Sept 24 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Energy intends to cancel more than $13 billion in funds that the Biden administration had pledged to subsidize wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles, it said on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear which funds were being targeted. The department did not immediately respond to a request for more details.
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“By returning these funds to the American taxpayer, the Trump administration is affirming its commitment to advancing more affordable, reliable and secure American energy and being more responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars,” the department said.
The announcement generated sharp criticism from California Governor Gavin Newsom, who said the U.S. was ceding leadership on clean energy to China. California, the most populous U.S. state, has among the most ambitious clean energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals in the world.
“(Chinese) President Xi, I don’t know what else he’s got to applaud. … I think he’s going to give (President Donald) Trump a bear hug when he arrives,” Newsom said during an appearance at a New York Times event on climate change.
Trump said this week that he planned to meet with Xi in person in the coming weeks.
The news came a day after Trumpdismissed climate change as “the greatest con job” in the world during his address to the United Nations General Assembly, doubling down on his skepticism of global environmental initiatives and multilateral institutions.
Trump has pushed to maximize the output of oil and gas, which were already at record production when he returned to office in January, while cutting subsidies for renewable energy and EVs.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright mentioned cancelling the funds in a press conference in New York earlier in the day. Wright said Trump sent a message that the UN and many countries “have just gotten wildly off track with climate change, exaggerating it into the world’s greatest threat. It has spurred massive amounts of spending with very little positive impact.”
But jobs in solar, wind and other clean energy industries grew three times faster than in the rest of the U.S. workforce in 2024, said a study published by environmental advocacy group E2 last week, saying that many of them could go due to Trump’s efforts to block renewables.
Wright also said that he has no plans to go to UN climate talks in Brazil in November. But Wright said he enjoys talking about energy and climate with people who see things differently than him, so “nothing is impossible” when it comes to his participation in Brazil.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Mark Porter, Barbara Lewis and Deepa Babington
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