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- California is spearheading a lawsuit against the Trump administration for cancelling billions in clean energy funding mandated by Congress.
- The cuts included $1.2 billion in funding for clean hydrogen efforts.
- It is California’s 58th lawsuit against the president this term.
California is suing the Trump administration over its termination of billions of dollars in funding for high-profile clean energy projects awarded under President Biden, state officials announced Wednesday. It is California’s 58th lawsuit against the president since he resumed office last year.
The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California challenges the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget for canceling about $2.7 billion in funding for programs allocated under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — many in states that did not vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
That includes $1.2 billion in federal funding for California’s major effort to develop clean hydrogen and $4 million for energy-efficient building upgrades in the state, among other items.
The funding cuts reflect “partisan retribution” and will lead to more than 200,000 lost union jobs, higher energy prices and worse pollution in California, said Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who co-led the suit with the attorneys general of Washington and Colorado. The suit was also joined by Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
“These aren’t optional programs — these are investments approved by bipartisan majorities in Congress, and the president doesn’t get to cancel them simply because he disagrees with them,” Bonta told reporters Wednesday. “California won’t allow President Trump and his administration to play politics with our economy, our energy grid and our jobs.”
Russ Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, and a top Trump administration official, said the U.S. Department of Energy will cut funding for energy projects in 16 Democratic states.
The lawsuit alleges that the terminations are an illegal violation of the constitutional separation of powers — as the money was approved by bipartisan majorities in Congress — as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires government agencies to follow fair and transparent procedures when making regulations and decisions. It asks the court to declare the administration’s actions unlawful and to permanently prevent them from interfering with these programs.
Representatives for the Energy Department and Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Beginning on his first day in office, Trump issued executive orders declaring a “national energy emergency” and calling for the termination of the Green New Deal, a plan for transitioning the U.S. to renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In September, Trump told reporters that he was open to “cutting programs that [Democrats] like” as a government shutdown loomed. The following day, OMB Director Russell Vought posted on X that that the administration was canceling “nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda” in 16 states, all of which did not vote for Trump in 2024.
An executive order directs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to approve long-term contracts with coal-fired plants to provide electricity to military installations and facilities.
The Energy Department announced its cuts the next day. They included more than 300 financial awards for 223 projects the agency said 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.”
Among the cuts was a $1.2-billion federal grant for California’s hydrogen hub, the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, or ARCHES. The hub was part of the Biden administration’s competitive nationwide effort to develop hydrogen projects that can replace planet-warming fossil fuels, particularly in hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as heavy-duty trucking and port operations.
Also slashed was $4 million that had been awarded to California under the Resilient and Efficient Codes Implementation program, which supports new energy-efficient building codes.
In a statement, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the slashed energy and infrastructure programs would have saved an estimated $3 billion in annual health costs tied to air pollution. The cuts will also erode the nation’s position as a global leader in the clean energy transition, he said.
“California will fight for these jobs, this infrastructure, and the global clean energy competitiveness that the Trump administration has ceded to China,” Newsom said.
Since Trump’s election, more than 165,000 jobs in the clean energy sector have been lost or delayed, according to a tracker from the nonprofit Climate Power, which says projects taken offline would have produced enough electricity to power the equivalent of 13 million homes.
Meanwhile, residential electric bills increased about 12% nationwide in 2025 — from 15.9 cents per kilowatt hour in January to 17.8 cents at the end of November, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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