The city of Nashville has sued the federal government over the abrupt halt of federal public health grants to vaccinate children, test for infectious disease, operate community clinics and conduct outreach to unhoused individuals.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in a Washington, D.C. federal court, alleges the Centers for Disease Control and Infection and the Department of Health and Human Services illegally terminated $11.4 billion in federal public health funding across the nation last month. The lawsuit claims the action usurped the authority of Congress, which appropriated the funding during the COVID era for current and future pandemic preparedness.
The grants to Nashville and other local governments were terminated “for cause,” a term that applies to wrongdoing on the recipients’ part. The federal government, however, said the “end of the pandemic constituted its cause.” Being terminated from a federal grant for cause can impact the ability to get new grants.
“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,” a March HHS statement about the funding cuts quoted in the lawsuit said. “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Health Again.”
A Health and Human Services spokesperson Friday declined to comment further on the litigation.