{"id":464223,"date":"2026-02-12T13:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T13:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/464223\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T13:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T13:07:09","slug":"colorado-sues-to-block-trump-from-cutting-public-health-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/464223\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado sues to block Trump from cutting public health funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colorado filed a lawsuit Wednesday to prevent the Trump administration from canceling more than $25 million in grants<\/a> for public health.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notified Congress it wouldn\u2019t pay $600 million worth of grants already awarded in Colorado, California, Illinois and Minnesota \u2014 all states led by Democratic governors.<\/p>\n

The four states have asked a federal court in Illinois\u2019 Northern District to issue an order<\/a> preventing the federal government from withholding the funds while their lawsuit<\/a> plays out.<\/p>\n

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser\u2019s office said the existing grants totaled about $22 million, and the cuts would reduce Colorado\u2019s public health funding in the future by an estimated $4 million.<\/p>\n

The funding comes through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and goes toward developing the public health infrastructure and workforce, as well as finding and preventing sexually transmitted infections.<\/p>\n

One of the recipients in Colorado that will lose funding<\/a> is using its $371,000 grant to increase HIV testing around Denver and Colorado Springs, with a focus on gay and bisexual men of color.<\/p>\n

The grants go to all states, and the federal government hasn\u2019t explained why it only cut them for four states.\u00a0An HHS spokesperson said the grants targeted for cuts don\u2019t align with the administration\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n

The suing states argued that the cuts are illegal because they are \u201carbitrary and capricious,\u201d and meant to punish states with leadership opposed to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has repeatedly threatened to cut off federal funds to Colorado for purely political reasons,\u201d Weiser said in a news release. \u201cThe abrupt termination of CDC funds would have immediate and irreversible impacts on Colorado\u2019s public health system and critical services for communities across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has repeatedly cut funding to Colorado<\/a>: HHS attempted to withhold child care funds<\/a>, though courts required the money to keep flowing for now; the Department of Energy has laid off more than 200 employees<\/a> at National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden; the Federal Emergency Management Agency declined to help fund recovery efforts<\/a> in parts of the state hit by fires and floods; Space Command\u2019s headquarters is moving<\/a> from Colorado Springs to Alabama; and Trump vetoed a bill to build a pipeline<\/a> bringing clean water to the southeast corner of the state.<\/p>\n

Much of Trump\u2019s ire toward Colorado is due to the imprisonment of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk who was found guilty of felonies related to a breach of state election systems. The president said on social media Wednesday<\/a> that he had not invited Gov. Jared Polis to a dinner with governors because Polis had \u201cunfairly incarcerated\u201d Peters.<\/p>\n

Polis has called Peters\u2019 nine-year sentence \u201charsh\u201d and suggested he\u2019s weighing some form of clemency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get health news sent straight to your inbox.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado filed a lawsuit Wednesday to prevent the Trump administration from canceling more than $25 million in grants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[2356,13897,3832,206726,60305,9045,1340,2302,1840,12,4142,159,97,252,253,5629,2558,6429,22942,3,118685,111,215689,3479],"class_list":["post-464223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-california","tag-cdc","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-attorney-general","tag-colorado-department-of-public-health-and-environment","tag-colorado-news","tag-congress","tag-courts","tag-denver","tag-donald-trump","tag-front-range","tag-funding","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-illinois","tag-latest-headlines","tag-minnesota","tag-national-politics","tag-news","tag-phil-weiser","tag-politics","tag-sexually-transmitted-infections","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}