Federal Judge Orders DOE to Reinstate $82.1 Million in Clean Energy Grants Canceled for Being in 'Blue States'

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of the D.C. District Court entered judgment in favor of plaintiffs on Thursday, June 12, ordering the Department of Energy to reinstate $82.1 million in funding across 11 canceled clean energy grants.

The grants covered projects in New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Colorado. All 11 were originally issued by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, an office that was subsequently consolidated into DOE's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation.

As part of the settlement, DOE agreed not to contest that "a primary reason" for the cancellations was whether the grant recipient was located in a state that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, according to Latitude Media.

This ruling follows a January 2026 decision in which Judge Mehta, the same judge, ordered DOE to reverse $27.6 million in grant cancellations stemming from the same October 2025 wave of terminations. That case involved the City of Saint Paul and other organizations.

The current case was brought by a coalition led by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Plaintiffs explicitly tied their argument to the Saint Paul precedent, noting their clients were "located in a Blue State" and had awards terminated in the same October 2025 batch, according to Utility Dive.

The October 2025 cancellations were announced by OMB Director Russ Vought, who posted on X that nearly $8 billion in funding was being cut for projects in "blue states," according to Latitude Media. That public post is now central to multiple lawsuits still working through the courts.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright testified before the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on June 10, two days before this ruling, and flatly rejected the characterization that politics drove the cancellations.

"No decisions were made on politics," Wright told Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), per Latitude Media. "I keep hearing that charge. Its bullshit. We're gonna say it a million times. Its not true. Its actually false."

Wright declined during that hearing to say whether DOE would reinstate the hundreds of other awards that remain terminated. DOE sent Congress a list in April of nearly 2,000 Biden-era awards it was retaining. Only 18 of those had appeared on the October cancellation list that targeted blue-state grantees, per Latitude Media.

The administration's position is that the grants were reviewed on programmatic or fiscal grounds, and that the geographic concentration of canceled awards reflects the geographic concentration of where these particular types of grants were awarded under the Biden DOE, not political targeting. The problem for DOE is that Vought's own X post explicitly framed the cuts by political geography, and DOE then agreed in a legal settlement not to contest that geography was a primary factor. Those two facts are difficult to reconcile with Wright's testimony.

The $82.1 million settlement is a fraction of the total cancellations from October 2025. Several of DOE's largest terminated projects remain in limbo, including the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub and the Arches Hydrogen Hub in California, according to Latitude Media.

Two broader pending cases could force much larger reinstatements. One is a coalition suit filed by California, New York, and other states. The other was filed by the University of California system. Both are still working through the courts as of June 12, 2026.

The administration retains the option to appeal Mehta's ruling.

The New Buildings Institute, based in Oregon, had four separate Oregon grants canceled in the October 2025 round, according to Utility Dive. It is one of the named plaintiffs and stands to recover funding under Thursday's order.

The legal exposure for DOE grows if the two pending coalition cases reach the same conclusion. Wright has NOT said publicly whether DOE will seek to appeal Thursday's ruling, and he has NOT committed to reinstating the remaining terminated awards. How the administration responds to Mehta's ruling—comply, appeal, or slow-walk—will determine whether the hundreds of still-canceled grants see their funding restored before those programs become operationally dead.