“Our democracy is badly broken when a president can illegally suspend projects for Blue states in order to punish his political enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote on X.
The Trump administration’s threat to cut nearly $8 billion in clean energy funding across a swath of states that voted against President Donald Trump in the 2024 elections set off a chorus of criticism from Democrats accusing the administration of abusing its power.
White House budget chief Russ Vought’s social media post on X on Wednesday promising the administration would cancel the “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda” in 16 states was the latest lashing out by the Trump administration against Democratic lawmakers in the budget fight that has shut the federal government.
The states Vought listed as targets for the cuts all voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election, though two of them — Vermont and New Hampshire — are currently led by Republican governors.
“Our democracy is badly broken when a president can illegally suspend projects for Blue states in order to punish his political enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote on X.
Vought, who also warned the administration would make mass firings of federal employees in the coming days if the shutdown continued, did not specify which projects the administration was targeting.
The Energy Department later on Wednesday said it terminated 321 awards supporting 223 projects, worth about $7.56 billion. Roughly a quarter of those were awarded between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the department said.
DOE did not provide a list of the impacted projects. A senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly said funding for wind, solar and EV charging projects would be cut, but referred to DOE for more specifics. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the cuts would also include the Arches hydrogen hub project in California, and a Bloomberg News report also listed another hydrogen project in the Pacific Northwest would be cut.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced last week he was canceling $13 billion for clean energy projects, though that was unobligated funding that Republicans had already included as recissions in their One Big Beautiful Bill.
Wright has also been probing more than $15 billion in project awards issued during the Biden era for potential cancellations amid concerns that the administration could target blue states. He previously nixed funding for carbon capture and emissions-reduction projects totaling $3.7 billion as part of that review, though it was unclear if Wednesday’s cuts were related.
Senate Democrats argued Wednesday that cuts targeting clean energy would hurt constituents in their states regardless of their political identification and further increase already rising electricity prices. Unilaterally cutting spending already appropriated by Congress would be illegal, they added.
“By the way, there’s a lot of Republicans in Minnesota,” Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, whose state is targeted for cuts, told POLITICO. “So they’re trying to retaliate against me or Sen. [Amy] Klobuchar and the result is all Minnesotans’ utility bills go up? What’s the point of that? That’s so stupid.”
State leaders said they were in the dark about Vought’s threats. Pete Wyckoff, assistant commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Commerce, told POLITICO the state did not receive more information beyond Vought’s post about potential cuts.
Daniel Villaseñor, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, responded that “if it’s a day ending in Y, it’s another day Trump and Republicans are dirtying our air and clogging our lungs.”
But conservative Republicans who pressured the White House this summer to impose tighter restrictions on clean energy tax credits and funding celebrated the White House’s latest unilateral action.
“Terrific news. Terminate the Green New SCAM,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) wrote in a post to X.
“More,” responded Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the administration was “gleefully” using the government shutdown as a pretext to inflict more pain.
“This administration has had plans in the works for months to cancel critical energy projects, and now, they are illegally taking action to kill jobs and raise people’s energy bills,” Murray said in a statement. “This is a blatant attempt to punish the political opposition, but this won’t just hurt Democrats — it’ll hurt regular people just trying to get by, in red districts and blue districts alike.”
Some Democrats said Vought’s threat to cut congressionally approved spending would make it harder to reach a deal to end the shutdown.
“Just naked and brazen corruption,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an X post. “Time to stiffen our spines and demand that we only fund a government that obeys the law.”
Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) told POLITICO that Vought’s “clearly illegal politically motivated actions” would backfire.
“This is the kind of stuff that the American people can’t stand, when they use taxpayer dollars for just political posturing and punishment,” Kim said.
Noah Baustin contributed to this report.