DOE admits clean-energy grant cancellations were based on states' political affiliation
A Department of Energy court filing confirms that October 2025 terminations of more than $7 billion in clean-energy grants were selected solely on whether the recipient states voted for President Trump, contradicting the agency’s earlier testimony.
During a June hearing of the House Science Committee, Energy Department Secretary Chris Wright told Rep. Gabe Amo that grant decisions were not influenced by politics. A court filing released in a lawsuit filed by California scientists later that month shows the department admitted the opposite. The document states that the October 2025 termination of 284 clean-energy grants was based exclusively on the political identity of the recipient state – specifically, whether the state had voted for Biden’s ticket in the 2024 election or had two Democratic-caucusing senators.
The filing notes that the Department of Energy had sent a list of more than 2,200 grants to the Office of Management and Budget for review, and the OMB authorized the termination of the 284 grants identified as “Blue State” projects. The remaining grants, located in states that supported President Trump or had at least one Republican-caucusing senator, were not terminated.
The stipulation in the court document confirms that the terminations were not based on programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance criteria, despite the department’s public statement that the grants “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs” and were not economically viable.
Rep. Deborah Ross said staff acknowledged that political appointees conducted the review with a “subjective, inconsistent analysis,” and that no documentation of the evaluation process was provided. Other Democratic lawmakers described the cancellations as partisan retaliation.
The filing is part of broader litigation alleging that the Trump administration used federal funding decisions to target states that did not align with its political agenda, including actions by other agencies to withhold disaster, public-safety, and health grants.
"They shouldn’t and they weren’t," Secretary Wright said when asked if politics should guide grant decisions.
"We did not involve politics in the decisions," Wright added, later describing the charge as "bullshit."
The court record contradicts those statements, indicating that political considerations were the sole factor in the October grant terminations.