The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing last week that it terminated clean energy project grants by targeting only those located in states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. The admission came in a filing related to a legal challenge against the administration's cancellation of Biden-era grants.
The Department of Energy compiled a list of 624 grants for termination in the fall of 2025. This list was subsequently reduced by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which ultimately spared projects in states that supported President Trump or had at least one Republican senator. According to Jeff Novak, the principal deputy general counsel of the Department of Energy, "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."
Approximately 340 other grants initially slated for termination were not cut and have remained active. These grants were located in states that voted for Trump or had at least one Republican senator.
In October 2025, OMB Director Russ Vought announced the grant cancellations, identifying "CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA" as the affected states, referring to the funding as "Green New Scam." Democrats have asserted that this filing proves Trump administration officials "corruptly abused their power" by terminating grants based solely on the political affiliation of the recipient states.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, stated that the administration "terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election." They further accused the administration of "weaponizing the federal government" and "corruptly abus[ing] their power to kill good jobs and punish hard-working families because of their political views."
A spokesperson for the Department of Energy told The New York Times that there is no contradiction between Energy Secretary Chris Wright's previous testimony to Congress and the recent court filing. Democrats have called for accountability for the administration's actions, noting that several courts have already ruled against the grant terminations.