The U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday night it is canceling 223 clean energy projects tied to the Biden administration, saving taxpayers more than $7.5 billion.
The agency terminated 321 financial awards connected to the projects after a thorough review, according to a press release.
The DOE said the projects didn’t advance U.S. energy needs, weren’t economically viable, and offered no return for taxpayers.
The awards were spread across multiple DOE offices, including Clean Energy Demonstrations, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Grid Deployment, Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, ARPA-E, and Fossil Energy.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said many of the awards were rushed through during the lame-duck Biden months.
“On day one, the Energy Department began the critical task of reviewing billions of dollars in financial awards, many rushed through in the final months of the Biden administration with inadequate documentation by any reasonable business standard,” Wright said.
The DOE confirmed that 26% of the canceled awards — valued at more than $3.1 billion — were handed out between Election Day and Inauguration Day, as Biden left office.
The department did not list which projects were scrapped. Newsmax has reached out to the DOE for further details about the projects.
But the DOE announcement came after White House budget chief Russ Vought wrote on X, “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled.”
He then listed the states where projects were terminated: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.
All of the aforementioned states, except New Hampshire and Vermont, are run by Democrat governors.
And each one of them voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.
In May, Wright issued a memo tightening standards for federal energy spending. Each award is now reviewed case by case for waste, security risks, and economic value.
DOE said that under those rules, the terminated projects simply didn’t make the cut. Award recipients now have 30 days to appeal.
“Some of the projects included in this announcement have already begun that process,” the DOE said.
Officials signaled more reviews are underway and more cancellations could follow.
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