Trump administration admits grants for clean energy were cancelled based on politics

Washington: The Trump administration has acknowledged in court documents that it cancelled USD 7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state" - in this case, 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The statement contradicts repeated assertions by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials that the projects were cancelled because they did not adequately advance the nation's energy needs or had other problems that made them a poor investment of taxpayer dollars.

Democrats and environmental groups seized on the court filing Friday, saying the administration had "weaponised" the federal government to kill good jobs and punish working families because of their political views.


Also read: Trump pledge on data center power supplies draws skepticism

Democrats say what was obvious' has now been acknowledged

"This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election," said Rep Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state. Both are high-ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, respectively.

"Weaponising the federal government like this is outright un-American, and it's hardworking families already struggling with sky-high costs who are suffering the consequences of this corrupt abuse of power," Kaptur and Murray said.

They called on congressional Republicans to join them in holding the Trump administration "accountable for the President's failure to look out for all Americans."

The Energy Department announced last October that 321 funding awards across 223 projects were terminated, saying that after review, they "did not adequately advance the nation's energy needs or were not economically viable."

The cuts, part of broader attacks from President Donald Trump on climate programs and clean energy funding, slashed federal support for projects to build battery plants, develop hydrogen technology, upgrade the electric grid and capture carbon dioxide emissions.

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, highlighted the cutbacks in a social media post, saying money "to fuel the Left's climate agenda is being cancelled."

Also read: Trump climate pushback spurs courtroom battles, report says

Projects from many states were cut

Projects that were cut were located 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 targeted states supported Harris, but Wright said the cuts were "business decisions" based on whether the projects were a good use of taxpayer money or not.

The cuts were immediately challenged in court, and more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, led by California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, wrote a letter to the Energy Department's acting inspector general requesting a formal investigation. The department's internal watchdog launched an investigation in December.

Government lawyers had previously confirmed in a court filing late last year that the selection of grants in fact "was influenced by whether a grantee's address was located in a State that tends to elect ... Democratic candidates in state and national elections (so-called "Blue States")."

That filing came in a separate suit filed by clean energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, over the cancelled funding. The most recent admission came in a case called Thakur v Trump that's been ongoing since last spring. Federal lawyers acknowledged that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration's priorities.

Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, said the latest court filing shows "the Trump administration is brazenly admitting to a vindictive approach to cancelling much-needed energy infrastructure that ignores the job losses, air pollution and increasing bills that people are experiencing everywhere."

Instead of "building the energy projects we desperately need," billions of American taxpayer dollars are "going to line the pockets of a small handful of fossil fuel company CEOs," Bender said, citing nearly USD 3 billion pledged by the Trump administration to cancel offshore wind projects in favour of fossil fuel projects such as natural gas and coal.