A federal district court in Washington has reinstated 11 Department of Energy grants, after the Trump administration reached an agreement with grant recipients that says DOE terminated the awards primarily because of their location in a blue state.
In a judgment Thursday, Judge Amit Mehta tossed out DOE’s decision last October to end the grant funding for projects in Connecticut, New York and Colorado, focused on energy efficiency, critical minerals reclamation and solar and hydrogen technologies.
Those projects were among 321 awards — worth more than $7.5 billion — canceled by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The agency withdrew the funding after White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced on social media that the administration would cancel “Green New Scam funding” in a list of states that backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
The ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a win for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and other grant recipients who claimed in their lawsuit that DOE canceled the grants solely due to “partisan discrimination and retribution.” They argued the decision violated equal protections under the Fifth Amendment.
