{"id":415047,"date":"2026-07-28T10:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/415047\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:43:09","slug":"trump-administration-targeted-california-and-other-blue-states-for-clean-energy-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/415047\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration targeted California and other blue states for clean energy cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The fate of hundreds of clean energy projects hangs in the balance after court documents revealed that the Trump administration targeted California and other blue states<\/a> solely for political reasons when it slashed funding<\/a> for the initiatives last year. <\/p>\n

Large companies, startups, utilities, universities and other nonprofits were among those that lost out on $7.6 billion in clean energy funding terminated by the White House in October<\/a>. They include the University of California, the California Energy Commission, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and California\u2019s nascent hydrogen hub<\/a>, the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, or ARCHES.<\/p>\n

At the time, Trump administration officials said the grants were terminated because they \u201cdid not adequately advance the nation\u2019s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in court documents<\/a> filed as part of a lawsuit challenging the cuts, the Department of Energy states the selection of grants was \u201cbased solely on the political identity of the grant recipient\u2019s state, i.e., whether the recipient\u2019s location and\/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also concedes that neither the inclusion of ARCHES, nor any other grants in the October tranche, was \u201cbased on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor.\u201d <\/p>\n

California and the 15 other states that lost funding did not vote for Trump in the 2024 election. <\/p>\n

Legal experts said such an action is unheard of.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government has stipulated that grants were cut off to states that voted against Trump. As far as I know, this blatant politics in cutting off grants is unprecedented. It also is illegal,\u201d said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School and co-counsel in the lawsuit. <\/p>\n

More projects were cut in California than any other state, about 79 out of nearly 300. They were all for clean energy, many to address climate change, and include investments in new battery plants, upgrades for the electrical grid and initiatives to take carbon out of the air. About $1.2 billion was slated for the hydrogen hub.<\/p>\n

Money was also to go to West Biofuels in Woodland, CALSTART in Pasadena, Charge Bliss in Aliso Viejo, Rejoule in Signal Hill, Southern California Edison, the Imperial Irrigation District and Aera Federal LLC, among many others. <\/p>\n

The lawsuit was brought by a group of faculty members and researchers at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, who were among those to lose research grants. A separate lawsuit<\/a> was filed by California and a coalition of 13 other states in February.<\/p>\n

The acknowledgment of political motivation is \u201cstartling \u2014 and it is particularly so when the administration has had these larger narratives about how they\u2019re canceling grants that are about waste, fraud and abuse,\u201d said Claudia Polsky, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at UC Berkeley and initiating counsel in the university case. \u201cIf they want to favor oil, coal and nuclear, and disfavor clean energy innovation, that\u2019s their prerogative as the executive. But here we have stipulations saying that none of those things were true for these staggeringly consequential DOE grants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit alleges that the government\u2019s actions violate the Constitution\u2019s equal protection clause, which prevents arbitrary discrimination, as well as the 1st Amendment in that it is targeting researchers for how their state voted. <\/p>\n

\u201cNone of it was about a change in priorities,\u201d Polsky said, noting that similar grants in red states<\/a> were not canceled. \u201cNone of it was about fiscal stringency. None of it was about anything except punishing people who didn\u2019t vote for Trump.\u201d <\/p>\n

Judge Rita F. Lin could order the federal funding to be reinstated, and indeed has already done so through some temporary preliminary injunctions. But many of the grantees are now in \u201cpurgatory\u201d as the case proceeds toward a final ruling, Polsky said.<\/p>\n

Many of the projects are complex, multi-year efforts that involve a hodgepodge of agencies, experts and partnerships, such as ARCHES, the state\u2019s billion-dollar hydrogen hub awarded under President Biden. Officials with ARCHES could not immediately be reached for comment. <\/p>\n

News of the funding cuts first broke last fall in a post on X<\/a> from Russell Vought, director of the White House\u2019s Office of Management and Budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cNearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left\u2019s climate agenda is being canceled,\u201d Vought wrote. \u201cThe projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a House hearing in June, however, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said decisions were not made based on politics<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary Wright looked me in the eye, under oath, insisting the decision to cancel California\u2019s clean energy projects was \u2018not political,\u2019\u201d Sen. Alex Padilla said in a statement to The Times on Monday. \u201cThe Administration\u2019s own court filings tell a different story. These decisions jeopardize good-paying jobs, undermine American energy innovation, and drive up costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Padilla is among 30 California lawmakers, including Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jos\u00e9), who separately challenged the funding cuts as unlawful \u2014 writing in an October letter<\/a> to the Energy Department\u2019s independent Office of the Inspector General that the decision targeted blue states \u201cfor their perceived lack of support for President Trump.\u201d The office subsequently launched an investigation<\/a> into the claims. <\/p>\n

\u201cAny Trump official who lied and told the nation these clean energy grant cancellations had nothing to do with politics should resign,\u201d Schiff said in a post on X<\/a> after the latest court filings were revealed. \u201cAs the administration has now been forced to concede \u2014 these cancellations had everything to do with politics. Of the worst kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

A final ruling is expected in early November.<\/p>\n

Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fate of hundreds of clean energy projects hangs in the balance after court documents revealed that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[166044,166046,7,9,8,131315,166043,6848,3667,1846,166045,17900,346,166042,1695,22190,2805],"class_list":["post-415047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-arches","tag-blatant-politic","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-claudia-polsky","tag-clean-energy-cut","tag-decision","tag-grant","tag-lawsuit","tag-nascent-hydrogen-hub","tag-none","tag-office","tag-other-blue-state","tag-trump-administration","tag-uc-berkeley-law-school","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}