In a significant ruling on Monday, a federal judge determined that former President Donald Trump and his allies violated the Fifth Amendment when they decided to cancel environmental project grants during a government shutdown. These cancellations primarily affected recipients in states Trump did not win in the 2024 election, as well as one recipient in Canada.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, known for his involvement in numerous high-profile cases, sided with several plaintiffs, including the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Plug In America, Elevate Energy, Southeast Community Organization, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Judge Mehta found that the Trump administration’s actions breached the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law, negatively impacting states that leaned towards former Vice President Kamala Harris while sparing similar projects in states that supported Trump.

Court documents reveal the grants in question amounted to $27.6 million and were designated for initiatives such as electric vehicle development, updating building energy codes, and tackling methane emissions. The plaintiffs argued that the decision was politically motivated, noting the cancellation of “substantively identical” projects in states like Oklahoma and Pennsylvania did not occur. They pointed to a social media post by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, where he boasted about cutting “Green New Scam funding,” as evidence of this bias.

Judge Mehta highlighted that the common factor among the terminated grants was that the majority of voters in those states did not support Trump in the 2024 election, with the exception of one Canadian grantee.

The defendants, Energy Secretary Christopher Wright and OMB Director Vought, openly acknowledged the criteria for grant cancellations. They conceded that awards that remained intact in Republican-leaning states were indeed comparable to those canceled in Democratic-leaning states.

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.