Energy Secretary’s Own Lawyers Flatly Contradict His Repeated Denials That Politics Played Any Role in Mass Termination of ProjectsPress ReleaseTradeJobs and the EconomyEnergy

Toledo, OH - Today, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development issued the following statement in response to a court filing recently made public in which the Department of Energy admits that the only reason the Trump Administration chose to terminate nearly 300 energy projects in blue states last October during the government shutdown is the fact that the projects were located in states that did not vote for the President and that are represented by Democratic Senators:

"This Administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the President in the 2024 election.

"This is an astounding admission that the President and his team corruptly abused their power to kill good jobs and punish hard-working families because of their political views.

"Secretary Wright swore up and down for months that these project terminations had absolutely nothing to do with politics, and now his lawyers are declaring that, in fact, politics was the only consideration. Weaponizing the Federal government like this is outright un-American, and it's hardworking families already struggling with sky-high costs who are suffering the consequences of this corrupt abuse of power.

"It's good that several courts have already ruled against the terminations, and it's high time Republicans join us to hold this Administration accountable for the President's failure to look out for all Americans."

On October 1, 2025, as the president was openly threatening political retribution against Democrats during the shutdown, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought posted that nearly $8 Billion in funding for cost-cutting energy projects were being terminated, stating: "The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA."

Hours later, the Department of Energy announced hundreds of projects had been terminated.

Secretary Chris Wright repeatedly and vociferously denied that the decision to terminate the projects had anything to do with political retribution:

• OCTOBER 2: Shortly after the announcement, Secretary Wright toldCNN's Kaitlin Collins in an interview that "these decisions are made all in the Energy Department, all based on facts." When asked "are you punishing only blue states?", the secretary replied "not at all."
• APRIL 15: Testimony to the House Appropriations Committee: "So let me restate again: all of the 2,270 projects we evaluated were not evaluated in any way, shape or form based on where they were. … And all of the people that worked on our project review process did not take into account any politics in the evaluation of these projects."
• APRIL 16: Testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee: "All of the 2,240 decisions we made did not involve politics atall."
• APRIL 22: Testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee: "We evaluated 2,271 projects, and politics and voting history played no role in any of the 2,271 decisions made. … The decisions we madewere blind on politics."
• JUNE 10: Testimony to the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee: "We did not involve politics in the decision-making of our review process. …. No decisions, no decisions were made on politics. I keep hearing that charge. It's bullshit."

But in a court filing last week that was recently made public, Secretary Wright's own lawyers attested that none of the terminated grants were terminated "based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor." Instead, the Department conceded, "the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state, i.e., whether the recipient's location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State. DOE will not contend that it looked beyond the prime grantee(s) to consider the political identity or geographic distribution of downstream beneficiaries of the grant funds."

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