A federal judge on Thursday overturned the U.S. Energy Department’s cancellation of $82.1 million in clean energy grants, ruling for the plaintiffs in a case over 11 projects in five states. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta entered judgment in their favor and called it a final, appealable decision.
The projects were in New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Minnesota and Colorado, and included four Oregon grants held by the New Buildings Institute. The awards had all come from the department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which was folded last year into the Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation.
The ruling is the first clear legal reversal of a batch of cancellations that affected money already committed to clean energy work. It also lands after the department’s October terminations swept up more than $7.5 billion in financial awards to projects in states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris, a pattern the plaintiffs said was no accident.
That allegation ran straight into Energy Secretary Chris Wright this week. During a Wednesday appearance before the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, he was asked when funding would be restored to projects that were wrongfully terminated. Wright said politics was not involved in the department’s review process and dismissed the charge in blunt terms, even as the plaintiffs pointed to an April complaint that cited a post by Russell Vought saying nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding was being cancelled and listing states including CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT and WA.
Mehta’s ruling does not say when the department will restore the money, and it does not say whether the department will appeal. What it does do is put the cancellations in legal jeopardy and give the 11 projects a path back to funding if the decision stands.
