Illinois has joined another lawsuit against the Trump administration over its attempts to cut funding for energy and infrastructure programs, according to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office.

Filed in the Northern District Court of California, Raoul and 12 other attorneys general argue in the suit that a May 2025 memorandum from the Department of Energy created a “review” process under the guise of gutting energy programs created by Congress in 2021 and 2022, which they then cut funding from. They say the action violates the separation of powers and the Administrative Procedure Act.

In Illinois, six grant awards to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois-Chicago that are collectively worth over $20 million — which Raoul said are to “make the electricity grid more reliable and resilient, reduce carbon emissions, and utilize domestic sources of rare earth elements and critical minerals” — were on the chopping block.

“This unlawful attempt to block funding approved by Congress will seriously harm work being done in Illinois and across the nation to improve energy efficiency, strengthen energy resiliency and increase clean energy – all of which benefit the public,” Raoul said in a statement. “I will continue to stand with my fellow attorneys general to fight back against the president’s illegal actions that harm our communities and our environment.”

The Department of Energy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Also signed on to the suit are the attorney generals of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Raoul and other attorneys general have been mounting legal wins, the latest of which came a week ago when a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from cutting more than $600 million in public health grants for Illinois and three other Democratic-led states — just a day after Raoul joined a coalition of states in a federal lawsuit to challenge the cuts.

Last month, in response to another suit from Raoul and other legal officials, a federal appeals court ruled to restore medical research funding cut by the Trump administration.

In September, Raoul was part of a large coalition of legal officials that won a suit for the release of $2 billion in federal disaster relief funding held up by the White House over sanctuary city policies. Two months later, a separate federal judge released federal transportation funding in response to another suit after the Trump administration attempted to block that money over immigration enforcement.