Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford joined a coalition of attorneys general from 23 states in filing a lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for terminating nearly $12 billion in public health grants.
Ford claims that the terminating of grants was illegal and would cause local public health authorities and the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory to lose $35 million. The funding cut also would impact the Renown Crisis Stabilization Center in Northern Nevada, he said.
“The Trump administration has illegally cut funding that jeopardizes approximately $35 million in public health services for Nevadans,” he said in a statement. “This action displays a complete indifference to the lives of Nevadans, and I am confident that we will prevail in court to stop this unlawful and destructive decision.”
Ford’s office said Nevada’s Division of Public and Behavioral Health has cut 25 grant-funded positions that supported the Nevada State Immunization Program and the Office of State Epidemiology. At the Central Nevada Health District, three employees have been laid off. Twenty were laid off from the UNLV School of Public Health, the attorney general’s office said.
The coalition of attorneys general argue that the mass terminations violate federal law because the end of the pandemic is not a “for cause” basis for terminating the grants. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, seeks to invalidate the mass grant terminations, according to the attorney general’s office.
The lawsuit is one of many the Democratic attorney general has filed against the Trump administration. He also has filed litigation seeking to block the dismantling of the Department of Education and to block mass federal layoffs.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment, but the administration has said it’s embarking on a series of widespread cuts to bring the federal budget into balance. The federal deficit is about $1.15 trillion. Health and Human Services said it does not comment on ongoing litigation but explained why the cuts were made.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the agency said. “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
The attorneys who filed the lawsuit argue, however, that the end of the pandemic is not a basis for ending the grants and said none of the appropriated funds are tied to the end of the pandemic.