The Trump administration is gearing up — possibly — to terminate billions more in energy-related grants awarded under the Biden administration.
Media outlets covering energy and politics were abuzz Oct. 7 and 8 after a purported target list was leaked to a few journalists.
The news came on the heels of 321 grant terminations collectively announced Oct. 2 but not individually identified. (See DOE Terminates $7.56B in Energy Grants for Projects in Blue States.)
The new, larger list leaked on Oct. 7 consists of 658 grants totaling $23.88 billion, but it overlaps with the earlier list that emerged Oct. 2.
The U.S. Department of Energy would not comment Oct. 8 on the new list that has been published, but it pointed out the agency’s stated intention had been to continue its review of grants awarded before President Donald Trump began his second term.
DOE Press Secretary Ben Dietderich had the same statement for RTO Insider as for everyone else who asked:
“No determinations have been made other than what has been previously announced. As Secretary Wright made clear last week, the department continues to conduct an individualized and thorough review of financial awards made by the previous administration. Rest assured, the department is hard at work to deliver on President Trump’s promise to restore affordable, reliable and secure energy to the American people.”
Nonetheless, the news media took the ball and ran with it.
But the headline verbs they used pointed to a lack of certainty about what was happening:
Floats. Eyes. Weighing. Mulls. Said to Mull. About to Squash. Threatens to Kill. No Decision Made. Appear Poised.
The Old Gray Lady herself played it with a double caveat: The list “suggests” more cuts “may be coming.”
Advocates were a little more certain with their words, as in the Clean Air Task Force’s broadside headline: “DOE rips funding from over 600 awards.”
But the situation is not always certain with Trump, who has a deliberately unpredictable leadership style.
Could this new, expanded list be the latest in a series of attempts to intimidate or influence one side or the other or both during the government shutdown? DOE certainly isn’t saying.
Furthermore, the grant terminations may not stick. DOE noted that grant recipients have the right to challenge termination and said that some already have begun that process.
The new list of purported grant cuts stretches into Republican strongholds, while the earlier list was heavily concentrated in places that are represented by Democrats in the House and Senate and that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.
The earlier list targeted grants for two of the seven regional hydrogen hubs that were among President Joe Biden’s signature initiatives. The new list calls for termination of all of them — total value $7 billion.
The other major grants would help fund projects on other research and development tracks that were central to the Biden administration’s clean energy vision, such as electric vehicles, industrial decarbonization and carbon capture.
But sprinkled among the large grants are small awards for efforts to address the multitude of details that crop up in such a broad and ambitious initiative — such as $2.38 million to Bat Conservation International to look for a way to reduce the number of bats killed by the wind turbines that Trump derides.
Colleges in red states and blue states alike are heavily represented on the list, as well as local and state government entities, industry groups and nonprofits.
