Maine is suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for canceling a $9 million grant the state received last year for habitat restoration projects.

The state alleges in the lawsuit filed Tuesday that NOAA violated several federal laws in rescinding the funding in April, including the 10th Amendment.

It claims NOAA pulled the funding as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to punish Maine for not banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.

The grant funding was issued in August 2024 as part of NOAA’s Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience program. The $9 million grant, issued to the Maine Department of Marine Resources, was intended to be used to elevate a road in Addison to prevent flooding and to add a culvert that would help fish and lobster swim from the ocean into a salt marsh along the Pleasant River. That effort is part of a broader project, estimated to cost $30 million to $40 million, to restore tidal flow in the area that was blocked in the 1940s.

When it canceled the funding this spring, NOAA informed Maine that it was doing so “to streamline and reduce the cost and size of the federal government.”

“The stated goal and description of the program — restoration of salt marsh and related effects — fall outside of the current direction NOAA is taking regarding habitat restoration at this time,” Timothy Carrigan, the acting director of NOAA, said in his April letter to the state announcing the grant was being rescinded.

The lawsuit claims that a federal agency may only cancel funding through a grant program if the purpose of its expense “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.” The state has yet to receive an explanation as to how the project in Down East no longer meets the program’s goals or the agency’s priorities, the suit states.

“NOAA’s decision was arbitrary and capricious and outside its legal authority,” it says.

“If anything, the project falls within the core of NOAA’s aptly titled Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience grant program,” the suit states.

The lawsuit notes that 17 similar projects in other states still have their funding in place through the federal grant program and that NOAA has continued to solicit applications for new grant awards through the program.