The Trump administration has increased its efforts against renewable energies this week when it has announced the cancellation of $ 7.56 billion in financing for projects in 16 states, including California.
The American Department of Energy said that the 223 projects canceled – which are all in states that favored Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election – were dismissed because they “had not adequately progressed the country’s energy needs, were not economically viable and would not provide a positive yield on the investment of taxpayers”.
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12:15 p.m. October 6, 2025A previous published image has shown the Hyperion water recovery plant.
But while the cuts are targeting blue states, they will also affect the base of Trump: dismissed projects extend over the districts represented by 108 Democratic members of Congress and 28 Republicans. In California, this includes large expanses of the central valley and the inner empire, which leaned largely to Trump in 2024.
Russell Vought, director of the White House management and budget office and a senior Trump administration official, said in a Publish That the canceled projects used “new Green New Scam funding to fuel the climatic agenda of the left”.
The biggest cup was $1.2 billion For the ambitious project of California, developing clean hydrogen known as the alliance of cleanable hydrogen energy systems, or arches. It was awarded by the Biden administration as part of a competitive national effort to develop hydrogen projects. The idea is that hydrogen, which is burning at a very high temperature, will be able to replace the planet’s heating fossil fuels in certain uses of industry and transport.
The Arches project is a public-private partnership which would create at least 10 hydrogen production sites in the state, mainly in the central valley. It would also help to transform two large gas power plants – Scattergood in Los Angeles and in the Lodi Energy Center in the County of San Joaquin – 100% renewable hydrogen, and develop more than 60 hydrogen food stations in areas such as Fresno, Riverside, Orange and San Joaquin.
In total, it would provide around 220,000 jobs, including 130,000 construction jobs and 90,000 permanent jobs, depending on the state. California pursues hydrogen in addition to renewable energies such as offshore wind, solar energy and geothermal energy to help diversify its supply, meet growing demand motivated by artificial intelligence data centers and achieve its objective of 100% carbon neutrality by 2045.
The Trump administration said that the termination of clean energy projects would save money to taxpayers.
A district with a project that has been cut is the north of the San Joaquin valley, represented by Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove). McClintock said he was strongly supporting the decision of the energy department.
“7.5 billion dollars amount to about $ 60 drawn from the average income of each family in America,” said McClintock. “Call me old-fashioned, but I think businesses should make their money by enjoying their customers and not using the government to take money that families have earned.”
The representatives also contacted the representatives Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield), Doug Lamalfa (R-Richvale), Keven Kiley (R-Rocklin), Ken Calvert (R-Corona), Young Kim (R-Aaheim Hills) and Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake), whose districts are affected by and other long -term projects.
A representative of Fong said that his office faced questions related to the closure of the United States government and therefore could not comment. None of the others answered.
Jesse Lee, principal advisor to the Climate Power non -profit group, said cancellations cannot save money from taxpayers, but that cost them. This year’s administration has canceled a $ 7 billion program to help low -income households install solar panels on their homes and has interrupted the development of offshore wind projects, among other efforts.
“The conclusion of these projects is really the only chance that we have to isolate people to skyrocket public service bills year after year,” said Lee – in particular in the face of an AI of thirsty energy. “The only way to have a meeting prayer that requires is this type of clean energy projects.”
Lee thinks that the actions could return to haunt the party in the mid-term elections. Since Trump took office in January, at least 142 clean energy projects have been canceled affecting what his group estimates are at least 80,500 jobs – not to mention the last series of cuts announced this week. About 47% of these jobs were in the congress districts represented by the Republicans, according to the Clean Power energy project.
Democratic officials of California said that the latest reductions in the energy department are political reprisals. They were announced on the first day of the closure, which the administration blame the Democrats.
“The cancellation of the arches is vindictive, short -sighted and proof that this administration is not serious about the domination of American energy,” wrote Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, California Sens on Thursday.
“The cancellation of this award threatens the future energy promise of hydrogen, leaving us behind the rest of the world,” said the senators. “The Arches center is a key strategic investment in the domination of American energy, the prominence of energy technologies, employment growth and the reduction of energy costs for American families.”
The cuts occur while Trump administrations facilitate the production of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, including the announcement of this week that it will open 13 million acres of federal land for the exploitation of coal and will provide $ 625 million to the return or modernize the power plants. Coal has become more and more non -competitive with natural gas or solar energy.
Large -scale renewable energy projects and carbon capture in red states such as Wyoming, Ohio, Texas, Louisiana and Northern Dakota which received funding from the energy department were not subject to the cuts.
The other prices canceled in California include $ 630 million at California Energy Commission for network resilience; $ 500 million to the California National Cement Company for a carbon neutral cement production installation; $ 87 million at the Redwood Coast Energy Authority for network updates for the benefit of tribal communities; $ 50 million south of California Edison for a battery energy storage project; And $ 18 million in the imperial irrigation district to modernize its electrical network, strengthen resilience against current failures and catalyze renewable energy consumption.
“We are disappointed because we have done a lot of work to win the Correspondence subsidy of $ 18.3 million from the DOE to help modernize our electricity network and improve the reliability of our customers,” said Robert Schettler, spokesperson for the imperial irrigation district located in southeast California. “Despite this setback, we are reassessing the scope because the project is a necessity.”
The arches’ managers qualified the administration’s decision as a short -sighted “move that abandons America’s opportunity to direct the global clean energy transition”. They said they hoped to continue to advance the project even without the federal subsidy; Arches also obtained more than $ 10 billion in private financing agreements.
“Despite the loss of federal funding, we will prevail with our state partners, private and international to build the infrastructure, train the workforce and establish the supply chains that will feed a modern and resilient energy economy,” said modern Maldonado.
