Twenty attorneys general, including the AGs of New York, California, Colorado and Michigan, sued the Trump administration Monday over its mass firings and the dismantling of agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services.
The lawsuit, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleges that the administration violated hundreds of laws and bypassed congressional authority by endeavoring to consolidate the number of HHS agencies from 28 to 15 and initiating layoffs of around 20,000 employees.
James called the terminations “dangerous, cruel and illegal” at a news conference Monday.
“This administration is not streamlining the federal government; they are sabotaging it,” she said in a statement. “When you fire the scientists who research infectious diseases, silence the doctors who care for pregnant people, and shut down the programs that help firefighters and miners breathe or children thrive, you are not making America healthy — you are putting countless lives at risk.”
HHS announced the restructuring in late March as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s broader effort to reduce the size of the federal workforce. The cuts included 3,500 employees at the Food and Drug Administration, 2,400 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 1,200 employees at the National Institutes of Health.
HHS said it would create a new agency, the Administration for a Healthy America, to absorb some responsibilities carried out by terminated agencies, such as programs focused on mental, environmental or worker health.
But the lawsuit claims the recent cuts will have “severe, complicated, drawn-out, and potentially irreversible” consequences. The attorneys general said in a press release that the restructuring has rendered HHS unable to carry out many of its vital functions by gutting mental health and substance use services, crippling the nation’s HIV/AIDS response and reducing support for low-income families and people with disabilities.
In particular, the release said, the Trump administration fired staff responsible for maintaining the federal poverty guidelines — which states use to determine eligibility for food assistance, housing support and Medicaid — and slashed the team behind the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps families with heating and cooling bills.
Half the workforce at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration — one of the dismantled HHS agencies — has also been terminated, according to the release. As a result, the attorneys general said, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health has been halted and the federal team running the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is gone.
The CDC lost several labs tracking infectious diseases, an office focused on tobacco control and prevention and a team that monitored maternal mortality in the U.S, according to the release.
“The federal government has cut lab capacity so much that they have all but stopped testing for measles in the middle of an unprecedented measles outbreak,” James said at the press conference. “New York’s public health lab, the Wadsworth Center, one of the only labs in the country still equipped to detect rare infectious diseases, is scrambling to fill the void left by a hollowed out CDC.”
HHS also gutted the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a CDC agency that helped screen for health issues in workers with toxic exposures.
The Trump administration has said that certain programs like the World Trade Center Health Program, which covers screening and treatments for 9/11-related illnesses, or the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, which screens for black lung in miners, will continue through the Administration for a Healthy America. But many NIOSH employees involved with the programs were placed on administrative leave and face impending terminations in June, according to an internal government memo obtained by NBC News.
Monday’s lawsuit calls on HHS to halt its efforts to dismantle agencies and restore critical programs that have been lost. James said her office will request a preliminary injunction this week to temporarily block the Trump administration from making further cuts.
The suit is not the first to challenge the federal government’s downsizing mission. A coalition of 23 attorneys general sued HHS in April over the termination of roughly $11 billion in public health grants, some which helped state health departments respond to disease outbreaks. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the cuts but hasn’t issued a final ruling yet.
