Twenty billion dollars in Biden-era green bank grants remain frozen two months after a full federal appeals court blocked the Trump EPA from ending the awards, and the money stays locked while the administration prepares a Supreme Court fight.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voted 6, 4 on Aug. 4 to uphold an order stopping the Environmental Protection Agency from terminating Inflation Reduction Act grants. Days later the court agreed to keep the funds frozen. A stay pauses the payout requirement through Nov. 9 and can extend if a petition is filed. Grantees did not oppose that stay.
Daily Caller News Foundation reporting describes the continued freeze and the administration’s plan to take the dispute higher. The legal stakes center on whether EPA may terminate the awards and where grantees must press their claims.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin canceled the grants in March 2025. The agency cited “well documented concerns about self-dealing and conflicts of interest.” Climate United, the largest recipient, had been awarded about $7 billion.
In September 2025 a three-judge D.C. Circuit panel sided with EPA by a 2, 1 vote. The panel said the grantees’ main claims were “essentially contractual” and belonged in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The full court later took a different path. On Aug. 4 it voted 6, 4 to keep the block on termination in place. The majority found the agency “likely contravened the IRA’s mandatory appropriation.” Four judges in the minority would have lifted part of the order and pointed to Congress’s repeal of the creating section in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
After the full-court action, the court granted the administration’s request to keep the money frozen while it prepares a Supreme Court challenge. The stay holds the payout piece of the order through Nov. 9 and stretches further if a petition is filed.
Climate United said after the August ruling that, despite “false allegations and misinformation, there remains no legal basis for terminating our grant award.” The group has been unable to follow through on stated plans that included U.S.-built electric trucks, efficiency and clean energy upgrades, and loans to Native American-led projects.
Green banks kept some lending going without the federal money. Dan Adler, executive director of U.S. Green Bank 50, a coalition of 56 green banks and other organizations, told Canary Media, “We’re making a virtue out of a necessity.” The coalition reported that green banks financed $12.4 billion in projects in 2024 and 2025, with about $11 billion of that coming from private investors.
An Energy Innovation analysis from May 2025 projected the program could drive $65.5 billion in total investment and $52 billion in consumer energy cost savings over 20 years. Those figures remain contested in the public fight over the awards.
Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, urged the high court to step in.
"The Supreme Court should absolutely take this case."
Isaac told the Daily Caller News Foundation the Biden administration “rushed $20 billion in taxpayer money into the hands of politically connected organizations, creating what looks like a taxpayer-funded slush fund for its climate agenda.” He added that the claim government-funded green banks lower energy costs is “laughable,” and that taking money from taxpayers, running it through middlemen, and subsidizing technologies that struggle in the market does not make energy more affordable. “Affordability comes from abundant, reliable energy and competition, not government handouts to politically favored organizations.” He said the Court has a chance to address executive oversight of the grants and “protect taxpayers from being treated like an unlimited ATM for the Democrats’ agenda.”
Mark Drajem, media director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, took the opposite view. He said that “at a time when so many Americans are struggling to afford skyrocketing utility bills, the Trump administration is refusing to implement this program, which would lower bills for those who most need the help.” He called the freeze “a cruel blow from this administration made worse by the fact that the president had pledged to cut energy bills.” Drajem argued the economic costs “go far beyond the $20 billion, because these funds would unlock billions of dollars more in private investments,” and pressed the administration to “end its attack on affordable energy and get these funds out to the homeowners and renters who desperately need them.” He warned that continued court fighting would show the administration “doesn’t care about lowering people’s energy costs.”
Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, criticized the original spend-out. “It was painful to see EPA staffers talk about getting grants out the door like they were throwing gold bars off the Titanic, but that’s the predictable result when the government spends your money.” Fisher said resource-neutral permitting reform is superior to subsidies and grants because it advances projects without the government picking winners and losers and creating wasteful spending. With permitting reform, he said, builders can better trust that rules will not change every four years.
Sens. Ed Markey, Chris Van Hollen, and Sheldon Whitehouse, joined by Rep. Debbie Dingell, issued a joint statement on Aug. 4 praising the full-court action. They said it stopped the Trump administration’s “brazen attempt to prevent those projects, seize these funds, and break the law in the process.”
Offices for Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Rep. Frank Pallone did not immediately respond to requests for comment. EPA also did not immediately respond and, after the ruling, said it was reviewing next steps. Climate United likewise did not immediately respond to a comment request.
Separately, two federal district courts in September vacated EPA’s termination of the distinct $7 billion Solar for All program under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law has tracked the green bank stay’s scope through Nov. 9 and related updates.
Investigators and courts will need to settle whether the termination stands, whether the claims belong in the Court of Federal Claims, and how the congressional repeal cited by the minority interacts with the IRA’s mandatory appropriation language the majority invoked. Authorities have not publicly confirmed in the available record whether a Supreme Court petition has already been filed as of the Oct. 12 report, only that the administration is preparing that fight.
The stay’s design is straightforward. It pauses the portion of the order that would require payout through Nov. 9. If a petition is filed, the pause can continue until the Supreme Court acts. Grantees did not oppose that arrangement, so the money remains offline while the legal path is sorted.
The core dispute is now institutional. One side frames the awards as a binding appropriation the executive cannot cancel at will. The other frames them as grants riddled with self-dealing risks and better treated as contractual matters in the claims court, especially after Congress repealed the creating section. The D.C. Circuit majority sided with the appropriation reading for now. The administration is preparing to test that result at the highest court.
Isaac’s call for review rests on oversight and fiscal control. Fisher’s critique targets the spend-out culture itself and points to permitting reform as a cleaner path. Drajem and the Democratic lawmakers insist the freeze raises household energy costs and blocks private capital that would otherwise follow the federal dollars. Energy Innovation’s May 2025 figures supply the high-end investment and savings claims; Isaac and Fisher reject the premise that the structure lowers bills.
No public results have been released in the record about a final Supreme Court docket number, a complete grantee list beyond Climate United’s roughly $7 billion share, or the full verbatim text of every order. What is established is the sequence: March 2025 cancellation, September 2025 panel venue ruling for EPA, Aug. 4 full-court 6, 4 block on termination, a subsequent stay keeping funds frozen, and an Oct. 12 status check showing the $20 billion still locked two months after the full-court vote.
The administration’s next procedural move is the Supreme Court petition the stay anticipates. Until that process runs, the payout order remains paused and the grants stay offline.
When agencies rush tens of billions out the door and courts later freeze the cash, taxpayers deserve a final answer on who controls the purse and under what rules. The Supreme Court is the right place to settle that question before another cycle treats public money like an open tap.
