Nonprofits Move for Court Stay of New USDA Rules Preventing Crucial Work To Support Farms and Hunger Relief
Washington D.C. — Today, Public Citizen Litigation Group, FarmSTAND and Earthjustice filed a request on behalf of five nonprofit organizations for preliminary relief in their new case in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, asking the court to stay new and unlawful terms and conditions the U.S. Department of Agriculture is imposing on grant recipients.
The plaintiffs in the case – Agroecology Commons, Oregon Farm Corps, Syracuse-Onondaga Food Systems Alliance (SOFSA), Third Sector New England, and the Washington Farmland Trust, do critical work to build a more equitable food system. The new rules for USDA grants substantially restrict grantees’ speech and programming, forcing them to limit any work that the USDA might deem to promote “gender ideology,” “unlawful DEI” or “incentives for illegal immigration.”
We are asking for a “stay” of the terms and conditions challenged in the case because USDA’s implementation of them has already forced the plaintiff organizations bringing this case to substantially reorient their work. Two groups have even been forced to walk away from USDA funding entirely. These grants were created to support work to fight hunger, land depletion, and increase opportunity in rural communities. Because plaintiffs and other grantees cannot effectively do that work while subject to the unlawful terms and conditions, we are asking the Court to put these rules on hold while the case continues.
“These are not terms and conditions — they’re a speech code,” said Stephanie Garlock, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “We’re asking the court to halt them now so our plaintiffs can get back to the necessary work their communities depend on.”
“USDA’s new terms and conditions for grants are yet another example of this administration’s unlawful politicization of programs designed by Congress to support farmers and rural communities,” said Carrie Apfel, Deputy Managing Attorney of the Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice. “USDA should stop claiming to help farmers when instead it is undermining the very food and farming communities these programs were created to serve. This sort of illegal gamesmanship should not be tolerated.”
“The court must block these unlawful, unprecedented terms and conditions,” said David Muraskin, Managing Director of Litigation at FarmSTAND. “If it doesn’t, the Trump Administration’s enforcement of them will force USDA grantees to abandon important work in support of the next generation of farmers, for fear of serious consequences for violating the new terms.”