The Department of Energy canceled two climate grants the Biden administration awarded to the Rocky Mountain Institute, a left-wing climate think tank that has pushed for heavy restrictions on gas stoves and that has collaborated with the Chinese government.
The first grant was worth about $5.3 million and designed to fund the Rocky Mountain Institute’s pilot project retrofitting a 120-unit building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with green energy technology. Then-energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said in March 2022 the grant funding proved the Biden administration was “in an all-out sprint to beat the climate crisis” while Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) said it would help protect the country “from upheaval caused by the global fossil fuel market.”
The second was a $1.5 million grant to fund research into the viability of electric vehicle carshare programs. The research, according to the Department of Energy, would assess business models in the United States for resilience and “equity.”
In a statement to the Washington Free Beacon, the Rocky Mountain Institute confirmed that the two grants were canceled. The Department of Energy, Rocky Mountain Institute spokeswoman Caroline Bennett said, informed the group that the funding “no longer effectuates program goals or agency priorities.”
The grant cancellations represent some of the first actions the Department of Energy has taken under President Donald Trump to claw back Biden-era spending and gut existing green energy programs. Led by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the agency is conducting a sweeping department-wide review of spending and is expected to rescind a wide range of previously awarded climate-related grants and loans.
The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, has already canceled $22 billion in climate grants disbursed under the Biden administration, citing financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and oversight failures.
