A California electric vehicle nonprofit whose $5 million grant was canceled by the Trump administration became on Monday one of the first such recipients to push back, saying that the move was illegal.
The action by Plug In America comes several weeks after it got a letter from the Department of Energy saying that its remaining funds of about $3 million “no longer effectuates program goals … due to a shift in the Department of Energy’s priorities.”
Joel Levin, Plug In America’s executive director, said in a statement, “We are highly skeptical about the legality of this decision and will do everything we can to fight for our contract.”
Other recipients of federal grants for EVs and other clean energy projects have either received notices that their funding is terminated or heard rumors to that effect. The cancellations are part of a broad rollback by the White House of tens of billions of dollars of federal aid for clean energy projects that was approved by Congress.
