When Donald Trump won reelection, Jennifer Hadayia knew she’d need a good lawyer. As the executive director of Air Alliance Houston, an environmental nonprofit advocacy organization that works to reduce the risks of air pollution on public health, she had fought the first Trump administration in court already on a variety of issues.
But when Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, began terminating environmental justice grants awarded by the Biden-era EPA in January and announced “the greatest day of deregulation” in mid-March to dismantle dozens of environmental policies, Hadaiya was gobsmacked: “We are in the very worst possible situation to couple regulatory rollbacks with funding decimation.”
Hadayia isn’t the only one in this position. Zeldin’s immediate termination of some $3 billion from the Environmental and Climate Justice block program impacted 350 environmental organizations, cities and tribes that all saw their grants evaporate without warning.
Environmental justice grants are intended to help protect people from disproportionate exposure to industrial pollutants or environmental hazards and ensure everyone has access to a healthy living environment. For instance, lower-income communities that live near factories are often more exposed to pollutants that may damage their health.
Rather than sue the agency on its own, as many others are currently doing, Air Alliance Houston will be trying a new legal tactic: joining a first-of-its-kind proposed class action lawsuit against the EPA and Zeldin to restore funding.
“We’re not in it just for us,” Hadayia told CBS News, “Communities across the country that were selected for these funds all have needs. The class action benefits the greater good.”
EPA cut funding to program that tracks permits for pollution
Air Alliance Houston was awarded a $3.1-million “community change grant” by the Biden EPA in 2024 to expand a program it created to bring more transparency to the Texas state environmental permitting process. The program, called Air Mail, tracks permits for pollution and alerts communities in Harris County, Texas, when a company requests a permit, so people know what may be emitted into the air and water near their home. Hadayia planned to expand the program to 10 other counties in Texas.
She was one of 2,700 applicants who applied for the award. In fact, it was the first time Hadayia had ever tried to win a federal grant for Air Alliance Houston, and she was thrilled to receive the government’s support.
“We didn’t want to have to rely on private philanthropy forever,” she said.
She filled out 20 pages of forms detailing requirements, compliance certification, underwent rigorous vetting and completed numerous checklists and reviews. In February, she said she seemed to lose consistent access to the grant money without warning, although at times, it would appear again in the nonprofit’s accounts.
“Randomly with no notice, I would get access to the money again,” Hadayia said.
Between February and May, she checked her account twice a day, every day. On four occasions, she said she successfully accessed funds, withdrawing a total of $60,000 to reimburse eligible expenses before she finally received a termination letter on May 1.
The EPA did not respond to questions about why it terminated the grants.
“We believe that our contract was illegally terminated. There was nothing in our terms and conditions that allows an administration — Trump or otherwise — to cancel a federal contract because they don’t like what the contract is about,” Hadayia told CBS News. “There was no noncompliance. There was no fraud, waste and abuse. We were selected rigorously and appropriately. We met all of the requirements. We were doing everything right.”
The new legal strategy for environmental groups
Air Alliance Houston is one of 23 plaintiffs in the suit, and together, they are hoping the court will grant their request to certify and move forward as a class action. The other plaintiffs include environmental organizations, as well as local city governments, like Kalamazoo County, Michigan, and federally recognized tribes such as the Native Village of Kipnuk in Alaska.
Like Air Alliance Houston, all of the plaintiffs were awarded grants of various amounts through the Environmental and Climate Justice Program, which was funded with $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act. The purpose of the grants is to address the climate crisis and various environmental harms at the local level.
The grants were awarded to groups in rural and urban communities throughout the United States for a variety of initiatives including air quality monitoring, tree planting in urban heat areas, lead pipes replacement to improve community drinking water systems and resilience projects to bolster communities against intensifying extreme weather.
CBS News contacted the EPA about the lawsuit, but the agency responded in an email saying it does not comment on current or pending litigation.
Suing the Trump administration has become a full-time job for many environmental organizations affected by its funding cuts. Major groups like the Environmental Defense Fund, or the Natural Resources Defense Council, which employs hundreds of people and generate roughly $200 million in annual revenue, can sustain prolonged legal challenges to the federal government. Since 2025, the NRDC has been involved in 11 cases against the Trump administration.
The nonprofits say that utilizing the court system is the only check on power they can lean on, and to date, the Trump administration has not prevailed in any of the environmental lawsuits filed. It is currently appealing the rulings, many of which would restore funding to environmental groups.
Some nonprofits have been successful in getting their funding restarted, even during the appeals process. But not all nongovernmental organizations have the resources for a sustained legal battle.
Air Alliance Houston is a small group that employs just 13 people, Hadaiya included, and it often spends more money than it makes. In 2023, according to available tax records, it generated $2.5 million in revenue, but had more than $2.7 million in expenses.
The class action lawsuit would make it possible for Air Alliance Houston and smaller nonprofits to win broad relief, rather than piecemeal outcomes, and to pool their resources for what may be a long legal fight against the Trump EPA.
Jillian Blanchard, a vice president at the Climate Change and Environmental Justice program at Lawyers for Good Government, called the termination of the EPA grants “unconstitutional” and said in a statement it was “not only destabilizing local projects addressing pollution, public health, and climate resilience,” but also violates “core principles of administrative law and the separation of powers.”
Her group joined EarthJustice, the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Public Rights Project to file the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.
Blanchard told CBS News she’s never seen a class action lawsuit filed against the federal government over environmental funding issues. By bringing the class action case, the hope is to provide relief to the full class of eligible recipients, rather than forcing individual groups to seek pro bono legal assistance or spend their own limited budgets navigating their case through the court system.
Hadayia considers herself fortunate, since she hasn’t needed to furlough staff after her funds were cut. But she hopes the lawsuit can reinstate the grant, so she can finish the work. She wants the same for the other 349 eligible class members of the suit, who also spent significant time applying for awards to support communities that are struggling to address environmental pollution and climate change impacts.
“It is the one-two punch of this administration to ‘unleash American energy’ by taking all of the roadblocks away,” said Hadayia. “And at the same time, pulling out the resources from groups like mine whose mission is to advocate for the opposite, whose mission is to be the watchdog for those industries.”
Tracy J. Wholf is a senior coordinating producer of climate and environmental coverage for CBS News and Stations, based in New York.
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