New Jersey is once again suing the Trump administration, this time joining a lawsuit fighting the suspension of nearly $11 billion in public health grants slated to be given to the states.
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin joined 22 other states and D.C. to sue the Health and Human Services Department over the grant cancellations. The Attorney General’s Office said the suspensions blocked more than $350 million in funds for New Jersey, money which would have gone toward stifling the spread of infectious diseases, helping residents access mental health care, and more.
“Stripping our state of $350 million in Congressionally-authorized funding violates the law, plain and simple,” Platkin said in a release. “We are standing up for our residents and for public health with this lawsuit, and we will keep fighting to get this critical funding back.”
The HHS began sending abrupt notices last month that grant funding for many programs handling infectious diseases, addiction treatment, and mental health services would be cut off.
Congress appropriated the funds during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since allowed the funds to be used for other public health goals, according to the New York Times. A spokesman for the HHS told the New York Times that the department “will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”
Gov. Phil Murphy disavowed the cuts last week, saying the cancellations would harm New Jersey’s ability to handle a surge in infectious diseases and curb the state’s ability to respond to public health emergencies.
“These irrational and inexplicable cuts have created an unfillable void in funding that will have disastrous ramifications for our most vulnerable neighbors,” Murphy said in a release earlier this week. “At a time when measles, tuberculosis, and bird flu have been reported in our region, these cuts will force our state to take contact tracers out of the field and vastly limit the ability of local health departments to follow up on reported cases.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island, asks a judge to block the grant cancellations from taking effect as the suit makes its way through the judicial system.
Tuesday’s lawsuit is at least the seventh action Platkin has joined or led against the Trump administration since Inauguration Day. Platkin and other Democratic attorneys general have found initial success in lawsuits against the administration, as judges have blocked or paused several Trump moves from taking effect.
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August 14, 2020 -
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