California Democrats are denouncing the Trump administration’s decision to terminate $3.7 billion in funding for two dozen clean energy projects, including three in the Golden State.
The 24 awards recently canceled by the U.S. Department of Energy were issued by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations under the Biden administration and primarily focused on carbon capture and sequestration and decarbonization initiatives. Trump officials said the projects do not “advance the energy needs of the American people” and would not generate a positive return on investment for taxpayers.
“While the previous administration failed to conduct a thorough financial review before signing away billions of taxpayer dollars, the Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on investment,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright wrote in his announcement about the terminations.
One of the largest cuts was a $500-million award for the National Cement Company of California, whose first-of-its-kind Net-Zero Project in Lebec was geared toward developing carbon-neutral cement. Cement production is notoriously emission-intensive, accounting for as much as 8% of planet-warming greenhouse gases due to both the high heat needed in the process and its byproducts.
National Cement Company officials said the project would capture up to 1 million tons of CO2 per year — effectively the entire emissions profile of its cement plant near the border of Los Angeles and Kern counties — but also would act as a roadmap for the cement industry as a whole.
“As we understand the new priorities of the U.S. Department of Energy, we want to emphasize that this project will expand domestic manufacturing capacity for a critical industrial sector, while also integrating new technologies to keep American cement competitive,” the company said in an email. It is now exploring options to keep the project alive.
The funding cuts arrive amid sweeping changes driven by Trump’s orders to rein in federal spending and “unleash American energy.” The president has removed barriers for fossil fuel companies, such as regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and called for increased oil and gas drilling and natural resources mining.
California, meanwhile, has set some of the nation’s most ambitious decarbonization goals, including its aim to reach carbon neutrality by 2045. Environmental experts, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say capturing and storing carbon will be essential for slowing global warming, in addition to efforts to reduce overall carbon emissions.
In a letter to Wright dated Tuesday, California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla said the terminations “run counter to our shared interest in boosting energy production, innovation, and economic vitality.” They urged Wright to reinstate the projects.
“The United States cannot afford to halt our progress and hinder American companies’ efforts to move beyond outdated technologies if we hope to remain competitive and truly energy dominant around the globe,” the senators wrote. “These irrational cancellations will increase energy prices, hamper innovation, and set us backwards as we strive toward a clean energy future.”
The cement project wasn’t the only one canceled in California. The DOE also terminated a $270-million award for an air-cooled carbon capture and sequestration facility at the Sutter Energy Center, a natural gas power plant in Yuba City. Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing CO2 and preventing it from entering the atmosphere by storing it underground, in aquifers or other geologic formations.
The Sutter project was projected to reduce emissions from the plant by up to 95% and capture and store up to 1.75 million metric tons of CO2 each year, according to its federal project page.
The federal government also canceled $75 million for a project at the Gallo Glass Company in Modesto, which would have demonstrated the viability of replacing gas-powered furnaces with a hybrid electric melter, reducing natural gas use by as much as 70%, the federal database shows.
Schiff and Padilla said all of the awards were provided through legally binding contract agreements between the recipients and the federal government, and so cannot be canceled “on a political whim.”
For its part, the DOE said it arrived at its decisions following a thorough and individualized financial review of each project, which found that they “did not meet the economic, national security or energy security standards necessary to sustain DOE’s investment.”
However, the terminations also appear to run counter to the administration’s own public commitments. The White House on Earth Day said Trump seeks to promote energy innovation “by supporting cutting-edge technologies like carbon capture and storage, nuclear energy, and next-generation geothermal.”
The DOE eliminated funding for projects across the country, including in Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Wyoming, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Ohio, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, Washington, Arizona and Nevada.
But the cancellations in California mark yet another affront to the climate conscious state, which has in recent weeks also seen the Trump administration overturn its ability to set strict tailpipe emission standards and eventually ban the sale of new gas-powered gars. The state is suing the administration over that decision.
