By Keeping Climate Funds on Ice, the DC Circuit Is Complicit in Trump’s Overreach

On September 2 the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that $16 billion in climate grants will remain frozen. The case, Climate United Fund v. Citibank and Environmental Protection Agency, grew out of the Trump administration’s February decision to halt the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The order was only a few lines long, a clerk’s note that the mandate would be withheld until rehearing petitions were resolved. In appellate procedure, withholding the mandate means the decision below is not yet enforceable. The court could have allowed the money to move while review continued. It chose not to.

This is not paperwork. This is power. Power in this case means leaving billions locked in a Citibank vault while families ration air conditioning, patch storm-wrecked homes, and haul water across dry land.

The money is real. Congress appropriated it. Treasury obligated it. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded it. Projects were ready. Tribal governments had contractors lined up to install solar pumps. Rural co-ops had bids in hand to replace cracked water lines. Community lenders had retrofits prepared for families who spend half their paychecks on electricity. Yet the funds remain frozen, generating interest for a bank that once needed a taxpayer bailout and still bankrolls oil expansion.

Judges call this a pause. A pause in Washington is a crisis everywhere else.

Maria Ortega in Phoenix knows it. She is 76, widowed, living on a fixed income in a house that traps the heat. Phoenix endured its fourth hottest summer on record, with 12 days at or above 110°F this July. Maria shut off her air conditioning most afternoons to avoid a $287 bill, half her Social Security check. The thermostat read 98°F. She sipped water slowly, blinds drawn, a box fan pushing hot air. At night she ran the AC for three hours so she could sleep. She asked a question no one should face: Is surviving this month worth going hungry next month?

Daniel Robinson outside New Orleans knows it too. Another September storm peeled shingles from his roof. He was 19 when Katrina came. He rebuilt, married, worked double shifts. He was told resilience would come. But this fall he found himself again hammering blue tarps while his kids carried buckets. Federal funds exist for stronger roofs and elevated homes. They were approved, obligated, ready. But they remain locked in limbo.

And Sarah Begay on the Navajo Nation knows it as well. She drives every other day to a community well, filling barrels for her livestock. The dirt tanks her father used have been dry for years. Gas prices climb, the miles wear down her pickup. She was told federal money was coming for solar pumps. Instead she is told to wait.

Three people, three regions, one reality: Delay is not neutral. It kills.

Maria is not waiting for abstractions. She is waiting for a power bill she can pay.

Judges insist they are bound by law, not outcomes. But law already spoke. Congress passed the appropriation. Treasury obligated it. EPA awarded it. The Constitution gives Congress the purse for a reason. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 codified that a president cannot cancel or withhold funds Congress has approved. President Richard Nixon tried, and Congress stopped him. What this administration has done—freezing appropriations indefinitely under the language of review—is a backdoor impoundment. And by withholding the mandate, the DC Circuit has not merely tolerated this maneuver. It has validated it.

This is the judiciary’s quiet habit: Retreat into formalism while people pay the price. Courts claim neutrality but exercise discretion constantly—choosing when to grant stays, when to expedite review, when to let money flow. To call delay neutral is a fiction. Delay is a ruling in all but name. The choice to freeze funds is as consequential as striking them down.

The consequences reach far beyond climate. If this precedent stands, any appropriation can be stalled. Veterans’ healthcare, housing aid, disaster relief—all can be frozen at a president’s discretion so long as courts are willing to play along. Congress will hold the purse only on paper. In practice, presidents will wield the choke chain, and judges will provide cover.

Every day of delay bleeds value. A retrofit not installed means another summer of unbearable bills. A pump not delivered means another year of hauling water. A roof not secured means another tarp, another moldy wall, another child growing up in a house that never dries. A dollar spent today prevents five dollars in damage tomorrow. A dollar withheld compounds harm. The storm does not wait for petitions. The fire does not wait for oral arguments. The flood does not wait for a court’s sense of timing.

Judicial restraint here is not harmless. It is complicity. By refusing to act, the DC Circuit has turned oversight into obstruction, procedure into punishment. It has helped the executive hollow out Congress’ most basic power. It has reduced law to theater while real life burns.

Maria is not waiting for abstractions. She is waiting for a power bill she can pay. Daniel is not waiting for legal formalities. He is waiting for a roof that will hold. Sarah is not waiting for judicial review. She is waiting for water that flows.

The storm will not wait. The fire will not wait. The flood will not wait. Politicians will still gather in front of cameras to praise oversight and congratulate themselves on restraint. Judges will polish their dockets and write opinions about consistency.

But history will record something else. The money was there. The need was there. The chance was there. And power chose not to use it. That is not oversight. That is abdication. It is not neutrality. It is complicity. And it is a verdict that will damn the judiciary as much as the executive.