Lawmakers press DOE on October project cancellations and court finding on partisan selection

Representative DeLauro and others raised a central claim: DOE project terminations announced in October 2025 disproportionately targeted grantees in states that voted for Vice President Harris. DeLauro told the committee that the district court found the October tranche "violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law" and said DOE's lawyers had acknowledged location influenced which terminations were included in the notice.

Representative Levin and others read from or referenced a December 2025 court filing that stated "the selection of which DOE grant termination decisions were included in the October 2025 notice tranche was influenced by whether a grantee's address was located in a state that tends to elect and or has recently elected Democratic candidates." Levin pressed Secretary Wright to reconcile that filing with his testimony that evaluations were merit-based.

Secretary Chris Wright responded that the internal project evaluations "did not take into account politics" and characterized the court filing as addressing the timing or selection of announcements rather than the substantive merit evaluations. He said the department will cooperate fully with the inspector generalaudit and that DOE is willing to reengage applicants where the department may have misunderstood project business plans.

The exchange left the matter unresolved in the hearing record: members cited the court ruling and legal filings as evidence of unconstitutional selection criteria, while the secretary defended the integrity of merit evaluations and promised further review and coordination with oversight bodies. Several members requested more documentation for the record and asked DOE to provide specific responses to questions about reinstating projects that were canceled on the basis the court identified.