A federal judge has ruled the U.S. Department of Energy acted illegally when it terminated several energy grants because they were based in Democratic-leaning states.

The ruling stems from the controversial cancelation of $7.56 billion worth of Biden-era grants in October 2025. A month later, the city of St. Paul, Minn., and five organizations challenged the cancellation of nine grants earmarked for them.

Judge Amit Mehta in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Jan. 12 that the grant cancellations violated the guarantee of equal protection of laws under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (25-cv-03899).

All 223 projects that were to receive the 321 grants (except one in Canada) are in states that Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election. Moreover, Mehta noted, the defendants admitted that a primary reason for selecting which DOE grants to cancel was whether the grantee was in a “blue state.”

Similar grants in “red states” that Donald Trump carried in the 2024 election were spared from termination, Mehta wrote, and the defendants conceded those grants were comparable to the terminated grants.

The judge specifically cites Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership and methane emissions monitoring grants that were awarded to both red and blue states but terminated only in blue states.

The defendants asserted partisan politics does not offend the Equal Protection Clause and compared it to the common practice of federal pork barrel spending.

But that analogy falls flat, Mehta wrote, because members of Congress securing money for their districts is wholly different from an agency taking away congressionally appropriated funds that already have been awarded. Further, pork-barrel spending can rationally be related to a legitimate government interest.

The plaintiffs, Mehta wrote, do not dispute that the defendants proffered a legitimate purpose for this: administering grant programs consistent with the agency’s priorities. The question, he said, is whether the classification the defendants drew is rationally related to the purpose.

Mehta then answered the question: “It is not. Without more [evidence], there is no reason to believe that terminating an award to a recipient located in a state whose citizens tend to vote for Democratic candidates — and, particularly, voted against President Trump — furthers the agency’s energy priorities any more than terminating a similar grant of a recipient in a state whose citizens tend to vote for Republican candidates or voted for President Trump.”

Mehta ruled the termination unlawful and vacated the October termination notices to the seven awards at issue in the litigation. He directed the plaintiffs to indicate by Jan. 16 whether they will seek injunctive relief and/or compensation for attorney’s fees.

In response, a Department of Energy spokesperson said Jan. 13: “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.”

The Department of Energy’s Oct. 2 announcement of the grant terminations indicated many of the grants were awarded during the lame-duck phase of Joe Biden’s presidency but did not indicate where the recipient projects were based: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. (See DOE Terminates $7.56B in Energy Grants for Projects in Blue States.)

All are blue states, but in some cases, the impact of the cancellations would stretch into red states.

St. Paul was joined in the Nov. 10 complaint by Elevate Energy, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Plug In America and Southeast Community Organization as plaintiffs.

EDF was party to four awards totaling $535.5 million. The other five were designated to receive small grants ranging from $1.2 million to $6.9 million.

Mehta’s ruling pertains to seven grants totaling $27.6 million.

Named as defendants were the U.S. Department of Energy, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, the Office of Management and Budget and its director, Russell Vought.