Whitehouse Slams Trump Administration for Punishing Blue States by Canceling Energy Grants

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today released the following statement regarding recent court filings in which the Department of Energy admitted to halting at least $7.5 billion in funding for energy projects to states "based solely" on whether they had backed President Trump in the 2024 election.

"President Trump is doing everything he can to enable his fossil fuel donors to jack up Americans' energy prices and to him, it's all the better if he can simultaneously punish his perceived political adversaries," said Whitehouse. "Depriving half the country of congressionally directed awards that their tax dollars paid for because they did not vote for a certain political party is a dangerous, un-American game."

In a stipulation filed in the Federal District of California on July 15, lawyers for the Department of Energy admitted that "the inclusion of grants in the October [2025] 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." At least two grants were canceled in Rhode Island.