In yet another salvo of lawsuits against the Trump administration, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes argues the president and his allies are unlawfully dismantling the Department of Health and Human Services and halting new wind energy projects.
The two latest lawsuits are filed by coalitions of Democratic attorneys general, Mayes included.
The first claims the Trump administration has deprived HHS of the resources it needs to do its job by terminating thousands of employees. Those terminations, and the programs shuttered as a result, are unlawful without congressional approval, they argue.
“Dismantling HHS by terminating the people necessary for it to meet its own mandates, and paralyzing it by means of a confusing reorganization, is an unlawful effort to undercut the will of Congress who ordered the agencies and programs to run,” the complaint states.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced in March that he would downsize the agency by 20,000 employees and reduce its divisions from 28 to 15. He said it would streamline HHS as part of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.
"We're going to do more with less. No American is going to be left behind,” Kennedy said at the time in a video statement.
Affected programs include the terminated Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program which gives grants to help low-income households pay heating and cooling bills.
The attorneys general are asking the court to stop the mass firings and restore HHS programs.
“Secretary Kennedy has since said that he knew that possibly twenty percent of the reductions in force (RIFs) were going to be “mistakes” even before the RIFs were executed. He agreed that he forewent a careful line-by-line review of who should be fired because “it takes too long” and he would lose “political momentum”—making plain that the process used to determine layoffs was arbitrary and capricious,” Mayes said in a statement, quoting an interview Kennedy did with CBS News.
The second lawsuit challenges a presidential memorandum intended to freeze federal approvals for wind energy projects.
The attorneys general argue that the directive violates the Administrative Procedure Act because it doesn’t come with an explanation and is inconsistent with federal action supporting other types of energy.
“Halting the development of wind energy is not just bad policy — it’s illegal,” Mayes said in a statement. “In Arizona, wind energy projects on State Trust lands generate critical revenue that supports our public schools and other beneficiaries. The Trump administration’s blanket freeze undermines that progress, threatening both our economy and the environment. I'm suing because Arizonans deserve a cleaner, more affordable, and more secure energy future.”
The complaint also claims that the memorandum violates federal laws laying out specific procedures and timelines for the permitting and approvals process.
“The Wind Directive has stopped most wind-energy development in its tracks, despite the fact that wind energy is a homegrown source of reliable, affordable energy that supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, creates billions of dollars in economic activity and tax payments, and supplies more than 10% of the country’s electricity,” the complaint states.
The attorneys general also note the memorandum was issued the same day Trump declared a “National Energy Emergency.”
“The United States’ insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to our Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy,” Trump said in a statement at the time.
Mayes has now launched 16 lawsuits against the Trump administration.
