Court rules Trump administration energy project cuts were illegal
In November, the Department of Energy canceled $7.5 billion in grants. The cancellations — made by the Trump administration on the second day of the government shutdown — terminated more than 300 financial awards covering hundreds of projects, including new wind and solar development as well as critical grid upgrades and efficiency programs expected to save money for consumers.
Notably, the canceled projects were only in states that did not vote for President Trump in the 2024 election. One grant was for a clean energy project that would provide back-up emergency power to a children’s hospital in California.
“The administration’s cancellations were targeted at projects that happen to be in disfavored states and have nothing at all to do with the vital benefits of these projects in expanding clean affordable energy,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for Environmental Defense Fund.
On November 10, a coalition including Environmental Defense Fund, sued the Trump administration for canceling the grants. On January 12, the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia ruled the administration violated the Constitution’s equal protection requirements when it cancelled millions of dollars in federal grants based on the states in which the grantees were located.
“The court recognized that the Trump Department of Energy vindictively canceled projects for clean affordable energy that just happened to be in states disfavored by the Trump administration, in violation of the bedrock Constitutional guarantee that all people in all states have equal protection under the law," Patton said. "The administration’s damaging actions violated the U.S. Constitution, foundational American values, and basic decency, and it imposed high costs on the American people who rely on clean affordable energy for their pocketbooks and for healthier lives.”
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Blocking energy projects costs consumers
Aside from the Department of Energy cancellations that prompted the lawsuit, the Trump administration has been banning federal permitting of new wind projects, erecting obstacles to solar, and rolling back federal support for solar and wind energy projects across the country, calling renewable energy expensive and unreliable.
But EDF attorney Ted Kelly, an expert in clean energy, says that’s simply not true.
“Right now, when you look at what’s cheapest to put on the grid, it’s solar and wind and battery storage,” he says. “One cause of the high energy bills people are experiencing across the country is this intervention by the Trump administration to block and slow deployment of clean affordable energy.”
Even in oil-rich states like Texas, the economics of clean energy have become undeniable. “Texas has more solar and battery capacity than almost any other state,” Kelly notes. “That’s because it makes economic sense. It reduces costs.”
The bottom line? “It’s not good to have a government that randomly stops projects whenever it decides it doesn’t like them or attacks those projects because of animus for the states where they are located,” Kelly says. “That kind of uncertainty will raise the cost of all kinds of projects in the future.”
It's unclear whether the federal government will appeal the January 12 ruling.