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A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it canceled $7.6 billion in clean energy grants for projects located in states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, concluding the move violated the Constitution’s equal protection requirements.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said the administration failed to provide a lawful justification for terminating hundreds of clean energy projects based largely on the political preferences of voters in those states. The ruling marks a significant setback for President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle major federal clean energy initiatives and comes amid mounting legal challenges to that agenda.
The canceled grants supported hundreds of clean energy projects across 16 states, including battery manufacturing plants, hydrogen technology hubs, electric grid upgrades and carbon capture initiatives. All of the affected states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington — supported Harris in the 2024 election.
The Energy Department said it terminated the awards after a review determined the projects did not sufficiently advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable. Russell Vought, the White House budget director, framed the decision in overtly political terms, writing on social media that “the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled.”
The city of St. Paul, Minnesota, along with a coalition of environmental and clean energy groups, sued after losing federal funding.
In a 17-page opinion, Mehta said the administration’s own admissions undermined its legal defense.
“Defendants freely admit that they made grant-termination decisions primarily — if not exclusively — based on whether the awardee resided in a state whose citizens voted for President Trump in 2024,” Mehta wrote.
The administration, he added, offered no explanation for how “purposeful targeting of grant recipients based on their electoral support for Trump — or lack of it — rationally advances their stated government interest.”
The judge concluded that the actions violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause by discriminating against states and grant recipients based on political affiliation rather than neutral policy criteria.
The Energy Department said it disagreed with the ruling and defended its review process.
“Officials stand by our review process, which evaluated these awards individually and determined they did not meet the standards necessary to justify the continued spending of taxpayer dollars,” department spokesman Ben Dietderich said. “The American people deserve a government that is accountable and responsible in managing taxpayer funds.”
Trump previously suggested such cuts were within his authority. In an October interview with One America News, he said his administration could eliminate projects favored by Democrats. “I’m allowed to cut things that never should have been approved in the first place and I will probably do that,” Trump said.
Environmental and clean energy advocates welcomed the ruling, calling it a rebuke of politically motivated decision-making.
Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the court recognized that the Energy Department “vindictively canceled projects for clean affordable energy that just happened to be in states disfavored by the Trump administration.”
She said the actions violated constitutional principles and “imposed high costs on the American people who rely on clean affordable energy for their pocketbooks and for healthier lives.”
Anne Evens, CEO of Elevate Energy, one of the organizations that lost funding, said the decision would help protect jobs and energy affordability.
“Affordable energy should be a reality for everyone, and the restoration of these grants is an important step toward making that possible,” Evens said.
The ruling came just hours after another federal judge ordered that work resume on a major offshore wind farm serving Rhode Island and Connecticut, dealing the administration a second legal defeat in its campaign to roll back clean energy programs.
Together, the decisions highlight growing judicial scrutiny of the administration’s efforts to reverse climate and energy policies enacted under previous administrations, particularly where courts find evidence of political retaliation.
The Energy Department is expected to appeal Mehta’s ruling, potentially setting up a broader legal fight over the limits of executive authority in awarding — and revoking — federal grants.
In the meantime, the decision could clear the way for the affected clean energy projects to move forward, at least temporarily, while litigation continues.
