Trump administration admits canceling $7.5bn in clean energy grants based on politics
US federal officials acknowledged in court filings that they terminated over $7.5 billion in clean energy grants solely because the recipient states voted for Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump, in the 2024 election.
The Trump administration has admitted in court documents that it canceled more than $7.5 billion in federal grants for clean energy projects last October based only on whether the states backed Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. The admission came in filings from a lawsuit brought by six University of California faculty members and other researchers who challenged the termination of Biden-era funding.
Government lawyers wrote that the Department of Energy "accepts that neither the inclusion of the ARCHES grant nor any other grants in the October notice tranche was based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor." Instead, the inclusion was "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state, ie, whether the recipient's location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State." The department also said it would not consider the political identity of downstream beneficiaries.
The New York Times first reported the filing. A Department of Energy spokesperson called the report a "misrepresentation," claiming the acknowledgment referred only to the timing of the announcement, not the decisions themselves.
According to the court documents, in September 2024, the Department of Energy reviewed its financial assistance awards and recommended canceling over 600 grants for clean energy projects in both Democratic and Republican states. However, in October, the White House budget office under Russell Vought terminated only 284 of those grants—all in states that had awarded their electoral votes to Kamala Harris. Vought announced on X: "Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled." The affected states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.
Meanwhile, hundreds of similar grants in Republican states—also recommended for cancellation—were left intact. Energy Secretary Chris Wright testified before the House science committee last month, insisting, "No decisions were made on politics."
The filings are part of a broader effort by the White House to tighten control over federal grants. A proposed rule published in May states that discretionary awards must "demonstrably advance the President's policy priorities" and adhere to standards including not promoting "anti-American values," denying "the sex binary in humans," or using "racial preferences" in selection criteria.
