Trump is blocking billions of dollars of grants that would fix the grid
The Department of Energy has canceled or stalled funding for thousands of projects that would improve the country’s stressed grid — and not just in blue states.
The Trump administration has impeded billions of dollars in grants intended to enhance the nation's electric grid, leading to delays and cancellations of projects aimed at improving reliability and affordability. In Wisconsin, utility Alliant Energy abandoned a project designed to mitigate power outages in disadvantaged and tribal communities after the administration terminated a federal grant that would have supported it.
Similarly, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California, which has implemented hundreds of thousands of advanced smart meters, has yet to receive reimbursement from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) since October, when the Trump administration declared it was terminating grants it deemed to fuel "the Left's climate agenda."
Furthermore, a consortium of grid operators, utilities, and state agencies in the upper Midwest is still awaiting $464 million in DOE funds intended to construct high-voltage transmission lines to alleviate grid congestion. Although the agency responsible for the project claims the funding will soon be reinstated, the uncertainty surrounding the DOE's actions has left hundreds of grid improvement initiatives facing an uncertain future.
These projects, particularly in "blue states," have been targeted as political retaliation, with some grant recipients winning court rulings and seeking legal remedies. However, many others are suffering from the DOE's broader failure to carry out the work mandated by Congress, according to monitoring groups.
Since the beginning of 2025, the DOE has announced the termination of 356 awards totaling $12.5 billion and has threatened to terminate an additional 303 awards worth $12.2 billion. Despite these terminations, the DOE has also stalled projects for numerous other awardees who did not appear on any termination lists, effectively freezing promised funds.
A former DOE official explained that the agency is both overtly canceling projects and stalling others through a laborious review process, causing delays in determining when and if grantees will receive their funds. This pattern of stalling and "ghosting" has left projects in administrative limbo, unable to proceed to the next stages of funding.
Written by urgent.news from Grist's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
