Trump admin canceled energy research grants tied to blue states. Then it admitted in court the decision was political

The Trump administration has admitted that it canceled 284 federal research grants because they were connected to states that voted against President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to court filings reported by The New York Times.

The admission reportedly came in a filing this month responding to a lawsuit brought by University of California researchers who challenged the cancellations. According to the filing, the Department of Energy stated that on a list of more than 2,300 financial assistance awards, 624 grants were marked either “termination” or “cancel.”

Of those 624 grants, Jeff Novak, the principal deputy general counsel of the Department of Energy, wrote that the Office of Management and Budget identified 284 specific grants in October 2025 that were marked for termination, according to the filing cited by The New York Times.

Department official says grants were tied to states that voted for Harris

Novak reportedly wrote that, with one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location or at least one place of performance in a state that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators. 

This is not the first time a federal agency’s grant terminations have faced legal scrutiny over how they targeted recipients, as a judge ruled DOGE used race and gender to carry out a separate mass termination of federal grants.

According to Novak, the remaining 340 grants that were proposed for termination were not canceled in October 2025 or since then. He reportedly wrote that those grants had a recipient location or place of performance in a state that voted for Trump or has at least one Republican-caucusing senator.

Novak reportedly stated that the decision to cancel the 284 grants was not based on any “programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor.” He wrote that the Department of Energy accepts that the grants were included “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state,” according to the filing.

Novak also reportedly stated that the department would not argue that it considered the political identity or geographic distribution of downstream beneficiaries of the grant funds, beyond the prime grantees themselves.

The Department of Energy pushed back on this characterization in a statement Friday, arguing that the court filings did not show the termination decisions were made on a political basis. Ben Dietderich, press secretary for the Energy Department, said in a statement that this was “a misrepresentation of the court filing and of Mr. Novak’s words.”

“None of the termination decisions were based on political considerations,” Dietderich said, adding that Energy Secretary Chris Wright “has explained this numerous times in briefings on Capitol Hill.”

Wright himself denied that the grant cancellations were partisan during an appearance before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee in June. “No decisions were made on politics. I keep hearing that charge. It’s bulls—t. We’re going to say it a million times,” Wright said, according to NBC News.

In an October social media post, when the 284 grants were canceled, OMB Director Russ Vought wrote that “nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.” Vought reportedly listed 16 states where projects were canceled, including California, New York, Colorado, Vermont and New Jersey. 

Around the same period, the administration also pursued other energy-related initiatives, including when it used wartime powers to fund coal as part of an effort to lower energy costs. 

The filing comes as the Office of Management and Budget has proposed a new rule that would reportedly give political appointees greater control over roughly $1 trillion per year in federal grant funding. The office has said the rule is meant to ensure grants align with the sitting president’s priorities and to improve oversight.

Under the proposed rule, political appointees could screen grant applications to check that they do not “promote anti-American values,” and could terminate grants they determine are “no longer in the Federal Government’s interest.”