NJ Joins Multistate Lawsuit Over Canceled Energy Grants, Including Rutgers Projects

New Jersey Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport joined 12 other attorneys general in a federal lawsuit alleging the Trump administration unlawfully terminated or withheld congressionally approved Department of Energy funding for energy affordability and infrastructure projects, including two Rutgers University agreements tied to building efficiency and agrivoltaics research. 

Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport joined a coalition of 13 states in filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging the Trump administration unlawfully halted or terminated billions of dollars in federally funded energy and infrastructure projects, including awards in New Jersey intended to reduce building energy costs and expand “dual-use” solar on farmland.

The complaint names as defendants DOE Secretary Christopher Wright, the U.S. Department of Energy, OMB Director Russell T. Vought, and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief under the Administrative Procedure Act and constitutional separation-of-powers principles, according to the filing.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill, in a statement announcing the lawsuit, said: “Creating more in-state power will lower utility costs, benefiting both families and businesses, and improve affordability for all. But President Trump is determined to make life more expensive by refusing to follow the law, and New Jersey will not stand for it.”

Davenport said in the same announcement: “Let me be clear: I will do everything in my power to drive down energy costs and make life more affordable for all New Jerseyans. But the Trump Administration is doing exactly the opposite, going out of its way to unlawfully gut programs that support affordable, clean energy—all in the name of seeking retribution against the President’s perceived political opponents.”

What the lawsuit alleges

In its introduction, the complaint describes a series of actions that it says began on President Donald J. Trump’s first day in office in 2025, including executive orders directing agencies to pause disbursement of certain funds appropriated by Congress through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, followed by DOE’s creation of internal “kill list” reviews and a subsequent DOE policy memorandum establishing a “review” process for already-awarded projects.

The complaint also cites an Oct. 2025 wave of terminations, alleging DOE announced the termination of 315 awards worth $7.56 billion and that the affected projects were concentrated in certain states listed in a public statement by OMB’s director.

New Jersey impacts cited in the complaint

The complaint’s section on New Jersey alleges DOE terminated two cooperative agreements with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, including:

• A $3.2 million award under the Resilient and Efficient Codes Implementation (RECI) program, issued jointly to Rutgers and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, with $600,000 in matching funds attributed to NJBPU, the complaint states.

• A $1.7 million award to Rutgers for research on agrivoltaic systems—described as co-locating solar arrays on operating farmland—along with $178,782 in New Jersey cost sharing, according to the filing.

The complaint alleges the RECI-funded Rutgers project, described as “BPS Ready,” was intended to support an evidence-based building performance standard and that termination deprived New Jersey of potential savings “between $3.8 billion and $15.4 billion over the course of five years,” particularly by reducing peak loads through demand response and load shifting.

For the agrivoltaics work, the complaint states Rutgers partnered with stakeholders including American Farmland Trust, Delaware State University, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and that termination forced Rutgers to scale down its work with “one-third of the grant period remaining.”

States in the coalition

New Jersey is listed among the plaintiffs alongside California, Colorado, Washington, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, according to the complaint caption.

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