Trump is blocking billions of dollars of grants that would fix the grid

According to Grist, the Trump administration is blocking billions in federal grant funding for electrical grid improvements nationwide. The Department of Energy has terminated 356 awards totaling twelve point five billion dollars since January 2025, and has threatened to terminate over three hundred more worth twelve point two billion dollars. In Wisconsin, a utility withdrew from a fifty-million-dollar grant to add grid devices in tribal and disadvantaged communities—devices that could have reduced power outages by fifty percent. California utilities upgrading smart meters have received no reimbursement since October, and a transmission project in the upper Midwest is waiting on four hundred sixty-four million dollars. Of eleven point four billion in obligated grid infrastructure funds, nine point one billion remains at risk. Many of these projects are straightforward grid reliability improvements that normally enjoy bipartisan support, but utilities have already committed matching funds and are now stuck in administrative limbo.

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