Federal green grants canceled last year were selected “solely” based on a state’s political affiliation, the Trump administration said in a recent court filing.

In the filing, Department of Energy (DOE) lawyer Jeff Novak said the department came up with a list of 624 grants slated for potential termination.

Novak said the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) selected 284 of those grants to be included in a tranche of cancellations. 

He wrote that all except one of the 284 grants OMB selected had ties to states that voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and had two Democratic-caucusing senators. Novak noted that the other 340 grants have not been canceled.

“DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state,” he wrote.

He added that the grants’ inclusion in the October cancellations was not “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor.”

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