Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear wants to protect the state’s energy projects at risk of losing federal funding.
In a letter to President Donald Trump and Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the two-term Democrat urged the administration to oppose terminating federal grants for energy-related projects.
Cuts could threaten 700 jobs and $537 million of economic development in rural communities and undermine Trump’s attempt to bring jobs back to the U.S., Beshear said in the letter dated Oct. 15.
“As Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, my job is to help Kentucky move forward,” Beshear said in the letter. “I strongly urge your administration to reject DOE’s proposed cuts to these crucial energy projects in Kentucky.
“These cuts will only set back economic development and job opportunities in Kentucky and hurt our country’s international competitiveness and progress on re-shoring domestic manufacturing,” he said.
Kentucky has been the recipient of several recent high-dollar economic development announcements related to clean energy, the electric vehicle supply chain and more through incentives from the legislature and tax credits for consumers passed under former President Joe Biden.
Proposed cuts across the U.S. were outlined in a list reported by several media outlets last week, outlining hundreds of project grants totaling about $24 billion the Trump administration might target.
At the start of October, the Department of Energy terminated 321 financial packages totaling more than $7.5 billion for 223 projects, several of which are on the long list, according to E&E News. About two dozen other grants canceled earlier in the year also appear on the list.
“As Secretary Wright made clear last week, the Department continues to conduct an individualized and thorough review of financial awards made by the previous administration,” said the department’s chief spokesperson Ben Dietderich in an emailed statement to the Herald-Leader last week. His office said it had been unable to verify the list.
The cuts so far this year, and the new list indicating more might be coming, match Trump’s agenda to cancel clean energy programs. His administration has often criticized renewable energy, especially the effort to reduce carbon emissions, as part of a “green energy scam.”
Most of the cuts made earlier this month yanked funding from Democratic states. Members of Congress from those states said in a letter to the department secretary the decision was blatantly partisan and would harm jobs, weaken the grid and give foreign adversaries like China an edge.
The new, longer list includes grant projects in Republican states, too.
Of those projects in Kentucky on the list is a $316 million award for Ascend Elements, Inc. The Massachusetts-based manufacturer announced in October 2022 it would invest $1 billion in its largest electric vehicle battery recycling and manufacturing facility in Hopkinsville creating 400 full-time jobs.
The company’s CEO Linh Austin said last week he’d been notified Oct. 7 the grant had been terminated but any DOE decision regarding grants doesn’t change the company’s trajectory, and it plans to resume construction next spring.
Beshear said the facility will reduce the country’s reliance on battery-related imports from other countries since the U.S. does not produce the critical materials to domestically produce the appropriate amount of batteries to match demand.
Also targeted on the list is a $75 million grant for Diageo, the alcoholic beverage company, which planned to add batteries to its facility in Shelbyville to reduce carbon emissions.
That grant was terminated in May, as was a $72 million one for a carbon capture project at LG&E and KU’s Cane Run Generating Station just outside Louisville. It also appears on the longer list.
The $50 million grant supporting Mitsubishi Electric Corporation as it retrofits a Maysville factory to make high-efficiency heat pumps could also have its funding cut, according to the list.
In his letter, Beshear said the project is bringing manufacturing and jobs back to America. China builds 95% of the heat compressors the factory anticipates producing. At capacity, the facility can make over 1 million each year, Beshear said.
Five projects through the University of Kentucky Research Foundation are on the list and could stand to lose almost $24 million altogether.