Press Releases

09/30/2025

Attorney General Tong Secures Court Order Declaring Federal Energy Program Cuts Illegal

(Hartford, CT) -- Attorney General William Tong today secured a major victory to protect Connecticut energy programs, after the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon found that the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) cap on state energy program funding is illegal. In a ruling from the bench today, Judge Mustafa Kasubhai granted the attorneys general’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that the DOE policy violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The policy would have slashed reimbursements for staffing and administrative costs and threatened millions of dollars for essential energy programs.

“This was about Donald Trump trying to make it harder for states like Connecticut to drive down unaffordable energy costs and to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Yet another ignorant, short-sighted move by this President to enrich polluters, funnel tax breaks to billionaires, and hurt the rest of us. We sued, and the court just handed us another decisive win,” said Attorney General Tong.

Last month, Attorney General Tong joined a coalition of 18 other attorneys general and two governors in a lawsuit to block DOE’s attempt to cap reimbursement of indirect (administrative) and fringe (employee benefit) costs at 10 percent of a project’s budget. The attorneys general argued that DOE’s cap violated federal law, disregarded states’ negotiated cost rates, and would undermine staffing and operations for state energy agencies. Today, Judge Kasubhai sided with the states and found the funding cap illegal and in violation of the reimbursement regulations for DOE grants.

In Connecticut, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection uses State Energy Program funding to support work on energy efficiency, building decarbonization, renewable energy, affordable housing energy retrofits, resilience, and transmission and distribution planning. This includes promoting heat pumps and energy-efficient heating and lighting, public transit and ridesharing, water conservation and recycling. DOE’s policy to cut indirect costs to 10 percent of the overall award and include fringe benefits in that cap would seriously limit the flexibility of these funds for Connecticut and could prevent Connecticut from using the funds as needed.

Joining Attorney General Tong in this lawsuit, which was led by the attorneys general of New York, Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon, are the attorneys general of California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, and District of Columbia, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Twitter: @AGWilliamTong

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Media Contact:

Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov

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