Christina Lee, Head Photography Editor

Last week, New Haven filed its second lawsuit against President Donald Trump, alleging that recent funding freezes to environmental and climate projects are “illegal and unconstitutional.”

According to the lawsuit, which also names Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency, the Environmental Protection Agency and other members of the Trump administration as defendants, New Haven has received at least three grants totaling more than $30 million from the Environmental Protection Agency in the last year through the Inflation Reduction Act. Since February, however, the city has been unable to consistently access the funds, which finance salaries and operations that are already ongoing, the complaint says.

“It is wrong for cities and organizations to have to be left holding the bank when we have a federal government that, with a binding partnership, is turning their back on our cities,” Mayor Justin Elicker said in a press conference announcing New Haven’s participation in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday — in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina — by New Haven, Baltimore, Columbus, Madison, Nashville, San Diego and eleven nonprofit organizations.

It continues Elicker’s aggressive posture toward Trump, following a February lawsuit filed against the Trump administration’s policies toward sanctuary cities, as well as the city’s signing of an amicus brief supporting lawsuits against cuts to federal research funding.

New Haven was again represented in the new lawsuit by Public Rights Project, a California-based legal organization that has assisted liberal state and local governments in taking on the Trump administration.

In both lawsuits New Haven has joined against recent federal actions, it has been the only New England city among the plaintiffs. Elicker told the News last month that he has tried to rally more mayors to challenge Trump in court, but that many have instead sought to avoid drawing the president’s ire. There is no indication to date that New Haven’s legal moves against the federal government have yielded any adverse impacts or targeting.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin presented the grant freeze as a crackdown on wasteful spending, a move to better steward taxpayer money, promising that his agency would not be “a frivolous spender in the name of ‘climate equity.’”

“The days of throwing gold bars off the Titanic are over. The well documented incidents of misconduct, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud raise significant concerns and pose unacceptable risk,” Zeldin said. He referred a few examples of the “misconduct” to EPA Acting Inspector General Nicole Murley, although none of the examples pointed to New Haven specifically. 

New Haven Director of Climate and Sustainability Steve Winter countered, at the City Hall press conference, that the funds are strictly regulated.

Recent executive orders from Trump, Elicker said, “lawfully defy congressional mandates by freezing, disrupting, and terminating funds that Congress has directed and appropriated to specific grant programs.” 

Many of these grants, the mayor explained, are “reimbursable,” meaning that New Haven spends funds for grant-approved projects with the expectation that it will be reimbursed by the federal government. Now that these funds are currently suspended, the city is in an “impossible situation” because it does not know whether it would get reimbursed should it continue its operations that rely on federal grant financing.

In July 2024, the city was awarded $1 million to help residents switch from heating oil to heat pumps and from gas stoves to induction stoves, to reduce heating costs and air pollution. 

Winter, also a state representative, explained that the city has already begun the project. For now, he explained, the city can keep directing residents to state energy efficiency programs, but it can no longer promise to provide heat pumps or induction stoves while the grant funds are in limbo.

Community Action Agency of New Haven, one of the organizations conducted by the city for the project, has already hired a full-time staffer to help with the implementation of this program, who will have to be laid off if grant funding remains suspended, the lawsuit says. Other partner organizations have billed New Haven for project-related staff time, but without reimbursement, the city cannot continue covering these costs unless funding is unfrozen.

Also in July 2024, New Haven received $9.5 million to fund a shared geothermal heat pump system for Union Train Station and a nearby 1000-unit mixed-income New Haven Housing Authority development. This heat system would provide the lowest possible cost for heating and cooling for both buildings, while also reducing their air pollution and carbon emissions, Winter said.

While the funds for that grant were open as of Thursday’s press conference, Winter explained that they had been frequently “frozen and unfrozen,” making the city’s ability to access the money in the future uncertain. Before moving forward with a design contract with an engineering firm, New Haven wants to be certain that it will be able to receive reimbursement from the federal government.

Most recently, in January, New Haven received $20 million to “improve climate resiliency and quality of life for residents of 14 disadvantaged neighborhoods.” 

The city planned to use this funding to address climate issues, as well as help residents access affordable housing and public transportation and reduce their energy bills. Winter added that funds would also go towards bike lane improvements and community gardens.

“To have that funding inaccessible as we want to begin work on that whole menu of projects really hamstrings us,” Winter said. “We really can’t get started with that work and help our residents in a meaningful way on a day-to-day basis if we don’t have certainty that we can hire people to get this project off the ground.”

Last week’s lawsuit came days after Elicker, Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Richard Blumenthal denounced the Trump administration’s termination of a $500,000 EPA grant to a charter school in New Haven, resulting in immediate loss of employment for over 70 local youth participating in the workforce development program and school staff.

“I was disheartened and thrown off by the sudden cuts in the funding,” Suprya Sarkar, a high school student activist in New Haven Climate Movement, wrote to the News. “The city has been working so hard to implement programs, infrastructures, and community networks that focus on sustainability, so pausing these outlets for change is harmful for the community as a whole.”

Sarkar is grateful that local governments are making an effort to protect citizens from climate change and feels that New Haven is showing that it does not want to regress in combating climate issues. 

EPA administrator Zeldin terminated $20 billion in grant agreements on March 11, 2025.