429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED on Google Search grounding: new project, new API key, $0 balance

Gemini API
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  • Basic Gemini API calls work fine (no google_search tool)
  • Adding “tools”:[{“google_search”:{}}] immediately returns 429
  • Tried: new project, new API key, with and without billing
  • Old project had a spend cap hit, deleted that project, but search grounding is still blocked across all new projects
  • Waited 3+ days, no change

If I degrade the model to gemini-2.5-flash

{
"error": {
"message": "This model models/gemini-2.5-flash is no longer available to new users. Please update your code to use models/gemini-3.6-flash for the latest features and improvements.",
"code": "not_found"
}
}