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Press Release:

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Tong Sues to Over­turn Pub­lic Health Grant Cuts

Preceding Event:

On March 24, 2025, the U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices (HHS) began ter­mi­nat­ing $11 bil­lion of health fund­ing to states and state agen­cies. Accord­ing to the law­suit, the admin­is­tra­tion said the fund­ing was no longer nec­es­sary because it was allo­cat­ed to the states dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the gov­ern­men­t’s pan­dem­ic emer­gency dec­la­ra­tion had been expired for almost two years.

States received notices say­ing their grants were being can­celled, how­ev­er, some of the fund­ing was not set to expire until as late as sum­mer 2027.

“Accord­ing to Defen­dants, this vital pub­lic health fund­ing has been ter­mi­nat­ed ‘for cause’ because ‘the grants and coop­er­a­tive agree­ments were issued for a lim­it­ed pur­pose: to ame­lio­rate the effects of the pan­dem­ic,” accord­ing to the law­suit. “ ‘Now that the pan­dem­ic is over, the grants and coop­er­a­tive agree­ments are no longer nec­es­sary as their lim­it­ed pur­pose has run out’.”

The quotes in the law­suit are ref­er­enc­ing lan­guage from a Notice of Award issued by HHS on March 24, 2025.

General Overview:

Accord­ing to the press release from April 1, 2025, “Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong today joined a coali­tion of 23 states and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia in fil­ing a law­suit against the U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices and HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for abrupt­ly and ille­gal­ly ter­mi­nat­ing $11 bil­lion in crit­i­cal pub­lic health grants to the states.”

The law­suit argued that the ter­mi­na­tions, which were done with no warn­ing or “legal­ly valid expla­na­tion” and that the expi­ra­tion of the emer­gency pan­dem­ic dec­la­ra­tion is not a valid “for cause” rea­son. The law­suit alleges that the ter­mi­na­tions exceed the defen­dan­t’s statu­to­ry and reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ty and vio­late the Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dures Act (APA). Nor­mal­ly, the only “for cause” rea­son would be the grant recip­i­en­t’s “mate­r­i­al fail­ure to com­ply with the agree­ment.”

Connecticut Nexus:

Accord­ing to the press release, “Con­necti­cut stands to lose approx­i­mate­ly $175 mil­lion for a wide range of essen­tial pub­lic health, men­tal health, and addic­tion ser­vices, such as dis­ease out­break sur­veil­lance, new­born screen­ings, child­hood immu­niza­tions, and test­ing for virus­es and oth­er pathogens.”

Date of filing:

April 11, 2025

Case #:

1:25-cv-00121

Case title:

State of Col­orado et al v. U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices, et al.

Plaintiffs: 23 states and D.C.

• STATE OF COLORADO,
• STATE OF RHODE ISLAND,
• STATE OF CALIFORNIA,
• STATE OF MINNESOTA,
• STATE OF WASHINGTON,
• STATE OF ARIZONA,
• STATE OF CONNECTICUT,
• STATE OF DELAWARE,
• DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
• STATE OF HAWAI’I,
• STATE OF ILLINOIS,
• OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR ex rel. Andy Beshear, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Gov­er­nor of the COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY,
• STATE OF MAINE,
• STATE OF MARYLAND,
• COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS,
• STATE OF MICHIGAN,
• STRATE OF NEVADA,
• THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
• THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO,
• THE STATE OF NEW YORK,
• THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA,
• STATE OF OREGON,
• JOSH SHAPIRO, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Gov­er­nor of the COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,
• STATE OF WISCONSIN

Defendants:

• US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
• ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Sec­re­tary of Health and Human Ser­vices

Court:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND

Status as of Dec. 1, 2025:

OPEN
Last fil­ing: Nov. 5, 2025

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