Federal court ruling in South Carolina could have relevance for Butte hub

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency dangled the multimillion-dollar prospect like a bright-red apple before the community of Butte-Silver Bow County.

As promised, Butte, a city scarred by more than a century of historic mining and smelting, would receive a grant to build a recreation, resiliency and wellness hub.

In early January 2025, J.P. Gallagher, chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow, and other officials, including a division director for EPA Region 8, announced Butte would receive $20 million for the ambitious project from EPA’s Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants Program, known as ECJ.

They said the Butte Community Wellness and Resilience Hub would be built on remediated ground near the Butte Civic Center. The Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation announced it was prepared to donate $15 million toward the community hub.

The project’s roots could be found in the national push for environmental justice for communities that paid a high price for polluting industries that extracted wealth but left behind impediments to economic progress. Many polluting industries operated near poorer neighborhoods, places where residents typically had less political clout. 

But then the Trump administration sliced and diced the apple.  

EPA canceled the grant in May 2025 as part of the Department of Government Efficiency spending cuts nationwide.

Butte-Silver Bow’s subsequent appeal was rejected.

Fast forward to a federal judge’s ruling on June 11 in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina.

It’s not yet clear whether or how his ruling might impact Butte. The odds seem long the project will be resurrected.

J.P. Gallagher, chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow, commented.

“We will closely review the recent ruling overturning EPA grant cancellations to determine whether it provides a viable path for Butte-Silver Bow to pursue legal action regarding our terminated Community Change Grant,” he said. “We also recognize that hundreds of grants were cancelled nationwide and that reversing them may be difficult, so we will continue to follow these cases closely.”

In his June 11 ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Mark Gergel provided a brief history of the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program, established during the Biden administration in 2022 by the Inflation Reduction Act.

The ECJ Block Grant Program provided funding for financial and technical assistance to carry out environmental and climate justice activities. Congress appropriated $2.8 billion for the program. Funds had to be awarded by Sept. 30, 2026.

In January 2025, executive orders from President Trump targeted funds appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act. In late February 2025, the EPA terminated the ECJ program and laid off staff charged with administering it.

Gergel ruled that the EPA and the Trump administration’s “closing and premature shuttering of the ECJ program and refusal to administer it are illegal.”

Plaintiffs in the case included the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Public Rights Project. The case they filed in March 2025 challenged the Trump administration’s freeze and subsequent termination of a host of federal grants.

SELC Litigation Director Kym Meyer referenced Gergel’s decision in a June 11 news release.   

“This decision is a huge win for all the communities — like North Charleston — harmed by these politically motivated and illegal terminations,” Meyer said. “This critical work to build energy efficient affordable homes, reduce pollution, and make neighborhoods more resilient to climate change should never have been disrupted in the first place. We look forward to seeing this important program resume to help the families and communities these critical projects serve.” 

But will they resume?

Gergel denied the plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction “requiring EPA … to implement the ECJ programs” — a request that “would presumably require ordering EPA to rehire and staff the ECJ Program.”

The judge ruled that the plaintiffs “are, of course, free to pursue their claims for alleged unlawful termination of their grants in the Court of Federal Claims.”

As established by Congress in 1855, the purpose of the Court of Federal Claims is to allow citizens to file claims for money against the federal government.

On June 24, Meyer emailed Joanna Stroud at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charleston to ask about the office’s intentions in the wake of Gergel’s ruling.

Stroud responded that same day.

“The EPA’s position is that although the District Court has vacated the EPA’s previous decision to terminate the program, the Court expressly declined to provide any injunctive relief requiring the EPA to affirmatively make new grants or prohibiting the EPA from continuing the termination process for previously awarded grants,” Stroud wrote. “The EPA thus does not believe that any specific agency action is required to comply with the Court’s vacatur [Latin for “it is vacated”].

The Southern Environmental Law Center objected.

“We notified the Court on June 29 that EPA confirmed in writing they had no intention of implementing the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program despite the ruling they terminated it illegally,” SELC reported.  

Meyer commented. 

"EPA has failed to follow the law from the very day these grants were cancelled. Disregarding court orders was a shocking escalation of their unlawful behavior,” she said. “We look forward to quick action from the agency to make this funding available to organizations doing good work across the country.”

Gergel issued a follow-up ruling.

He wrote, “the Court clarifies that the EPA must comply with its statutory obligations to administer the ECJ Program through Sept. 30, 2026.”

The Montana Standard reached out to Denver-based EPA Region 8 to inquire about the prospects of resurrecting the community hub project for Butte. There was no response.