Biden-era green bank grants worth $20 billion remain frozen two months after a D.C. Circuit ruling, as the Trump administration prepares a Supreme Court fight over the funds.
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 ending the Inflation Reduction Act awards. Days later, the same court agreed to keep the money locked while the administration readies its petition to the justices.
Daily Caller reported that the stay pauses the part of the order that would force payouts through Nov. 9, and that freeze can stretch further if the government files at the Supreme Court. Grantees did not oppose the stay.
At the center sits the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a Biden-era pot of taxpayer cash funneled through so-called green banks. 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 took the largest share, about $7 billion. After the August ruling, the group said there remains “no legal basis for terminating our grant award,” according to remarks carried by Reuters, and blamed “false allegations and misinformation.”
Zeldin’s March 2025 cancellation set off the litigation. A three-judge D.C. Circuit panel ruled 2, 1 in September 2025 that the grantees’ main claims were “essentially contractual” and belonged in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The full court later kept the termination block in place by that 6, 4 vote.
The majority said the agency “likely contravened the IRA’s mandatory appropriation.” Four judges in the minority would have lifted the payout order. They pointed to Congress’s repeal of the section that created the program in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
That legislative repeal matters. Lawmakers wiped the statutory footing for the fund, yet the grants still sit in legal limbo while courts sort the fight. The pattern fits a broader stretch of high-court clashes over prior administration policies, including when the Supreme Court cleared Trump to end Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation the high court should take the case.
"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."
Isaac kept the point plain on costs.
"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."
Travis Fisher of the Cato Institute described the rush inside the agency in blunt terms.
"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 argued resource-neutral permitting reform beats subsidies because it advances projects without Washington picking winners and losers. Builders can also trust rules that do not flip every four years.
Mark Drajem, media director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, framed the freeze as an attack on household bills.
"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."
Drajem added that the economic costs “go far beyond the $20 billion” because the funds would unlock more private investment. He urged the administration to “get these funds out to the homeowners and renters who desperately need them.”
Democratic Sens. Ed Markey, Chris Van Hollen, and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Rep. Debbie Dingell, cheered the Aug. 4 ruling in a joint statement. They called the administration’s move a “brazen attempt to prevent those projects, seize these funds, and break the law in the process.”
Isaac rejected the affordability pitch outright. “The claim that government-funded green banks lower energy costs is laughable,” he said, adding that affordability comes from abundant, reliable energy and competition, not handouts to favored groups. He said the Supreme Court has a chance to police executive oversight of the grants and “protect taxpayers from being treated like an unlimited ATM for the Democrats’ agenda.”
Green banks did not shut down when the federal money froze. The U.S. Green Bank 50 coalition, which includes 56 green banks and other groups, financed $12.4 billion in projects across 2024 and 2025. About $11 billion of that came from private investors.
Dan Adler, executive director of U.S. Green Bank 50, told Canary Media, “We’re making a virtue out of a necessity.” Climate United has not been able to follow through on stated plans to finance U.S.-built electric trucks, efficiency upgrades, and Native American-led projects while the cash stays locked.
A May 2025 Energy Innovation analysis claimed the program could bring $65.5 billion in total investment and save consumers $52 billion on energy costs over 20 years. Those figures are projections from the group, not court findings or audited results. Separate from the main $20 billion fight, two federal district courts in September vacated EPA’s termination of the related $7 billion Solar for All program, also funded through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
EPA said after the August ruling that it was reviewing next steps. The agency, Climate United, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s office, and Rep. Frank Pallone’s office did not immediately respond to comment requests for the Daily Caller story. The administration’s posture tracks other efforts to unwind Biden-era legal and policy fights, much as Trump asked the Supreme Court to revive a dismissed suit over 2016 Russia claims.
The D.C. Circuit freeze leaves the $20 billion on ice while lawyers prepare the Supreme Court papers. The stay’s Nov. 9 marker can roll forward once a petition is filed. That timeline gives the justices another chance to decide how far an administration may go when it inherits massive, rushed climate spending from its predecessor.
Readers tracking the broader record will recall how declassified emails showed FBI doubt over the Mar-a-Lago search grounds as the White House hit the Biden Justice Department. Different facts, same theme: accountability after years of one-sided institutional power.
Another high-court thread shows how political loyalty cases reach the justices too, including when the Supreme Court ended an appeal by a Pennsylvania judge suspended over pro-Biden Facebook posts. The green bank case is about money and statutory power, not speech. Still, it sits in the same season of courts sorting the last administration’s unfinished business.
Coverage of the freeze has already noted the stakes for the grants themselves, including earlier reporting that $20 billion in Biden green bank grants stay locked as the fight heads upward. The core dispute remains simple. Congress created a huge climate fund. The new EPA found self-dealing risks and canceled the awards. Lower courts blocked the cancellation. The full D.C. Circuit left that block in place yet kept the cash frozen for a Supreme Court run. Lawmakers later repealed the program’s statutory section. The money still has not moved.
Taxpayers should not watch $20 billion sit in a political tug-of-war forever. The Supreme Court can draw a clean line on oversight, statutory repeal, and whether rushed climate grants get to outrun the voters who changed administrations.
