US judge blocks Trump move to cancel $27.5M in clean-energy grants

A US federal judge ruled on Monday that the Trump administration's decision last year to cut millions of dollars from clean-energy funding was "unlawful," saying the reductions disproportionately targeted Democratic-led states.

In the decision, Judge Amit P. Mehta said ending seven Biden-era clean-energy grants worth about $27.5 million violated the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee.

"The terminated grants had one glaring commonality: All the awardees (but one) were based in states whose majority of citizens casting votes did not support President Trump in the 2024 election," Judge Mehta wrote.

The Energy Department ended more than $7.5 billion in clean-energy funds in October, with most of the cuts hitting Democratic-led states.

In November, a coalition of energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, filed a lawsuit over seven of the canceled grants, arguing that the move was politically motivated. Monday's ruling addressed only those seven grants.

The White House announced the cuts on the first day of the government shutdown, as Democrats and Republicans clashed over a federal spending bill.

"Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda is being canceled," White House budget director Russell T. Vought had said on social media, listing 16 Democratic-led states that would be affected.

The grants were among more than 220 Biden-era energy projects affected by the Energy Department's decision to cancel $7.5 billion in funding, including power grid upgrades, methane-leak reduction efforts and clean-hydrogen hubs across several states.

Billions in similar Biden-era energy awards in Republican-led states, including hydrogen hubs in West Virginia, Texas and Louisiana, appear to have been spared.

Judge Mehta said the Energy Department showed "no plausible rational connection" between its policy priorities and where the cuts were made.

Energy Department spokesman Ben Dietderich said the agency disagreed with the ruling and defended its review process, saying the grants were assessed individually and failed to meet standards for continued taxpayer spending. "The American people deserve a government that is accountable and responsible in managing taxpayer funds," he said.