DOE admits canceling $7.5B in clean energy grants based on 2024 election results

The White House has acknowledged in court that it deliberately canceled federal grants to states that did not vote for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

According to court documents filed last week and first reported by The New York Times, Trump administration officials confirmed they terminated $7.5 billion in clean energy grants in October "based solely" on political criteria. The terminations targeted states with Democratic leadership that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.

The admission came in a lawsuit filed by California researchers challenging the cancellation of Biden-era funding across multiple federal agencies.

Background

At the time of the cuts, the White House said it was slashing the grants—passed during the Biden administration—to prevent tax dollars from being wasted. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, an architect of Project 2025, called the funding "Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda" and singled out projects in 16 blue states:

• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• Oregon
• Vermont
• Washington

Contradicting Previous Denials

Just one month ago, Energy Secretary Chris Wright angrily insisted to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology that the cuts "did not involve politics in the decision-making of our review process." He called any accusation that the funding cancellations targeted certain states for political reasons "bullshit."

However, last week, a Department of Energy lawyer conceded the opposite.

The Court Filing

"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 attorney wrote in a court filing.

The attorney confessed that the grants were not terminated "based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor."

Similar green energy grants in Republican-led states that voted for Trump in 2024 were left untouched, despite the Department of Energy recommending their cancellation, the government said in the filing.

Why the Administration Came Clean

The Trump administration said it disclosed this information now to avoid having to participate in the discovery process for the lawsuit. That process could have required the government to hand over much more damaging internal documents to the lawyers representing the researchers.

Broader Pattern of Retaliation

The clean energy grants are not an isolated case. The Trump administration has also held up other federal funding for states that did not support the president, including:

• FEMA disaster aid
• Childcare funding

While the court's decision on this lawsuit is still pending, regardless of how the judge rules, Trump is not expected to end his efforts to use federal funding as a political weapon.

Just a few days ago: Trump Denies Disaster Aid for Four States That Didn't Vote for Him

Republicans Urge Trump to Intensify Military Action Against Iran

Republicans are urging the president to sidestep negotiations with Tehran and instead escalate military strikes against Iran.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker told The Hill Thursday that he encouraged the president to continue hitting the country through multiple conversations over the course of the week.

"I've expressed publicly and privately my approval of finishing the job, and realizing that negotiations were getting us nowhere," Wicker said. "I've made it clear that Iran, in my judgment, has no intention of negotiating in good faith or keeping a promise and that it's pointless to pretend that they are a trustworthy negotiating party."

Wicker added that he believed the U.S. could "keep the [Strait of Hormuz] open on our terms" and that the strait is "the key to a successful conclusion of hostilities."

Texas Representative Ronny Jackson, a close friend of Trump's who also served as his first-term physician, told The Hill that the military needs to attack Iran "as hard as we possibly can right now."

"I would do everything I possibly can right now to turn them around. So that'd be my thought," Jackson said.