Area elected officials reacted swiftly Friday to the $7.56 billion in funding cuts announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Energy, including $550 million for research on clean energy and mitigating climate change in Colorado.

Hardest hit in the region was Colorado State University in Fort Collins, which lost more than $351.7 million in funding, including support for a series of projects aimed at reducing methane emissions and improving small-scale oil and gas operations across the nation. The funds were awarded through the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

The cuts were announced Thursday by Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and a primary architect of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration. “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled,” Vought wrote in a post on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Among the larger awards that were rescinded in Northern Colorado were a $27 million grant and loan to Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to aid in its transition to clean energy and $6.5 million to Brighton-based United Power Inc. for a floating solar microgrid in Fort Lupton. Both projects affected the congressional district of Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, whose office did not return requests for comment in time for BizWest’s Friday deadline. However, Evans wrote on Wednesday, as the federal government shutdown began, that “House Republicans did our job, voting to keep the government open to ensure our nation’s troops and federal employees get the pay they deserve — while protecting our seniors and veterans access to the necessary support and benefits they’ve earned.

“Meanwhile, Democrats abandoned the American people, played political games, and forced a shutdown over a $1.5 trillion spending spree and free health care for illegal immigrants. Amid this Democrat-led shutdown, House Republicans will continue to uphold our commitment to the American people by working on the issues that matter the most to them.”

None of the cuts announced Thursday affected the district represented by Evans’ Republican colleague Lauren Boebert, but most impacted the district of Democrat Joe Neguse, whose district includes Boulder, Longmont and Fort Collins.

“The attempt to use a government shutdown to unlawfully rescind already appropriated funds and terminate federal employees is illegal, pure and simple,” Neguse said in a prepared statement emailed to BizWest on Friday. “The Trump administration’s unlawful and politically motivated attacks on communities across our state will inflict direct harm on Colorado’s students, schools, businesses and many others. It is shameful. These acts of retribution are intended to stoke fear, and Democrats must use every legal and legislative tool to reverse these decisions and hold the administration accountable — which is exactly what we intend to do.”

The University of Colorado lost nearly $8.31 million in research funding.

“It’s terribly devastating to see this kind of behavior by our federal government, impacting critical investments in technology that addresses global climate security and economic goals,” Boulder Chamber CEO John Tayer told BizWest. “Our hearts go out to the impacted workforce, and we are going to be working closely with our local business leaders and human service agencies to identify ways to provide relief for the impact — everything from direct aid to assistance with relief from mortgage payments, etc.

“We’ve already convened with stakeholders from all those support representatives and are working on strategies,” Tayer said.

A statement issued by the Colorado Energy Office noted that the list of cuts “specifically targets states where a majority of Americans cast their votes in favor of the Democratic nominee for president. This clearly politically motivated targeting of grants by the administration will balloon energy costs, threaten grid reliability, increase pollution, and create instability in our business community.”

A list compiled by Congressional Democrats also includes private companies in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado that face cuts, including:

• AMP Robotics Corp., Louisville: $5,930,148.
• Czero Inc., Fort Collins: $2,504,167.
• RCAM Technologies, now known as Sperra, Boulder: $2 million.

DOE is terminating funding for 223 projects nationwide, including in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, all of which voted for Donald Trump’s Democrat rival, Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential election.

A news release from the Energy Department said that after “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.”

Award recipients have 30 days to appeal a termination decision, and DOE said that some have already begun that process.