On Oct. 2, U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced that the Department of Energy would be revoking upwards of $7.5 billion in financial awards for clean energy projects. In total, 223 projects are set to lose funding as a result of this decision, 218 of these projects being within Democrat-led states.
This announcement came the day after the most recent federal government shutdown began. According to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the move was an effort to decrease spending.
“President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. These cancellations deliver on that commitment,” Wright stated in a post on X.
Washington state was among those affected. The move resulted in the revocation of over $1 billion in funding, which was going towards 11 clean energy-based projects across the state.
WA Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray joined their democratic colleagues in authoring a letter addressed to Director Vought and Secretary Wright, criticizing the cuts as partisan and unlawful.
“In cancelling these awards, the Department points to authority to cancel these awards under 2 C.F.R. § 200.340, which provides very limited circumstances under which federal awards may be terminated, such as if an entity fails to comply with the conditions of the award, if the federal government and the entity mutually agree to terminate the award or if the entity notifies the government of its intent to terminate the award. [Vought and Wright] have provided no indication that these conditions apply here.”
These attacks on clean energy development from the federal level may be concerning to some U.S. residents, especially those who are worried about the climate crisis. For Washington state residents, however, there is a silver lining.
Amid federal funding cuts, Washington is continuing to fund the development of clean energy projects through the Climate Commitment Act (CCA). The CCA was passed by the Washington State legislature in 2021 and establishes a program that works towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The program is based on the cap-and-invest model that has been implemented in California. Within this model, businesses that produce upwards of 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide are “capped,” meaning they must purchase allowances for their emissions from the state or obtain them through trade. Allowances will become more scarce over time, with a planned maximum allowance of 50 million metric tons of CO2 by 2030, 27 million by 2040 and five million by 2050. The aim is to de-incentivize greenhouse gas emissions through markets.
Included in this program are grant awards that invest in offsets, a term which refers to projects designed to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Criticisms have been made regarding the effectiveness of offsets. In many cases, they do not actually contribute the same amount of greenhouse gas reduction as claimed. Regardless, through the CCA, they do provide financial assistance for clean energy projects that otherwise may not have had the funds to be implemented.
This past year, the Washington State Department of Commerce awarded 49 grants through the CCA for clean energy development. Whitman College was among those listed as grant recipients. The school received over half a million dollars to fund the installation of rooftop solar panels in the newly constructed Junior-Senior Village.
“I don’t know if that’s the full cost of the project, but it’s probably pretty close,” said Rachna Sinnott, Senior Director of Grants and Foundation Relations in Whitman’s Development Office.
Sinnott is responsible for seeking out funding sources. These include public sources, such as grants from government agencies.
“The federal funding is getting harder, and we have definitely seen that impact. A lot of the federal funding that I apply for is on behalf of faculty. So [it includes] a lot of science, social science and humanities grants that are funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Those support student-faculty research,” said Sinnott.
As part of the development office, Sinnott has witnessed firsthand how federal funding cuts have created difficulties for educational institutions. In the earlier months of this year, funding freezes targeting research grants brought about concerns regarding the topics of research that would continue to receive funding under the new administration. These funding freezes also resulted in a significant drop in research opportunities for students and professors nationwide.
“I look for opportunities to find external funding to help support Whitman’s priorities,” said Sinnott. “Usually, I work with either faculty or administrators. In this case, Jeff Hamrick, the Vice President for Finance and Administration, and Tony Ichsan, the Assistant Vice President for Facilities Services, found out about this grant.”
As Assistant Vice President of Facilities Services, Ichsan works closely with Whitman’s sustainability department. Both Hamrick and Ichsan confirmed in email correspondence with The Wire that Whitman has been awarded $587,720 from the CCA. These funds have already gone towards the completed solar panel installation on the roof of Harvey Hall and will go towards financing the installation of solar panels on both Stegner and Robart Halls as well.
Since funding for sustainable development is on the federal government’s chopping block, the importance of state-level agencies has only been amplified. For Whitman, this affects the institution’s effort to enact the goals of the Campus Sustainability Plan. These goals notably include energy efficiency, electrification and renewable energy.
Sinnott, who is also a part of the President’s Sustainability Advisory Committee (PSAC), explained that the Junior-Senior Village was designed with the intention of forwarding Whitman’s renewable energy goals.
“When the administration conceived of the Junior-Senior Village, I think they were always looking at sustainability and environmentally responsible ways of constructing the building. Solar panels were always one of the things that they wanted to incorporate,” said Sinnott.
She explained that the application for the Department of Commerce funding was a standard grant proposal; however, with fewer public funding sources available, there was a more competitive applicant pool for this particular grant. Subsequently, securing funding became a more challenging task than it may have been in years past.
“There was a request for proposals that we did apply for initially, and we weren’t selected in that competition. They just had two rounds. We were invited to take our same application and revise it for the second round, and we were chosen that time around,” said Sinnott.
The project in the Junior-Senior Village is far from the only solar energy-based project being funded by the CCA this year. Of the 49 grants awarded this year, 38 are funding solar energy-related projects. The popularity of solar over other forms of renewable energy likely stems from decreasing costs in recent years. Furthermore, out of those 38 solar energy projects in Washington state, 10 of the grants are funding solar-plus-storage projects. These projects address an important issue that comes up within renewable energy, and that is the reliability of the power supply. In the case of solar energy, energy can only be generated at times when the sun is out, but the need for a power supply extends beyond those times. Within those systems, if the solar panels generate more electricity than needed at a given moment, the surplus is used to charge a battery, which stores the energy for later use.
By funding these projects, especially in the wake of the U.S. Department of Energy funding cuts, Washington state is taking a stand against the agenda of the federal administration. According to Sinnott, the Washington State legislature does not seem as though it is wavering on its stance any time soon.
“So far, at least on the Climate Commitment Act and the sustainability side of things, the State of Washington seems pretty committed,” said Sinnott.
With the attacks coming towards climate research and sustainable development from the federal government, projects like these are vital. President Trump himself has referred to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar as the scam of the century. From an administration that promises to make energy “affordable, reliable and secure” for Americans, projects like those that we are seeing here in Washington are exactly what is needed.
