Washington Attorney General Nick Brown filed another lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday, this one to try to regain more than $9 million in climate funding.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court Western District of Washington, takes aim at the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Last year, NOAA promised to award Washington’s State Board for Community and Technical Colleges about $9.3 million for the education of more than 2,100 postsecondary students in wildlife biology, environmental science and climate-focused degrees, Brown’s office said in a release. The administration also promised about $114,000 to Washington’s Department of Ecology for a coastal resilience program.
But in May, NOAA officials withheld money for both programs, the release said.
The first program would have funneled these students directly into jobs to help some of the state’s most economically depressed regions and those at the highest risk of suffering the worst effects of climate change, the release said. The second would have contributed to work guarding the state’s coastline against flooding, erosion and other hazards of extreme weather and sea-level rise.
Brown’s office alleges in its lawsuit that the Trump administration arbitrarily and capriciously cut the funding, which had been mandated by Congress. The complaint asks the federal judge to reverse the cuts.
The overwhelming consensus on climate science has long been in Trump’s sights. He’s canceling subsidies for wind and solar energy, imposing new restrictions for renewables, slashing data-gathering and forecasting efforts and cutting billions in funding designed to help communities guard against and recover from disasters fueled by climate change. At the same time, the president supported and Congress granted billions in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
Brown has sued the Trump administration more than a dozen times so far this year, accusing the president of lawless behavior and taking over the mantle from Gov. Bob Ferguson, who previously served as attorney general and who also repeatedly sued the Trump administration.
Lawsuits filed range from trying to reverse Trump’s decisions to block Planned Parenthood and disaster mitigation funding, to sharing data with immigration enforcement and attempting to change federal elections.
Brown’s team has won some preliminary victories in court, though many arguments are sure to span much deeper into Trump’s second term.
