Dive Brief:
- A coalition of 13 state attorneys general on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California challenging the Trump administration’s termination of funding for energy and infrastructure programs created through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
- In addition to cutting nearly $8 billion from clean energy projects, which the Department of Energy announced in October, the Trump administration “has quietly abandoned” projects funded by “high-profile energy and infrastructure legislation passed during the previous presidential administration,” the lawsuit states.
- “The President is cherry-picking this funding at the expense of hardworking Americans and stifling innovation and the economy for the sake of partisan retribution,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. The DOE has terminated more than $1.2 billion in funding for clean energy projects in California.
Dive Insight:
U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought posted on social media in early October that “nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled” and named 16 states that would be affected: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
The DOE said it had determined the grants “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.”
The states allege the funding cuts were politically motivated. The DOE’s list of terminated projects “specifically targets states where a majority of Americans cast their votes in favor of the Democratic nominee for President,” the Colorado Energy Office said in an October statement. The terminations “will balloon energy costs, threaten grid reliability, increase pollution, and create instability in our business community,” it said.
Wednesday’s lawsuit was filed by California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, against the DOE, DOE Secretary Chris Wright, OMB and Vought. It states that “only Congress has the power to appropriate funding, and to define if and how federal programs are administered.” The plaintiffs allege the funding cuts violate the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Administrative Procedure Act.
“Congress voted to fund these programs to create jobs, save us money on our utility bills, and end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels. We’re suing to force Trump to understand laws and Congress are not optional,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement.
The plaintiffs contend the DOE compiled a “hit list” of energy and infrastructure awards it wanted to cut to eliminate programs created under the IIJA and IRA.
This suit follows one in November filed by St. Paul, Minnesota, and a coalition of energy and environmental groups. They sued the DOE and OMB to restore the clean energy grants, claiming the administration’s actions violate the First Amendment by targeting speech based on viewpoint and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, which prohibits the federal government from denying equal protection of the laws.
DOE said in an emailed statement in November that the grants were terminated based on a “thorough, individualized review” that found they “failed to meet one or more of the standards required to justify further taxpayer funding, including but not limited to, missed milestones, project viability, and alignment with the Department’s priorities.”
