Left: Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks about the tax code and manufacturing at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Savannah, Ga. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci). Right: Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Bojangles Coliseum, in Charlotte, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024 (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
A federal judge decided Monday that President Donald Trump and his allies' decision during the government shutdown to cancel environmental project grants, impacting awardees based in states he didn't win in 2024 and in one instance Canada, violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee and familiar figure in various high-profile cases over the years, ruled in favor of the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Plug In America, Elevate Energy, Southeast Community Organization, and the Environmental Defense Fund, finding that the Trump administration ran afoul of the "guarantee of equal protection of the laws" to the detriment of blue states during the shutdown, leaving "similar" projects untouched in states that went Trump's way and against former Vice President Kamala Harris.
According to court documents, those grants total $27.6 million and relate to "electric vehicle development, updating building energy codes, and addressing methane emissions." The plaintiffs said that it was telling that "substantively identical" projects were not targeted for cancellation in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, adding that Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought's Oct. 1 post on X bragging about slashing "Green New Scam funding" spoke for itself.
"The terminated grants had one glaring commonality," said Mehta. "[A]ll the awardees (but one) were based in states whose majority of citizens casting votes did not support President Trump in the 2024 election."
The "lone exception" was a "grantee located in Canada," a footnote clarified.
The defendants, Energy Secretary Christopher Wright and OMB's Vought, didn't hide what the grant termination decisions were based on and acknowledged non-terminated awards in red states were "comparable" to canceled blue state awards, the judge went on.
"Defendants admit that '[a] primary reason for the selection of which DOE grant termination decisions were included in the October 2025 notice tranche was whether the grantee was located in a 'Blue State,'" Mehta said. "So, Defendants concede that the political identity of a terminated grantee's state, including the fact that the state supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, played a preponderant role in the October 2025 grant termination decisions."
While the government defendants do have the right to administer grant programs "consistent with the[ir] agency's priorities," the judge said, only going after states that didn't vote for Trump doesn't "further[] the agency's energy priorities any more than terminating a similar grant of a recipient in a state whose citizens" voted for the GOP.
"By no means does the court conclude that the mere presence of political considerations in an agency action runs afoul of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. That is not the law. This case is unique. Defendants freely admit that they made grant-termination decisions primarily—if not exclusively—based on whether the awardee resided in a state whose citizens voted for President Trump in 2024," Mehta added.
Before vacating the grant termination notices, Mehta made clear that the government did not explain how "purposeful segregation of grantees based on their electoral support for President Trump rationally advances their stated government interest."
"The only identifiable difference—the grant recipient's state's political identity and, specifically, its electoral votes cast against President Trump—does not provide a rational basis," he said.
Read Mehta's ruling in full here.
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