The Environmental Protection Agency continued its staffing shake-up Monday, beginning the termination of hundreds of staffers through a "reduction in force" process as it moved other workers to new roles.

Last month, the agency announced a massive rollback of environmental regulations, including key tenets of the Clean Air Act, and Administrator Lee Zeldin promised to drive “a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion."

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the EPA from clawing back some $20 billion in climate money the Trump administration said was shoved out the door by a departing Biden administration.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said the Environmental Protection Agency gave “no legal justification” for why it tried to reclaim the money or given the recipients of the money no chance to object or challenge the decision.

She issued a temporary restraining order against the EPA.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from terminating $14 billion in grants awarded to three climate groups by the Biden administration.

U.S. District Judge Tonya Chutkan ruled that the federal government's "vague and unsubstantiated assertions of fraud are insufficient." The order prevents the EPA from ending the grant program, which totaled $20 billion. The judge also blocked Citibank, which holds the money on behalf of EPA, from transferring it to the government or anyone else.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Wednesday that the agency will take 31 “historic actions” to roll back the Biden administration’s climate agenda in line with President Donald Trump’s executive order to “Unleash American Energy.” 

During his cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Trump casually mentioned that Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, intended to fire 65 percent of employees, an incision so deep that officials said it would hobble the E.P.A.

Mr. Trump said Mr. Zeldin “thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental. And we’re going to speed up the process, too, at the same time.”

The fate of $20 billion in federal climate funding that was legally committed months before the election has been thrown into question after a weeklong controversy involving “gold bars,” the right-wing group Project Veritas and two federal agencies.

The Biden administration has spent roughly 93% of the funding appropriated by the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act for clean energy projects, making it difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to keep his promises to halt the flow of money.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it has awarded nearly all $69 billion from the 2022 IRA and from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. 

The Supreme Court rejected a settlement with OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma that would have shielded the Sackler family from legal liability for the company’s role in exacerbating the disastrous opioid crisis.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Thursday the Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house enforcement of laws protecting investors against securities fraud, dealing a blow to the agency's powers in a ruling that could reverberate through other federal regulators.

The decision - a setback for President Joe Biden's administration - upheld a lower court's decision siding with George Jarkesy, a Texas-based hedge fund manager who contested the legality of the SEC's actions against him after the agency determined he had committed securities fraud.

The Supreme Court temporarily put on hold on Thursday an Environmental Protection Agency plan to curtail air pollution that drifts across state lines, dealing another blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to protect the environment.

The ruling followed recent decisions chipping away at the agency’s authority to address climate change and water pollution.