Markey, Mass. pols demand answers after Trump admin kills $466M in energy funding for the Bay State
A group of Massachusetts lawmakers are demanding that the U.S. Energy Department explain why it killed around $466 million in grants bound for the Bay State.
In a Friday letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright shared exclusively with MassLive, the lawmakers, led by Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, argued that canceling the grants will "hamstring American competitiveness, drive up energy costs, and hurt domestic manufacturing."
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it had pulled the plug on nearly $7.6 billion in funding for projects in 16 states, according to the Energy Department's website .
All of the affected states were won by Democrat Kamala Harris in last year's presidential election.
Markey, joined by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and all nine Democratic members of the state's U.S. House delegation, argued that the White House's action will "undermine investments in American innovation for years to come— ceding ground to China and other nations that understand the merit of technological development and investment."
In a statement, the Energy Department said many of the 223 projects affected by the decision were "rushed through in the final months of the Biden administration with inadequate documentation by any reasonable business standard."
"President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America's supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy," Wright said in the agency's statement, adding that the "cancellations deliver on that commitment."
"Rest assured, the Energy Department will continue reviewing awards to ensure that every dollar works for the American people," Wright said.
In a post to X on Wednesday , Office of Management Budget Director Russell Vought telegraphed the administration's decision, saying it would claw back "nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda ... The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA."
An analysis by Politico, however, determined that states that congressional districts that voted for Trump also would be impacted by the White House's decision.
A list of the projects showed that the decision would ripple across the Bay State, with such universities as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst being affected, as well as regional energy titan National Grid.
The nonprofit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod also made the White House's cancellation list.
"President Trump is further weaponizing his government shutdown to cost people jobs and hurt our economy," Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement.
" ... He's cutting nearly half a billion dollars for our businesses, universities and non-profits that are working on cutting-edge technologies to lower energy costs, create good jobs and build a more reliable grid," Healey continued. "All of our residents will be harmed by this vindictive action. We need the Trump administration to restore this funding and reopen our government."
Markey and his colleagues gave Wright until Oct. 10 to respond to a battery of questions that included details on the appeals process for the clawed-back federal cash and whether the agency had considered the impact on energy prices.
"The impact of any attempt to cancel these grants will not be restricted to the Commonwealth—it will affect subgrantees and company partners in North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, and Texas, among other states," the lawmakers wrote.
"It also will sabotage the United States' ability to compete on next-generation hydrogen and conductive material technologies, which China and other nations continue to lead on," they continued.
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