Good afternoon: Attached is the district court's memorandum explaining its reasoning for granting the States' motion for a preliminary injunction in the federal funding suit challenge in the district of Rhode Island. The court enters a preliminary injunction that applies only to the plaintiff states and enjoins the federal government from "giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the directives in OMB Memorandum M-25-13 (the "OMB Directive") with respect to the disbursement and transmission of appropriated federal funds to the States under awarded grants, executed contracts, or other executed financial obligations." The PI further directs that "The Agency Defendants are enjoined from pausing, freezing, blocking, canceling, suspending, terminating, or otherwise impeding the disbursement of appropriated federal funds to the States under awarded grants, executed contracts, or other executed financial obligations based on the OMB Directive or any other materially similar order, memorandum, directive, policy, or practice under which the federal government imposes or applies a categorical pause or freeze of funding appropriated by Congress. This includes, but is by no means not limited to, Section 7(a) of Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy." The court also directs the defendants to file a status report by 3/15 related to the states' second motion to enforce the TRO related to FEMA funding. Below are several excerpts from the decision: The Executive's categorical freeze of appropriated and obligated funds fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government. The interaction of the three co-equal branches of government is an intricate, delicate, and sophisticated balance-but it is crucial to our form of constitutional governance. Here, the Executive put itself above Congress. It imposed a categorical mandate on the spending of congressionally appropriated and obligated funds without regard to Congress's authority to control spending. Federal agencies and departments can spend, award, or suspend money based only on the power Congress has given to them-they have no other spending power. The Executive has not pointed to any constitutional or statutory authority that would allow them to impose this type of categorical freeze. The Court is not limiting the Executive's discretion or micromanaging the administration of federal funds. Rather, consistent with the Constitution, statutes, and caselaw, the Court is simply holding that the Executive's discretion to impose its own policy preferences on appropriated funds can be exercised only if it is authorized by the congressionally approved appropriations statutes. Accordingly, based on these principles and the reasons stated below, the Court grants the States' Motion for Preliminary Injunction. On mootness, the court notes: The States' request for a preliminary injunction makes clear that they are challenging a pause on federal funding that was implemented under not only the OMB Directive, but also to the EOs incorporated therein and other agency actions such as the OMB's issuance of the Unleashing Guidance. Thus, the rescission of the OMB Directive does not provide the States with all the prospective relief they have requested.6 Accordingly, the States' preliminary injunction request is not moot. As to the states' arguments that the actions by the federal government are ultra vires / contrary to law, the court finds: The statutory scheme governing federal appropriations are at the forefront of the States' ultra vires and "contrary to law" claims against the Agency Defendants. ... Thus, the States argue that the federal funding freeze exceeded the Defendants' authority and contravened the ICA because: (1) the freeze, or deferral, was impermissibly based on "policy disagreement with Congressional priorities;" and (2) the Executive failed to send the required "special message" to Congress detailing the numerous proposed deferrals. The ICA provides that "[w]henever the President, the Director of the [OMB], [or] the head of any [U.S.] department or agency . . . proposes to defer any budget authority provided for a specific purpose or project," the President must send a "special message" to Congress detailing the proposed deferrals. 2 U.S.C. § 684(a). A "deferral of budget authority" includes: (1) "withholding or delaying the obligation or expenditure of budget authority . . . provided for projects or activities;" or (2) "any other type of Executive action or inaction which effectively precludes the obligation or expenditure of budget authority . . .." Id. § 682(1)(A), (B). Further, the ICA enumerates only three bases in which a deferral is permissible: (1) "to provide for contingencies;" (2) "to achieve savings made possible by or through changes in requirements or greater efficiency of operations;" or (3) "as specifically provided by law." Id. § 684(b). "No officer or employee of the United States may defer any budget authority for any other purpose." Id. (emphasis added). Here, the OMB Directive and Section 7(a) of the Unleashing EO, constituted a budget authority deferral because it commanded-and prompted-an indefinite withholding or delay of obligated funds. 2 U.S.C. § 682(1)(A). Thus, under the law, the President was required to send a special message to Congress detailing the proposed deferrals, such as the amounts deferred, the proposed deferral period, and the programs involved. See id. § 684(a). There is no evidence that such a special message detailing the indefinite, widespan deferrals of obligated funding was ever communicated to Congress. Accordingly, the States have substantiated a likelihood of success in proving that the Executive's actions were contrary to law when bringing about a deferral of budget authority without sending a special message to Congress as the ICA requires. ... But "[a]bsent congressional authorization, the Administration may not redistribute or withhold properly appropriated funds in order to effectuate its own policy goals." City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225, 1235 (9th Cir. 2018). There is sufficient evidence that, in implementing the funding freeze, the Agency Defendants withheld funding that Congress did not tie to compliance with the President's policy priorities in the OMB Directive and the Unleashing EO. Accordingly, the States have substantiated a likelihood of success on the merits that the Agency Defendants acted "not in accordance with the law"-in violation of the APA-when exceeding their statutory authority to carry out a categorical federal funding freeze. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A The court also found the federal government acted arbitrarily and capriciously, in violation of the APA: Rather than taking a deliberate, thoughtful approach to finding these alleged unsubstantiated "wasteful or fraudulent expenditures," the Defendants abruptly froze billions of dollars of federal funding for an indefinite period. It is difficult to perceive any rationality in this decision-let alone thoughtful consideration of practical consequences-when these funding pauses endanger the States' ability to provide vital services, including but not limited to public safety, health care, education, childcare, and transportation infrastructure. ... Again, the Defendants have not proffered a rational reason for how their alleged goal of safeguarding taxpayer funds justified a de facto suspension of nearly all federal funding. Thus, the States have substantiated a likelihood of success of proving that the Agency Defendants' implementation of the funding freeze was arbitrary and capricious. Further, the Agency Defendants' categorical freeze of funding appropriated under the IRA and IIJA is also likely substantively unreasonable in violation of the APA. Generally, substantive unreasonableness may arise when an agency "exercise[s] its discretion unreasonably." Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council v. Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n, 873 F.3d 932, 936 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (Kavanaugh, J.). As discussed above, the IRA and IIJA appropriated funds to certain programs and funding streams that mandated expenditures based on fixed formulas-not the contravening policies of the President. Based on the record, the Agency Defendants implemented sweeping pauses of IRA/IIJA appropriated funds-under the OMB Directive and Unleashing EO-despite various fundings streams being governed by statutory commands that did not give discretion to withhold funds based on the policy initiatives the Executive sought to further. See e.g., ECF Nos. 48-1 ¶¶ 4-5 , 68-124 at 2; 68-123 ¶¶ 6-10, 26; 68-123 ¶ 36; 68-92 ¶ 15. Thus, the States have substantiated a likelihood of success on illustrating that the Agency Defendants unreasonably exercised its discretion, in violation of the APA, when broadly freezing IRA/IIJA appropriated funds in contravention of the underlying statutory funding commands. In terms of irreparable harm, the court notes: It is so obvious that it almost need not be stated that when money is obligated and therefore expected (particularly money that has been spent and reimbursement is sought) and is not paid as promised, harm follows-debt is incurred, debt is unpaid, essential health and safety services stop, and budgets are upended. And when there is no end in sight to the Defendants' funding freeze, that harm is amplified because those served by the expected but frozen funds have no idea when the promised monies will flow again. In discussing the balance of equities, the court notes the federal governments continued ability to make funding decisions "under the Executive's "actual authority in the applicable statutory, regulatory, or grant terms,." 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