Trump admin admits politically driven energy grant cuts

The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing this month that it terminated hundreds of federal clean energy grants based solely on political criteria, targeting projects in states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. The admission, made in litigation challenging the cancellation of more than $7.5 billion in grants, directly contradicts the administration's public justification that the cuts were made to eliminate wasteful spending.

According to the court filing, a Department of Energy lawyer stated that, with one exception, all 284 terminated grants had a recipient or project location in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Harris and has two Democratic senators. The filing explicitly acknowledged the grants "were not terminated based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor." In contrast, approximately 340 other grants initially recommended for cancellation by the Energy Department were spared; all were in states that voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 or have at least one Republican senator.

The grants were part of a suite of energy programs passed during the Biden...