PROVIDENCE – R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha joined a pair of lawsuits Monday challenging recent moves by the Trump administration.
Neronha announced he is co-leading a coalition of attorneys general in 20 states and Washington, D.C., challenging cuts to the U.S. Health and Human Services agency, saying the Trump administration’s massive restructuring has destroyed life-saving programs and left states to pick up the bill for mounting health crises.
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The coalition claims the Trump administration’s massive restructuring has destroyed life-saving programs and left states to pick up the bill for mounting health crises.
In another lawsuit, attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., are challenging an executive order Trump signed during his first day in office, pausing approvals, permits and loans for all wind energy projects both onshore and offshore. They say Trump doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally shut down the permitting process, and he’s jeopardizing development of a power source critical to the states’ economic vitality, energy mix, public health and climate goals.
The lawsuit against HHS was filed in federal court in Washington D.C. on Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James said. The attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia signed onto the complaint.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. restructured the agency in March, eliminating more than 10,000 employees and collapsing 28 agencies under the sprawling HHS umbrella into 15, the attorneys general said. An additional 10,000 employees had already been let go by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to the lawsuit, and combined the cuts stripped 25% of the HHS workforce.
“In its first three months, Secretary Kennedy and this administration deprived HHS of the resources necessary to do its job,” the attorneys general wrote.
Kennedy has said he is seeking to streamline the nation’s public health agencies and reduce redundancies across them with the layoffs. The cuts were made as part of a directive the administration has dubbed, “ Make America Healthy Again.”
HHS is one of the government’s costliest federal agencies, with an annual budget of about $1.7 trillion that is mostly spent on health care coverage for millions of people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid.
The cuts have resulted in laboratories having limited testing for some infectious diseases, the federal government not tracking cancer risks among U.S. firefighters, early childhood learning programs left unsure of future funds and programs aimed at monitoring cancer and maternal health closing, the attorneys general say. Cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also have hampered states’ ability to respond to one of the largest measles outbreaks in recent years, the lawsuit says.
“This chaos and abandonment of the Department’s core functions was not an unintended side effect, but rather the intended result,” of the “MAHA Directive,” they said. They want a judge to vacate the directive because they say the administration can’t unilaterally eliminate programs and funding that have been created by Congress.
The restructuring eliminated the entire team of people who maintain the federal poverty guidelines used by states to determine whether residents are eligible for Medicaid, nutrition assistance and other programs. A tobacco prevention agency was gutted. Staff losses also were significant at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The Trump administration is already facing other legal challenges over cuts to public health agencies and research organizations. A coalition of 23 states filed a federal lawsuit in Rhode Island last month over the administration’s decision to cut $11 billion in federal funds for COVID-19 initiatives and various public health projects across the country.
In the offshore wind lawsuit, The coaltion is asking a federal judge to declare the order unlawful and stop federal agencies from implementing Trump’s policies.
“This arbitrary and unnecessary directive threatens the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions in investments, and it is delaying our transition away from the fossil fuels that harm our health and our planet,” James said, who is leading that coalition.
Trump vowed during the campaign to end the offshore wind industry if he returned to the White House. His order said there were “alleged legal deficiencies underlying the federal government’s leasing and permitting” of wind projects, and it directed the Interior secretary to review wind leasing and permitting practices for federal waters and lands.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts.
The Biden administration saw offshore wind as a climate change solution, setting national goals, holding lease sales and approving nearly a dozen commercial-scale projects. Trump is reversing those energy policies. He’s boosting fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, which cause climate change, arguing it’s necessary for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity in the world.
The Trump administration took a more aggressive step against wind in April when it ordered the Norwegian company Equinor to halt construction on Empire Wind, a fully permitted project located southeast of Long Island, New York, that is about 30% complete. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said it appeared the Biden administration rushed the approval.
Equinor went through a seven-year permitting process before starting to build Empire Wind last year to provide power to 500,000 New York homes. Equinor is considering legal options. The Norwegian government owns a majority stake in Equinor.
Wind provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the United States, making it the nation’s largest source of renewable energy. The attorneys general argue that Trump’s order is at odds with years of bipartisan support for wind energy and contradicts his own declaration of a “national energy emergency,” which called for expanding domestic energy production.
The coalition includes Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Washington, D.C. They say they’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars collectively to develop wind energy and even more on upgrading transmission lines to bring wind energy to the electrical grid.
Large, ocean-based wind farms are the linchpin of state plans to shift to renewable energy, particularly in populous East Coast states with limited land. The nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm opened a year ago, a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork Wind 35 miles east of Montauk Point, New York. A smaller wind farm operates near Block Island in waters controlled by the state of Rhode Island.
Massachusetts has three offshore wind projects in various stages of development, include Vineyard Wind. The state has invested in offshore wind to ensure residents have access to well-paying green jobs and reliable, affordable energy, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said.
The Trump administration has also suspended federal funding for floating offshore wind research in Maine and revoked a permit for a proposed offshore wind project in New Jersey.
Elsewhere, political leaders are trying to rapidly increase wind energy. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a major investment in wind power in April while hosting an international summit on energy security. Nova Scotia plans to offer leases for five gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said in Virginia last week at an Oceantic Network conference.
(UPDATE: Story recast to add Neronha leading lawsuit challenging cuts to U.S. Health and Human Services agency.)
Jennifer McDermott is a staff writer for The Associated Press. Rebecca Boone and Amanda Seitz also contributed to this report.
