Biden’s $20,000,000,000 Green Bank Money Stays Frozen As Trump Prepares Supreme Court Appeal
Biden-era green bank grants worth $20 billion remain frozen two months after an appeals court ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to cancel them.
Simon August·Oct 12, 2026·6 min read
Sponsored
Biden-era green bank grants worth $20 billion remain frozen two months after an appeals court ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to cancel them.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voted 6–4 on Aug. 4 to uphold an order blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from terminating the Inflation Reduction Act grants, finding the agency “likely contravened the IRA’s mandatory appropriation.” Days later, the court agreed to the administration’s request to keep the money frozen while it prepares to take the fight to the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court should absolutely take this case,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, said in a statement to 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.”
“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,” Mark Drajem, media director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement to the DCNF. “That’s a cruel blow from this administration made worse by the fact that the president had pledged to cut energy bills.”
The stay pauses the part of the court’s order that would require the money to be paid out through Nov. 9, according to Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. It will be extended until the Supreme Court acts if the administration files a petition, and the grantees did not oppose it.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Climate United and the offices of Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Sponsored
Biden’s $20,000,000,000 Green Bank Money Stays Frozen As Trump Prepares Supreme Court Appeal — IJR
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin canceled the grants in March 2025, citing “well documented concerns about self-dealing and conflicts of interest,” according to the agency. Climate United, the largest recipient, had been awarded about $7 billion.
A three-judge panel of the same court sided with the EPA in September 2025, ruling 2-1 that the grantees’ main claims were “essentially contractual” and belonged in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The four judges in the minority in August would have lifted that part of the order, pointing to Congress’s repeal of the section that created the program in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Reuters reported. After the ruling, the EPA said it was reviewing its next steps.
“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,” Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, said in a statement to the DCNF.
“Resource-neutral permitting reform is superior to subsidies and grants because it advances energy projects without the government picking winners and losers (and creating far too much wasteful spending),” Fisher said. “With permitting reform, it’s also much easier for builders to trust that the rules won’t change every four years.”
“The claim that government-funded green banks lower energy costs is laughable,” Isaac said. “Taking money from taxpayers, funneling it through politically connected middlemen, and subsidizing technologies that struggle to compete in the marketplace doesn’t make energy more affordable.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which supports the program, argues the opposite.
“The economic costs of this go far beyond the $20 billion, because these funds would unlock billions of dollars more in private investments,” Drajem said.
The program could bring in $65.5 billion in total investment and save consumers $52 billion on energy costs over 20 years, according to a May 2025 analysis by Energy Innovation, an energy and climate policy think tank.
“Affordability comes from abundant, reliable energy and competition, not government handouts to politically favored organizations,” Isaac said in his statement to the DCNF. “The Supreme Court has an opportunity to address serious questions about executive oversight of these grants and protect taxpayers from being treated like an unlimited ATM for the Democrats’ agenda.”
“Instead of continuing this senseless attack on this program, the administration should end its attack on affordable energy and get these funds out to the homeowners and renters who desperately need them,” Drajem said. “If it keeps fighting in court that will demonstrate, yet again, that it doesn’t care about lowering people’s energy costs.”
Green banks have kept lending without the federal money. They financed $12.4 billion in projects in 2024 and 2025, about $11 billion of it from private investors, according to the U.S. Green Bank 50, a coalition of 56 green banks and other organizations, Canary Media reported.
“We’re making a virtue out of a necessity,” Dan Adler, the group’s executive director, told the outlet.
Climate United has been unable to follow through on plans to finance U.S.-built electric trucks, energy-efficiency and clean energy upgrades, and loans to Native American-led clean energy projects, according to Canary Media.
Climate United said after the August ruling that despite “false allegations and misinformation, there remains no legal basis for terminating our grant award,” according to Reuters.
Democrats cheered the August ruling. Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island as well as Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said in an Aug. 4 joint statement that it stopped the Trump administration’s “brazen attempt to prevent those projects, seize these funds, and break the law in the process.”
Two federal district courts in September also vacated the EPA’s termination of Solar for All, a separate $7 billion program funded through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, according to the Sabin Center.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
