The US District Court of the District of Columbia has ruled that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) cancellation of awarded project grants constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws.
On 1 October 2025, Russel Vought, director at the US Office of Management and Budget announced on a social media post that nearly US$8 billion of funding was cancelled, affecting 16 US states. One day after Vought’s post on a social media platform, the DOE issued a press release stating it had terminated 315 financial awards supporting 223 projects, amounting to US$7.56 billion.
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“The court concludes that Defendants’ grant-termination decisions violate the Fifth Amendment. The court therefore enters judgment in favor of Plaintiffs on the equal protection claim but dismisses the First Amendment claim,” wrote the judge.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were the City of St. Paul in Minnesota, Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), Plug In America, Elevate Energy, the Southeast Community Organization and Environmental Defense Fund. All of them were either awardees or subawardees of environmental project grants from the US DOE.
In the ruling, which can be accessed here, the judge mentioned that the terminated grants had a common point, which was that all but one of the awardees were based in states that did not vote, in the majority, for US President Donald Trump in the last presidential election.
“Defendants admit that “[a] primary reason for the selection of which DOE grant termination decisions were included in the October 2025 notice tranche was whether the grantee was located in a ‘Blue State.’” Id. So, Defendants concede that the political identity of a terminated grantee’s state, including the fact that the state supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, played a preponderant role in the October 2025 grant termination decisions,” wrote the judge.
“The court recognized that the Trump Department of Energy vindictively canceled projects for clean affordable energy that just happened to be in states disfavored by the Trump administration, in violation of the bedrock Constitutional guarantee that all people in all states have equal protection under the law.
“The administration’s damaging actions violated the U.S. Constitution, foundational American values, and basic decency, and it imposed high costs on the American people who rely on clean affordable energy for their pocketbooks and for healthier lives,” said Vickie Patton, General Counsel at the Environmental Defense Fund.
In the ruling’s conclusion, the judge ordered that “parties shall file a Joint Status Report by January 16, 2026, which indicates whether Plaintiffs still seek permanent injunctive relief and whether Plaintiffs intend to move for attorney’s fees.”
“We disagree with the judge’s decision and stand by our review process which evaluated these awards individually and determined they did not meet the standards necessary to justify the continued spending of taxpayer dollars. The American people deserve a government that is accountable and responsible in managing taxpayer funds,” said a DOE spokesperson to PV Tech.
