Trump clean energy grants cancellation tied to state politics in court filing

A court filing says the Trump clean energy grants cancellation that ended $7.6 billion in federal awards was based on the politics of the recipient states. The statement is significant because administration officials had publicly described the cuts as investment and energy-policy decisions.

In court documents, the administration acknowledged canceling grants for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.” The states at issue were 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to the report. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials had said the terminated projects failed to advance U.S. energy needs sufficiently or had other shortcomings that made them poor uses of taxpayer money.

Why were the clean energy grants canceled?

The Energy Department said in October that it had ended 321 funding awards covering 223 projects. At the time, the department said a review found the projects did not adequately support national energy needs or were not economically viable.

The latest court filing gives a different basis for the cuts, saying the grant cancellations were tied to the political identity of the states where recipients were located. Government lawyers had also said in a separate earlier filing that grant selection was influenced by whether a recipient’s address was in a state that tends to elect Democratic candidates in state and national races.

The affected projects included work on battery plants, hydrogen technology, electric-grid improvements and carbon capture. Federal funding was cut for projects in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.

All 16 states supported Harris in 2024. Wright had characterized the cancellations as business decisions based on whether the projects were worthwhile uses of taxpayer funds.

Democrats and environmental groups criticize the filing

Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, senior Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, said the administration had admitted in court that it terminated nearly 300 energy projects because the states involved did not vote for President Donald Trump in 2024.

Kaptur and Murray accused the administration of using the federal government to punish families for political reasons and urged congressional Republicans to help hold the administration accountable.

Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, said the filing showed what she called a vindictive approach to canceling energy infrastructure. She said the cancellations ignored job losses, pollution and higher bills affecting people across the country.

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, had previously promoted the cuts on social media, saying money for what he called the left’s climate agenda was being canceled.

What legal challenges are underway?

The grant cancellations were challenged in court shortly after they were announced. More than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, led by California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, also asked the Energy Department’s acting inspector general to open a formal investigation.

The department’s internal watchdog began an investigation in December. The most recent acknowledgment came in Thakur v. Trump, a case that has been active since last spring.

Federal lawyers in that case also acknowledged using keywords connected to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to screen projects against Trump administration priorities. A separate lawsuit by clean energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, also challenged the canceled funding.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.