The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) on Oct. 1 announced the termination of 321 financial awards supporting 223 projects for a total of $7.56 billion. DOE said it determined these projects “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.”
Russ Vought, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said on X that the projects are in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington — all but two being states with Democratic governors. SPW reached out to DOE for a list of affected projects and is awaiting a response.
The awards were issued by the Offices of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Grid Deployment (GDO), Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC), Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and Fossil Energy (FE).
The 2026 funding bill for Energy and Water Development, which is now in the Senate for consideration, would further gut funding for renewable development programs like ARPA-E and the Loan Programs Office.
“On Day 1, the Energy Dept. began the critical task of reviewing billions of dollars in financial awards, many rushed through in the final months of the Biden administration with inadequate documentation by any reasonable business standard,” said DOE Sec. Chris Wright. “President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. Today’s cancellation’s deliver on that commitment. Rest assured, the Energy Dept. will continue reviewing awards to ensure that every dollar works for the American people.”
In May 2025, Secretary Wright issued a Secretarial Memorandum called “Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance” that established a new policy for evaluating financial awards. The policy authorized program offices to request additional information from awardees and required that awards be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Award recipients have 30 days to appeal a termination decision. Some of the projects included in this announcement have already begun that process.
