The Trump administration acknowledged in court documents filed last week that it canceled more than $7.5 billion in federal clean energy grants to states “based solely” on whether they backed Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to a lawsuit brought by a group of University of California researchers.
The admission, first reported by the New York Times, came in a filing from the Justice Department representing the Department of Energy. Government lawyers wrote that the department “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.” The filing continued: “The Department of Energy accepts that the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche 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 October 2024 cancellation was announced by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on X, who said: “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled. The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.”
According to the court filing, the Energy Department had reviewed its financial assistance awards and created a list in September 2024 recommending cancellation of more than 600 grants awarded by the Biden administration for clean energy projects in states represented by both Republicans and Democrats. However, in October, the White House budget office terminated only 284 of those grants. “With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators,” the filing said. The Energy Department left in place hundreds of other energy grants in states represented by Republicans that had voted for Trump in 2024, despite the department having also recommended that they be scrapped.
In a statement Friday, a spokesperson for the Energy Department said the characterization of the court filing was a “misrepresentation.” The spokesperson said the acknowledgment of political considerations “was referring to the timing of the announcement, not of the decisions themselves,” and that “none of the termination decisions were based on political considerations.” Last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright testified before the House science, space and technology committee to defend the department’s fiscal 2027 budget request. “No decisions were made on politics,” he insisted.
The lawsuit was filed in June by six University of California faculty and other researchers challenging various federal agencies that halted Biden-era funding. The plaintiffs said the abrupt cancellations were part of a “political ‘cost-cutting’ agenda and ideological purity campaign” by the administration.
The admission comes as the White House seeks to exert greater control over billions of dollars in annual federal grants. A 400-page proposed rule published May 29 would require that discretionary awards “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities” and adhere to standards including not promoting “anti-American values” or the denial of “the sex binary in humans.”