DOE terminated 284 renewable energy grants based solely on whether recipient states voted for Trump, its own legal filing later admitted

On October 1, 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the termination of 321 financial awards supporting 223 projects, totaling approximately $7.56 billion in canceled funding. The DOE stated publicly that the terminations followed "a thorough, individualized financial review" and that the affected projects "did not adequately advance the nation's energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars." Energy Secretary Chris Wright subsequently testified to Congress on multiple occasions that the decisions were not political: "All of the 2,270 projects we evaluated were not evaluated in any way, shape or form based on where they were," he told the House Appropriations Committee in April 2026.

A July 15, 2026, DOE legal filing in litigation brought by University of California researchers contradicted those representations. The filing stated: "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." It continued: "DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state, i.e., whether the recipient's location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State." The filing stated the decision was not based on "any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor."

The 16 states affected had either a Democratic state legislature or a Democratic governor. The roughly 340 grants that survived the review were in states that awarded their electoral votes to Trump or had at least one Republican senator. The canceled projects totaled close to $8 billion in committed federal funding for renewable energy development.

Democratic lawmakers called the admission extraordinary. "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," members of Congress wrote in a statement.

Updates

2025-12-17 — DOE Inspector General agreed to audit $7.6B in canceled clean-energy grants [7]

The DOE Inspector General agreed to audit the approximately $7.6 billion in renewable energy grants canceled in October 2025, following a request from Democratic members of Congress, including Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Representative Zoe Lofgren, who argued the terminations were politically motivated. The IG audit represented the first formal federal oversight action taken in response to the October terminations.

2026-01-12 — Federal judge ruled Trump administration illegally blocked clean energy grants to Democratic states [8, 9]

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the Trump administration acted illegally when it canceled $7.6 billion in clean energy grants for projects in states that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, finding the conduct violated the Constitution's equal protection requirements. The ruling covered hundreds of clean energy projects across 16 states, including battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, and grid upgrades, and predated the DOE's own admission in its July 15, 2026, court filing that the terminations were based solely on the political identity of the recipient states.

2026-07-15 — DOE admitted in legal filing that grant terminations were based solely on states' electoral votes and party affiliation [2, 3, 4]

In a filing dated July 15, 2026, in litigation brought by University of California researchers, DOE lawyers admitted that the October 2025 grant terminations were based "solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state." The filing disclosed that 284 of the terminated grants went to projects in states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and had two Democratic-caucusing senators, and that this political criterion — not programmatic, statutory, cost, or performance factors — was the basis for their inclusion in the termination list. The admission directly contradicted Energy Secretary Chris Wright's congressional testimony that politics had played no role.

2026-07-23 — Federal judge vacated DOE's October 2025 grant cancellations on equal protection grounds [5, 6]

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta vacated DOE's cancellation of $82.1 million in funding for 11 clean energy grants, entering final judgment in favor of plaintiffs led by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Plaintiffs established that the grants were terminated based solely on their location in states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, invoking the same equal protection and Fifth Amendment grounds as an earlier settled case involving Saint Paul plaintiffs. Judge Mehta ruled that the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment did not countenance the defendants' conduct, calling the judgment "a final, appealable judgment." DOE was expected to reinstate the $82.1 million in funding for 11 projects in New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Colorado.

2026-08-08 — Grist investigation found DOE grant withholding extends well beyond the October 2025 tranche [10]

A Grist investigation reported that DOE's withholding of previously awarded clean-energy funds is broader than the October 2025 termination alone. Citing an April 2026 report from the DOE Alumni Network, a group of former agency staff, the piece said DOE had formally terminated 356 awards worth $12.5 billion and threatened 303 more worth $12.2 billion since January 2025, with many additional awards left in administrative limbo without formal termination. Wisconsin utility Alliant Energy withdrew its $50 million SPARC grid-reliability project for disadvantaged and tribal communities in April 2026, after DOE terminated the underlying grant with zero funds disbursed. Sacramento's SMUD said it has received no reimbursement for smart-meter work completed since DOE terminated its grant on October 10, 2025, despite the utility spending roughly $100 million against $33 million reimbursed before cancellation. A Midwest transmission consortium's $464 million grant for a joint interconnection-queue project — serving primarily Republican-voting states — remained in limbo as of the report, with DOE saying only that funding would "soon" be restored.