Casten, Levin Lead 163 House Democrats to Demand DOE Reinstate Canceled Projects
Washington, D.C. (October 7th, 2025) — U.S. Congressmen Sean Casten (IL-06) and Mike Levin (CA-49), co-chairs of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) Clean Energy Deployment Task Force, led 163 House Democrats in a letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright condemning the termination of $8 billion of projects that were set to lower electricity costs for Americans and increase grid reliability. The lawmakers further demanded that DOE immediately reinstate the projects.
“The projects that the Department of Energy (DOE) has unilaterally decided to cancel were driving down costs for all our constituents—regardless of their political affiliation,” the lawmakers wrote. “Household electric bills have already increased 10% nationally since January 2025 and are poised to spike even further. This Administration’s reckless energy policy and award terminations, designed to stifle the development of cheap, clean energy and prop up more expensive dirty energy, will only further increase the cost burden for families to keep the lights on.”
On October 2nd, DOE announced it would terminate 321 financial awards supporting 223 projects, in 136 Congressional districts, including 108 represented by Democrats and 28 represented by Republicans, accounting for approximately $8 billion. The terminated projects were intended to lower energy costs for consumers, improve grid reliability, create jobs, and strengthen the United States' global leadership in energy innovation.
A recent report found that Americans in at least 41 states and Washington, D.C., have seen increased electricity and natural gas costs under the Trump Administration. The terminations are the latest action in the Trump Administration’s war on cheap energy.
In addition to Reps. Casten and Levin, the letter was signed by Reps. Aguilar, Amo, Ansari, Auchincloss, Balint, Barragán, Beatty, Bell, Bera, Beyer, Bishop, Bonamici, Boyle, Brownley, Budzinski, Bynum, Carbajal, Carson, Carter, Case, Castor, Cherfilus-McCormick, Chu, Cisneros, Clarke, Cleaver, Cohen, Conaway, Correa, Costa, Courtney, Crockett, Crow, Davis (IL), Dean, DeGette, DelBene, Deluzio, DeSaulnier, Dexter, Doggett, Elfreth, Espaillat, Evans, Fields, Foster, Friedman, Garamendi, García (IL), Garcia (CA), Garcia (TX), Goldman, Gomez, Goodlander, Gottheimer, Green, Harder, Hayes, Himes, Horsford, Houlahan, Hoyer, Hoyle, Huffman, Ivey, Jackson (IL), Jacobs, Jayapal, Johnson (GA), Kamlager-Dove, Kelly, Kennedy, Khanna, Krishnamoorthi, Landsman, Larsen, Larson, Latimer, Lee (PA), Lee (NV), Leger Fernandez, Liccardo, Lieu, Lofgren, Lynch, Magaziner, Mannion, Matsui, McBride, McClain Delaney, McClellan, McCollum, McGovern, McIver, Menendez, Meng, Mfume, Min, Morelle, Morrison, Moulton, Mrvan, Mullin, Nadler, Neal, Neguse, Norton, Ocasio-Cortez, Olszewski, Omar, Panetta, Pappas, Peters, Pettersen, Pingree, Pocan, Pou, Quigley, Ramirez, Randall, Riley, Rivas, Ross, Ruiz, Salinas, Sánchez, Scanlon, Schakowsky, Schneider, Schrier, Scott (VA), Sewell, Sherman, Simon, Smith (WA), Sorensen, Soto, Stansbury, Stanton, Strickland, Subramanyam, Swalwell, Takano, Thanedar, Thompson (MS), Thompson (CA), Tokuda, Tonko, Torres (CA), Trahan, Tran, Vargas, Vasquez, Veasey, Velázquez, Vindman, Walkinshaw, Wasserman Schultz, Watson Coleman, Whitesides, and Williams.
Text of the letter can be found below. A copy of the letter can be found here.
Dear Secretary Wright,
We write to condemn the Department of Energy’s (DOE) termination of 321 financial awards, supporting 223 projects supporting energy resilience across the country. We are deeply concerned about your Department’s attempt to rebrand the elimination of U.S. clean energy as “$7.56 billion in savings” to taxpayers and the potential political motivations behind the targeting of projects in Democratic-leaning states
This decision is a reversal of properly awarded projects that will harm American jobs, drive private capital out of our country, weaken our power grid, and give China a strategic edge. This Administration’s decision to play political games will result in genuine harm at a time when millions of American families are already struggling to pay their electricity bills amidst the everrising cost of living. These blatantly partisan cancellations must immediately be reversed.
The projects that the Department of Energy (DOE) has unilaterally decided to cancel were driving down costs for all our constituents—regardless of their political affiliation. Household electric bills have already increased 10% nationally since January 2025 and are poised to spike even further. This Administration’s reckless energy policy and award terminations, designed to stifle the development of cheap clean energy and prop up more expensive dirty energy, will only further increase the cost burden for families to keep the lights on.
Your press statement claims these projects “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment.” That is a pretext for cancellations that track political talking points, not facts. Many of these awards had already passed rigorous review, and many of those had already been processed. Companies hired workers, signed contracts, broke ground, and put up private capital in reliance on DOE commitments. Calling that “savings” ignores stranded equipment orders, canceled subcontracts, and layoffs—real costs that ripple through American supply chains. Instead of executing Congress’s direction to build U.S. energy leadership and grid reliability, DOE is moving the goalposts while terminating the very projects that would deliver results.
The consequences of these actions are significant: cancellations will shutter facilities, kill jobs, and stall critical domestic manufacturing. They also inject avoidable uncertainty into energy markets—forcing investors to consider political risks that you have created, which raises financing costs. Terminating grid and manufacturing projects locks in congestion and supplychain bottlenecks, which will lead to higher long-term electricity prices for households and businesses.
We are at a moment of unprecedented growth in electricity demand, which is expected to increase by 25% by 2030. At a time when more energy supply is needed than ever, these cuts will only exacerbate upward pressure on electricity prices by stranding low-cost supply, delaying grid expansion, and increasing reliance on higher-cost imports. In your confirmation hearing, you pledged to pursue “all sources of affordable, reliable energy” to meet these challenges. By terminating awards for cheap energy solutions and those that strengthen the grid, you are going against your word and worsening the very problem you promised to help solve.
Eliminating the Grid Deployment Office and Office of Clean Energy Deployment projects delays transmission and weakens grid resilience, a shortsighted decision that threatens even steeper increasing costs to American consumers and businesses in the future. Additionally, these socalled “savings” waste sunk federal and state dollars and betray disadvantaged communities by erasing critical work to reduce pollution and improve energy affordability.
Fifteen years ago, China generated less electricity than the United States. Today, China generates more than twice as much as we do —and the gap continues to grow. As China and other nations continue to innovate and build the energy technologies of the future, this is precisely the wrong time for the U.S. to back out and cede our technological leadership. The rest of the world will continue to innovate with or without us, and these grant terminations will only set our innovation back at a pivotal time.
It is difficult for us to believe that these project terminations were anything but a partisan targeting of states that are not politically aligned with this Administration. These terminations undermine the spirit of competitive, merit-based awards and throw into question the fairness of the award process under this Administration.
As such, we demand that DOE take the following immediate actions by Tuesday, October 14, 2025:
- Suspend all terminations and de-obligations and reinstate the projects.
- Provide a complete list of affected awards (office, recipient, state, award number, selection date, federal obligation, non-federal cost share, milestone status) along with the project-specific written justification for termination.
- Identify the specific statutory and regulatory authorities relied upon for these mass postaward terminations.
- Preserve and provide all Department of Energy records, memoranda, and communications related to the review and termination of these awards, including those resulting from the May 2025 Secretarial memorandum “Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance.”
- Describe DOE’s process for recipient appeals and dispute resolution, including timelines, decision-makers, and whether interim funding will be permitted to avoid waste while appeals are pending.
Dismantling America’s advanced-energy buildout under the banner of “savings” does not protect taxpayers—it subsidizes our competitors. It means higher bills and fewer American jobs. We will utilize every oversight and legislative tool available to ensure the DOE follows the law, honors congressional intent, and keeps the United States at the forefront of the global energy race.
Sincerely,
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