U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in U.S. District Court has ruled that the Department of Energy must overturn its cancellation of $82.1 millions in clean energy grants that were terminated in several Democratic-leaning states.
Exchange Monitor reached out to DOE about whether the government would be appealing the June 11 ruling but has not heard back as of deadline Thursday.
A group of awardees, led by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers of DOE grants, challenged the termination of their awards under the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee and First Amendment.
While the administration has cut many renewable energy projects, it has simultaneously prioritized new nuclear energy projects.
The group filed a lawsuit against Energy Secretary Chris Wright on March 30, alleging Wright canceled their awards because they were located in states that predominantly voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
The plaintiffs in this case sought to restore the grant funding to projects in Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York and Oregon. In October 2025, DOE canceled over 300 project grants issued during the Joe Biden administration.
The coalition cited a similar case, settled in January, which also alleged that DOE canceled several grants in predominantly blue-leaning states that voted for Harris. In the January ruling in the case of City of St. Paul v. Wright, the judge ruled that DOE canceled those clean energy grants on political grounds and ordered the agency to reverse its decision.
Mehta of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, who also presided over the January case, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
“Given that this case presents parallel legal and factual issues as Saint Paul, the parties have conferred and agree that it is in the interest of justice and judicial economy for the parties to enter into the same stipulations as in Saint Paul,” according to the ruling.
Mehta said that Wright’s defense did not contest the assertions that the 11 terminated grants were in “Blue States” and that the primary basis of DOE terminating those awards was if the projects were in “Blue States” or not. These assertions came from the City of St. Paul v Wright case.
Wright has publicly denied DOE terminated grants in predominantly Democratic-leaning states because of politics.. Wright recently pushed back against the notion during a House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s DOE fiscal 2027 budget request hearing as Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.) asked him when DOE would restore the grants that it “wrongfully terminated.”
“We did not involve politics in the decision-making of our review process,” Wright said. “Hands down. The court ruling [City of Saint Paul v. Wright] you read, was a choice of announcements of some of the awards, a choice of announcements not made by our department. No decisions. No decisions were made on politics.”
Wright continued, “I keep hearing that charge. It’s bulls**t [and] we’re going to say it a million times; It’s not true.”
Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) also had a heated exchange with Wright over the various clean energy grants that were canceled. Ross requested the names of the individuals who led the review process that led to the cancellation of the clean energy grants. Wright declined to provide during the hearing.
“Clean energy is an entire sector that has benefited this country,” Ross said. “It has weaned us off of fossil fuel and it has created jobs. This administration has declared war on clean energy; it has cost jobs [and] risking our environment.”
“I have not taken any objection to making sure we do things more efficiently. I want to do that…we cannot just say one way of doing it is the right way,” Ross finished.