A US federal appeals court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) likely acted unlawfully by attempting to freeze roughly $20bn in clean energy grants established under former President Joe Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The full US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that cancelling the grants based solely on a policy disagreement violates the law, reversing an earlier panel ruling and restoring a lower court order protecting the funds. The money will not be released immediately, however, as the decision has been temporarily paused to allow the EPA to seek Supreme Court intervention — a further chapter in the ongoing legal battle over the Trump administration's broad rollback of Biden-era climate policy.