Awardees of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund filed a rehearing petition after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency can proceed to slash billions of dollars in climate funding granted to the groups by the Biden administration.

The petition filed on Wednesday asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals to hear the case on the grounds that the three-judge panel dismissed constitutional and Administrative Procedure Act claims that warranted review by the full court.  

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Last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling to overturn a lower court’s decision asking the EPA to release nearly $20 billion in obligated grant money to green groups during former President Joe Biden’s administration. 

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The ruling stated that the lower court “abused its discretion” by issuing an injunction that prevented the EPA from rescinding the funds, the judges wrote. It said that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in their case because it belonged in the Court of Federal Claims, rather than the district court.

“Moreover, the equities strongly favor the government, which on behalf of the public must ensure the proper oversight and management of this multibillion-dollar fund,” they wrote.

The plaintiffs’ petition for a rehearing is the latest development in the legal battle between the EPA and three climate advocacy groups: Climate United, the Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities.

“As time passes, hardworking Americans are paying the real costs of this unnecessary legal battle,” Climate United CEO Beth Bafford said in a statement. “Energy bills are rising, and instead of investing in projects that reduce costs, create jobs, and support domestic manufacturing, we are spending months in court. We are taking this next step so we can get back to work.”  

Since Trump took office, the EPA has sought to terminate the grantees’ grant money from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was established as part of the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 

The agency claimed that the grants were improperly distributed because they were routed through Citibank. The EPA froze the funds for eight weeks and attempted to cancel $20 billion in grants from eight nonprofit organizations in the program.

The EPA is also seeking to cancel $7 billion in federal grants from the fund’s Solar for All program, intended to help low-income households install solar panels.

Collectively, the fund was allocated $27 billion to support climate projects across the United States, with a focus on low-income communities. The three nonprofit groups suing the EPA were granted $14 billion under the program’s National Clean Investment Fund. 

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EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has called the funds “gold bars,” referring to a video from last year in which a former EPA employee stated that the Biden administration was attempting to disburse promised funds quickly before the next administration took office.

“It truly feels like we’re on the Titanic, and we’re throwing, like, gold bars off the edge,” the former employee says in the video.