The Trump administration has had to acknowledge in court filings that billions of dollars in federal clean energy grants were canceled based on the political makeup of the states receiving the funds, including states such as California that did not support President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
To the press, Trump said they canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October to protect taxpayer funds from waste. That wasn’t the case.
The admissions came as part of a legal challenge brought by researchers and grant recipients who argued that the cancellations were politically motivated. According to the filings, the Department of Energy terminated 284 grants totaling more than $7.5 billion, with officials acknowledging that the decisions were tied to whether the projects were located in states that backed Democratic candidates.
Many of the affected projects involved clean energy initiatives, including research, infrastructure upgrades, and technology development. California was among the states hit hardest, with projects focused on areas such as renewable energy and clean hydrogen facing funding losses.
Democratic spokespeople reacted:
“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,” they added. “This is an astounding admission that the president and his team corruptly abused their power to kill good jobs and punish hard-working families because of their political views.”
The dispute is now playing out in federal court, where judges are weighing whether the administration had the legal authority to cancel previously approved grants based on new policy priorities.