A federal judge has determined that former President Donald Trump and his administration violated the Fifth Amendment by canceling environmental project grants during a government shutdown. These cancellations disproportionately affected awardees in states Trump did not win in the 2024 election, as well as one recipient in Canada.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, appointed by Barack Obama and known for presiding over several significant cases, ruled in favor of a coalition 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 the Trump administration’s actions infringed upon the guarantee of equal protection under the law by favoring states that supported Trump over those that did not, specifically harming Democratic-leaning states during the shutdown.

Court documents reveal that the grants in question amounted to $27.6 million and were intended for projects like electric vehicle development, updating building energy codes, and managing methane emissions. The plaintiffs highlighted that similar projects were not cut in states such as Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. They also pointed to a post by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on the social media platform X, where he boasted about reducing what he termed “Green New Scam funding.”

“The terminated grants shared one notable feature,” Judge Mehta stated. “All the recipients, except one, were from states where the majority of voters did not support President Trump in the 2024 election.”

A footnote in the ruling noted the “sole exception” was a recipient based in Canada.

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.