Clean energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, sued the Trump administration over its cancellation of billions of dollars in Energy Department grants for projects in Democratic-led states during the government shutdown.
The lawsuit, filed by several clean energy organizations, names Energy Secretary Chris Wright and White House budget director Russell Vought as defendants. The plaintiffs allege the administration violated the First and Fifth Amendments through the cancellation of DOE grants in Democratic-led states.
In October, the Trump administration announced it would cancel $7.5 billion in grants and awards for 321 projects across 16 Democratic-led states. The cancellations came amid the government shutdown, as President Donald Trump threatened to cut programs and fire federal employees.
Vought tweeted last month that “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.” He added that projects in states, including California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Washington, and others, would be cut.
The Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Plug-In America, Elevate Energy, the City of St. Paul, and the Southeast Community Organization filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Defendants’ constitutional violations are plain, and the harms to Plaintiffs and the communities they intended to serve are all too real,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint.
“Unless the terminations are immediately unwound, Plaintiffs will need to lay off staff or not pursue important projects that were funded by the awards, including projects designed to make lives more affordable by lowering the cost of energy, expanding access to clean, affordable energy, and ensuring healthier lives through common-sense measures to reduce pollution,” they added.
The plaintiffs said that affected projects were meant to improve building efficiency, expand access to electric vehicles, make solar energy more affordable and accessible, and curb methane and other emissions from oil and gas operations.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to restore the terminated funding.
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“Under bedrock equal protection principles, the government must have some legitimate state interest when it treats one group differently from a similarly situated group. Bare animus, political or otherwise, is not a legitimate government interest,” the complaint reads.
The lawsuit comes as a group of Senate Democrats agreed over the weekend to support a funding measure that would end the government shutdown. The House must still approve the measure. The shutdown is now the longest in U.S. history, lasting more than 40 days.
