Trump administration admits cancellation of Maryland energy grants was political

When the Trump administration axed a slate of energy projects last year, it blocked tens of millions of dollars meant for Maryland companies and scientists to fortify the power grid, research hydrogen fuel cells and explore the applications of electric heat pumps.

Now, President Donald Trump’s energy department admits it canceled that money for a political reason: Because Maryland is represented by Democrats and supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

In a recent court filing, U.S. Department of Energy attorneys said the agency terminated more than $7.5 billion in grants around the country “based solely on the political identity” of the recipient’s state.

That included about $83 million earmarked for Maryland-based companies and institutions, among them Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., the University of Maryland and a development authority dedicated to mitigating impacts of climate change in Anne Arundel County.

A White House spokesperson on Monday referred questions to the Department of Justice and the Department of Energy, neither of which responded to requests for comment.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, criticized the administration’s admission in a statement, arguing that the axed funding would have brought cheaper and cleaner energy to Maryland even as Trump’s war in Iran drives up prices for fuel and electricity.

“It is sickening that Donald Trump would rather punish states that didn’t vote for him and keep prices skyrocketing than lower energy costs for the American people,” Moore said.

Since Trump took office last year, clean energy projects have ground to a halt around Maryland. Along with the energy grants, the Trump administration has spiked more than $60 million in solar energy funds and iced Maryland’s leading offshore wind development.

A spreadsheet provided by Moore’s office, based on a federal grants tracker, shows that some of the Maryland funding was distributed before the cancellations in October. About $7.8 million got out the door out of $91 million total.

The largest of these grants pledged $50 million to BGE to deploy battery storage and improve grid infrastructure, but the governor’s office spreadsheet shows the utility received none of this funding.

BGE spokesman Nick Alexopulos said the company ultimately removed the projects from its work plan.

PJM Interconnection, which operates the Mid-Atlantic electric grid, has warned that growing stress on the power system, driven in part by data centers, could lead to brownouts and blackouts as soon as next summer. A 2024 news release from BGE says the canceled federal funding would have helped finance substation upgrades and a total of 14 megawatts in new battery storage, solar capacity and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

The Trump administration’s admission of its political motivations, first reported by the New York Times, came in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of California researchers.

Department of Energy attorneys said in their July filing that the agency originally recommended a total of 624 grants for termination across red and blue states.

But when officials announced their list of terminations in October, it included only 284 grants — almost all of them in states that voted against Trump in 2024.

“With one exception,” energy department attorneys wrote in the recent court filing, “the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators.”

Another substantial Maryland grant was meant for the Baltimore engineering firm Materic, near Carroll Park, which was awarded $9.3 million for development of an input for hydrogen fuel cells.

Just $710,000 was distributed to Materic, according to Moore’s office. Materic declined to comment Monday.

Three grants ranging between $1.5 million and $2.7 million were earmarked to finance research at the University of Maryland, including for cold-climate heat pumps and industrial emissions reductions.

Other Maryland businesses who saw funding canceled included a Columbia-based firm specializing in fire sciences, for industrial decarbonization research; a Beltsville-based tech company for research into hydrogen production; and a Severna Park company for work on energy efficiency.

A $4.7 million grant for chemical giant W.L. Gore, which has facilities in Cecil County, to develop an ultra-thin membrane for producing hydrogen is on the list, as is the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, a nonprofit formed by the two local governments. The Department of Energy had awarded the organization $1.7 million to develop sustainable building codes for natural disaster-prone areas. Only $160,000 of that came through, according to Moore’s office.

In a social media post announcing the cancellations last October, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought dismissed the money as part of the “Green New Scam” to “fuel the Left’s climate agenda.”

But in the recent court filing, Department of Energy attorneys acknowledged that cancellations might have undermined some of the agency’s own policy goals.

The divergent treatment of red and blue states, the filing says, “was not based on a rational connection between the recipient’s location ... and DOE’s past or current agency priorities.”