OSU loses 2023 federal funding grant due to Trump's climate research cutbacks
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University faces a significant setback for one of its research projects after a $2,499,876 federal grant was terminated this week.
That information is according to faculty at OSU and a list of hundreds of other terminated energy projects provided by Democrats with the House Appropriations Committee.
“On Oct. 1, 2025, OMB Director Russ Vought announced that the Department of Energy would terminate $8 billion of energy projects, targeting 16 Democratic states. Later that night, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the termination of 321 awards,” House Democrats said in a statement. “The termination of these critical energy projects will increase energy prices, eliminate jobs, and make the energy grid less reliable. Vought canceled these projects despite the fact that DOE currently remains open and fully operational using unexpired financial resources.”
OSU officials confirmed on Friday one of their projects that looked into the community benefits of off-shore wind development was terminated.
“We have been notified of the termination of our Department of Energy grant to better understand rural perspectives on both the impacts and benefits of energy development, as well as local needs, expectations, and preferences around energy development. Such work is relevant for all forms of energy and industrial development, including hydropower, geothermal, transmission/pipeline construction and data centers,” said lead project researcher professor Hilary Boudet. “This decision has a significant impact on students working on this project with funding from this grant. We are working on ways to continue this important research project so that we can prepare students to be the next generation of scientists and researchers in our country. This decision has also come at a time in our research when data collection is nearly complete and we are preparing for dissemination and publication. This decision will impact our ability to share the results of our research.”
The grant was secured by the university back in 2023. The terminated projects were previously appropriated and competitively selected. These awards are relevant to 136 Members of Congress, including 108 Democrats and 28 Republicans.
Devlin Rowe is a senior at OSU studying environmental science, who said the research for off-shore wind development can get pricey.
“It makes me feel interested to see not only how far along the program was, what the actual cost benefits could be, because $2.4 million is a lot. But as an environmental science major, I’ve studied wind, and I know that it’s rather expensive to maintain,” Rowe said. “And we’re kind of banking on environmental conditions based on any number of things. So it could be not necessarily positive, but it could have just been a smarter financial play and it could not benefit people. We’re simply not going to know yet.”
Rowe said despite this, making these decisions based on politics is problematic.
“It’s rather absurd because regardless of your political party, the planet’s the planet. If you do things that could benefit it and everybody on it, it seems rather it seems a little stupid that people are deciding to arbitrarily take that away for sticking it to the other political party instead of thinking of everyone in the country,” Rowe said.
Brian Cortez is a freshman mechanical engineering student at Oregon State University who said he’s not comfortable knowing federal money students need for their research seems constantly at risk.
“As a student, I feel like it’s a robbery because I have many friends and me as well who have worked harder entire lives just to get this opportunity,” Cortez said. “And just knowing that the chance of studying what could probably be a very valuable resource in the future is getting cut for arguably greed at the higher level of politics.”
The U.S Department of Energy boasted at the $7.56 billion dollars saved for American taxpayers by eliminated the 321 financial awards for the 223 projects in a statement on their website:
“The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the termination of 321 financial awards supporting 223 projects, resulting in a savings of approximately $7.56 billion dollars for American taxpayers. Following a thorough, individualized financial review, DOE determined that these projects did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.
The awards were issued by the Offices of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Grid Deployment (GDO), Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC), Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and Fossil Energy (FE).
“On day one, the Energy Department began the critical task of reviewing billions of dollars in financial awards, many rushed through in the final months of the Biden administration with inadequate documentation by any reasonable business standard,” Secretary Wright said. “President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. Today’s cancellation’s deliver on that commitment. Rest assured, the Energy Department will continue reviewing awards to ensure that every dollar works for the American people.”
Of the 321 financial awards terminated, 26% were awarded between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Those awards alone were valued at over $3.1 billion.
In May 2025, Secretary Wright issued a Secretarial Memorandum entitled, “Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance,” establishing a new policy for evaluating financial awards. The policy authorized program offices to request additional information from awardees. It also required that awards be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to identify waste, safeguard taxpayer dollars, protect America’s national security, and advance President Trump’s commitment to deliver affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the American people.
Using this review process, DOE evaluated each of these awards and determined that they did not meet the economic, national security or energy security standards necessary to justify continued investment.
As outlined in the Secretary’s memorandum, award recipients have 30 days to appeal a termination decision. Some of the projects included in this announcement have already begun that process.”
Aaron Arellano joined KEZI 9 News as a news reporter in September of 2023. If you have a story idea for Aaron, you can email him at aaronarellano@kezi.com.