WASHINGTON — When the Trump administration canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October, it framed the move as an urgent corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste.

But it wasn’t true.

In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.

The White House and the Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment.

The administration’s latest concession about the grants came in a lawsuit filed by a group of California researchers challenging various federal agencies that have canceled Biden-era funding.

After reviewing its spending, the Energy Department last fall created a list that recommended canceling more than 600 grants awarded by the Biden administration for a wide range of novel energy projects. That list included funding for projects in states represented by both Republicans and Democrats.

But in October, the White House budget office, led by Russell Vought, terminated only 284 of those grants. In a social media post announcing the news, Vought pointed to the motivations: “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being canceled,” he said.

Months later, in court filings, federal officials indicated there was little else that had informed the final decision about which grants to cancel.

Cancellations Based on 2024 Electoral Votes

“With one exception,” a lawyer for the Energy Department conceded in a court filing this month, “the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators.”

In contrast, the administration left untouched hundreds of additional energy grants in states that were represented by Republicans and had backed President Donald Trump in the last election, even though the Energy Department had recommended canceling them, the government confirmed in the July court filing.

The administration’s actions halted funding for hundreds of energy projects, including upgrades to electrical grids in states like California and Oregon; efforts to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas operations in Colorado; and large hubs to produce clean-burning hydrogen fuels in California and the Pacific Northwest. Some awardees later sued the Trump administration in an effort to restore their grants.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Tony Romm and Brad Plumer/Erin Schaff

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