, Illinois, and Maine, and names Citibank as a defendant for allegedly being pressured by the EPA to freeze funds intended for state green banks, which provide financing for pollution-reduction initiatives.
The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction to compel both the EPA and Citibank to release the funds. An EPA spokesperson declined to comment on the pending litigation, and Citibank was unavailable for immediate comment.
In a press release announcing the lawsuit, Ellison stated that he was leading the effort to oppose what he called “another illegal power grab by the Trump administration.” The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 authorized billions of dollars to support green lending agencies. However, when former President Donald Trump returned to office in January, he issued an executive order freezing the funds authorized by the bill.
The executive order argued that the U.S. is “blessed with an abundance of energy and natural resources that have historically powered our nation’s economic prosperity” and claimed that “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” had hindered resource development, electricity generation, job creation, and led to high energy costs.
Ellison and the other attorneys general argue that Trump’s executive order is unlawful. He emphasized that while the current president could ask Congress to repeal the act and its funding, no president or federal agency can unilaterally undo a law passed by Congress. Ellison also called out Citibank for complying with the government’s actions, holding it accountable for freezing the funds that should legally be released.
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