CT, 19 Other States Secure Court Win Preserving Energy Programs From Federal Cuts, Tong Says

by Staff Report

HARTFORD, CT — Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has secured a court victory that he said would protect Connecticut energy programs, after the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon found that the U.S. Department of Energy’s cap on state energy program funding is illegal. 

In a Sept. 30 ruling from the bench, Judge Mustafa Kasubhai granted the attorneys general’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that the DOE policy violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The policy would have slashed reimbursements for staffing and administrative costs and threatened millions of dollars for essential energy programs, Tong said in a statement.

“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,” Tong said. “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.”

Last month, 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. Kasubhai sided with the states and found the funding cap illegal and in violation of the reimbursement regulations for DOE grants,” Tong said.

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, Tong said.  

The federal department’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,” Tong said.

In addition to Tong, the lawsuit was led by the attorneys general of New York, Colorado, Minnesota, and Oregon and also included the attorneys general of California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, and District of Columbia, plus  the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.