(The Center Square) – A federal judge Friday put an indefinite freeze on the Trump administration’s plan to terminate $11 billion in public health funding.

The U.S. District Court for Rhode Island granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed April 1 by the District of Columbia and 23 states, including California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington. The court on April 3 granted a temporary restraining order. Preliminary injunctions can last longer, until the court says otherwise.

In her ruling Friday, Judge Mary McElroy determined the federal government “clearly usurped Congress’s authority to spend and allocate funds” when it suddenly terminated $11 billion of public health grants on March 24. The lawsuit contends the grants were terminated with no advance notice.

The federal grants addressed everything from infectious disease outbreaks to immunization and mental and substance abuse services, McElroy said. “Without the funds, these programs could not continue.”

Congress instructed the Health and Human Services Department to spend various amounts of money in certain ways, McEloy said. She added Congress didn’t give the department the power to decide against spending the money.

“If Congress intended to charge HHS with such a determination, it would have done so at some point — like in June 2023, when it went line-by-line and rescinded some COVID-era funding but left other funding in place,” McElroy wrote in her ruling. She added states are likely to succeed in court on their argument supporting Congress on this point.

“The Court presumes that ‘Congress intends to make policy decisions itself’ rather than leaving those decisions to agencies,” McEloy said, citing the 2022 precedent West Virginia v. EPA. She cited other cases as well.

California co-led the coalition that is suing the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and its leader, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

California Attorney General Rob Bonta Friday praised the preliminary injunction and said the state would have lost more than $972 million if the cuts weren’t challenged.

“Critically, the court also noted that we are likely to succeed on the merits of our claims,” Bonta said in a news release.

Besides California, the other states filing the suit are Colorado, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Wisconsin. Plaintiffs also include the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

(The Center Square) – Reversing from job losses in March, the Texas oil and natural gas industry posted job gains in April, according to the latest employment data.

The industry contributed to the state’s job gains, which again led the U.S. in job creation and broke multiple employment records last month, The Center Square reported.

Upstream oil and natural gas employment climbed by 1,700 in April over the month, representing an increase in 900 jobs in the services sector and 800 jobs in oil and natural gas extraction. In March, the industry reported job losses of 800 after reporting gains in January and February of 2,600 and 1,600, respectively, The Center Square previously reported.

From April 2024 to April 2025, the industry added more than 206,000 upstream jobs, a 1% increase. The upstream sector involves oil and natural gas extraction and some types of mining. It excludes other industry sectors like refining, petrochemicals, fuels wholesaling, oilfield equipment manufacturing, pipelines, and gas utilities that support hundreds of thousands of additional jobs statewide. Industry jobs pay among the highest wages in Texas, with an average salary of $128,000 in 2024.

“The oil and natural gas industry continues to demonstrate resiliency while facing uncertainty with underlying demand concerns,” Texas Oil & Gas Association President Todd Staples said. “These positive job numbers are a tremendous benefit to the families who are supported by this industry and are important for the communities in which they occur. Sound policies that support fair business practices and laws that keep our state competitive are necessary if Texas is going to continue to benefit from oil and natural gas activity.”

Since the COVID-era low point of September 2020, the industry has added 49,000 Texas upstream jobs, a 31.2% increase, averaging monthly growth of 891 jobs, TXOGA notes. Over the same time-period, months with upstream oil and gas employment increases outnumbered those with decreases by 39 to 15.

While there were new job postings, there was a decline in overall unique postings in April compared to March, according to an analysis of the employment data by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO). Last month, there were 8,826 active unique jobs postings for the Texas oil and natural gas industry, compared to 10,120 in March.

Texas still had more postings than other states by far. California had 2,611 unique job postings in April, followed by New York’s 2,392, Florida’s 1,744, and Colorado’s 1,290, according to the data.

The top three companies posting the greatest number of unique jobs in April were Love’s (665), Cefco (655) and John Wood Group (280), TIPRO found. Of the top ten companies listed by unique job postings last month, five were in the services sector; two were in a gasoline station/convenience store category, two in midstream and one in the oil and gas operator category.

In April, Texas energy producers paid $436 million in oil production taxes and $233 million in natural gas production taxes, according to Texas comptroller data.

This is after the industry paid a record $27.3 billion in state and local taxes and state royalties in fiscal 2024, The Center Square reported.

According to a recent U.S. Energy Information Administration Short-Term Energy Outlook report, U.S. power consumption is expected to reach record highs in 2025 and 2026. “The forecasts for surging power demands underscore the need for reliable power generation from domestic energy sources, including oil and natural gas,” TIPRO said. “Energy policies that support greater oil and gas development will continue to prove critical to keep up with the rising power generation needs in the U.S.”

(The Center Square) – Former Republican Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada and his chief of staff, Cade Cothren, face up to 20 years in prison after their conviction on a list of charges related to what prosecutors called a scheme to defraud the state.

The men were convicted by a jury on charges of conspiracy to commit theft from programs receiving federal funds; bribery and kickbacks concerning programs receiving federal funds; honest services wire fraud; conspiracy to commit money laundering; using a fictitious name to carry out a fraud; theft concerning programs receiving federal funds; eight counts of money laundering; and two counts of bribery and kickbacks, according to Robert E. McGuire, acting United States attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Both were found guilty on additional charges. Cothren was also convicted of an additional six counts of honest services wire fraud. The jury acquitted Casada of two counts of honest services wire fraud but convicted him of two more counts.

The plan involved Cothren posing as a “Matthew Phoenix,” a fictional experienced political consultant, according to prosecutors.

Casada and former Republican state representative Robin Smith of Hixson would encourage colleagues to use Phoenix’s services in exchange for kickbacks from Cothren, according to the office. Those services included printing and designing legislative updates and survey mailers for members of the Tennessee General Assembly, federal prosecutors said.

Phoenix Solutions received $51,947 in state payments and more than $170,000 from political organizations, campaigns and candidates, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Smith pleaded guilty to one count of honest services wire fraud in 2022 and was a witness in the trial. She also faces up to 20 years in prison and will be sentenced June 9. She was first elected to the House in 2018 and resigned in 2022.

Casada was House speaker from January 2019 to August 2019. He was a member of the House, representing Franklin, from 2003 to 2023. He and Cothren will be sentenced at a later date, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

“Tennesseans have a right to expect honest services from their elected leaders and their staffs,” McGuire said. “Our office will continue to pursue justice on behalf of our community in cases involving public corruption and fraud committed by elected officials or their staffs.”