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BOSTON (AP) - Chief law officers from more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging billions of dollars in funding cuts made by the Trump administration that would money whatever from criminal offense prevention to food security to clinical research.

The suit submitted in Boston is asking a judge to limit the Trump administration from relying on an obscure provision in the federal guideline to cut grants that wear ´ t line up with its priorities. Since January, the suit argues that the administration has actually used that stipulation to cancel entire programs and thousands of grants that had actually been previously granted to states and grantees.
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"Defendants ´ choice to invoke the Clause to terminate grants based on altered firm top priorities is illegal several times over," the plaintiffs argued. "The rulemaking history of the Clause makes plain that the (Office of Management and Budget) meant for the Clause to permit terminations in just minimal situations and provides no support for a broad power to end grants on an impulse based on recently determined agency concerns."

The suit argues the Trump administration has actually utilized the provision for the basis of a "slash-and-burn campaign" to cut federal grants.

"Defendants have terminated countless grant awards made to Plaintiffs, pulling the carpet out from under the States, and removing vital federal financing on which States and their locals rely for necessary programs," the suit added.

The White House's Office of Management and Budget did not instantly react to a demand made Tuesday afternoon for remark.

Rhode Island Attorney General Neronha stated this suit was just one of a number of the coalition of primarily Democratic states have filed over financing cuts. For the a lot of part, they have mainly been successful in a string of legal success to briefly stop cuts.

This one, however, may be the broadest challenge to those moneying cuts.

"It ´ s obvious that this President has gone to fantastic lengths to intercept federal financing to the states, but what may be lesser known is how the Trump Administration is trying to justify their illegal actions," Neronha said in a . "Nearly every suit this union of Democratic chief law officers has actually filed against the Administration is associated with its illegal and ostentatious attempts to rob Americans of standard programs and services upon which they rely. Frequently, this comes in the form of illegal federal funding cuts, which the Administration attempts to validate by means of a so-called 'firm concerns clause."

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong stated the lawsuit intended to stop funding cuts he explained as indiscriminate and prohibited.

"There is no 'since I put on ´ t like you ´ or 'since I put on ´ t seem like it anymore ´ defunding stipulation in federal law that allows the President to bypass Congress on a whim," Tong stated in a statement. "Since his very first minutes in office, Trump has unilaterally defunded our cops, our schools, our health care, and more. He can ´ t do that, and that ´ s why over and over again we have actually blocked him in court and recovered our funding."

In Massachusetts, Chief Law Officer Andrea Campbell said the U.S. Department of Agriculture ended a $11 million arrangement with the state Department of Agricultural Resources linking hundreds of farmers to numerous food circulation sites while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency terminated a $1 million grant to the state Department of Public Health to reduce asthma sets off in low-income neighborhoods.

"We can not stand idly by while this President continues to release extraordinary, illegal attacks on Massachusetts ´ locals, institutions, and economy," Campbell said in a declaration.

The lawsuit argues that the OMB promoted using the stipulation in concern to validate the cuts. The clause in question, according to the suit, refers to five words that say federal agents can terminate grants if the award "no longer effectuates the program goals or company priorities."

"The Trump Administration has actually claimed that 5 words in this Clause-'no longer effectuates ... agency concerns'-offer federal companies with practically unfettered authority to withhold federal funding whenever they no longer want to support the programs for which Congress has actually appropriated funding," the suit said.