Major climate pollution removal project in Johnson’s district could be on Trump’s chopping block

By Ella Nilsen, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration is eyeing cutting funds for two major climate pollution projects in Texas and Louisiana, including one in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s district, according to a list of potential cuts obtained by CNN.

Days after announcing nearly $8 billion in cuts to federal energy funding, the Energy Department is considering billions more in reductions to federally funded energy projects, including two $50 million grants in Texas and Louisiana for direct air capture hubs — systems that could pull climate pollution out of the atmosphere like a vacuum.

One of the hubs, Project Cypress, is located in Johnson’s district.

It is unclear whether all the projects on the list will be terminated, or when the cuts will be officially announced. As of Tuesday, some companies involved in the projects hadn’t heard directly from the federal government.

“Market rumors have surfaced, but we have not received any official decision by DOE,” Christoph Gebald, co-CEO of the carbon removal company Climeworks, told CNN in a statement. Climeworks is one of the companies involved in the Cypress project.

Direct air capture uses chemicals to remove climate pollution from the air. Once removed, planet-warming CO2 can be stored underground or used in industrial materials like cement.

There has been a lot of work done on hubs to accelerate the development of technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in states that are major producers of oil and gas, like Texas and Louisiana, with some viewing them as a lifeline for the polluting fossil fuel industry.

Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has been supportive of the project, and state officials have urged Louisiana lawmakers on Capitol Hill to protect the projects from any cuts.

Energy Department spokesperson Ben Dietderich didn’t directly comment on the individual projects or the future of their funding, but said the department’s review of projects is ongoing.

“No determinations have been made other than what has been previously announced,” Dietderich told CNN in a statement. “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.”

A spokesperson for Speaker Johnson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Groups supporting the projects blasted the potential move, saying it could kill jobs and hurt US competitiveness in a rapidly growing industry.

“It’s a huge economic boon,” said Erin Burns, executive director of carbon removal group Carbon180.

“Local economies were poised to benefit from billions of dollars in economic investment and thousands of in-demand jobs, and in the face of potential cuts, state and local leaders worked to educate the Department of Energy on the negative impacts of withdrawing support for the DAC Hubs,” Giana Amador of the Carbon Removal Alliance and Ben Rubin of the Carbon Business Council said in a joint statement.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Energy Sec. Chris Wright said the Energy Department was considering cancelling federal grants for projects from both red and blue states — after White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought suggested on X that the administration was cancelling projects in largely blue states.

Wright said the Energy Department’s funding cuts were not tied to the ongoing government shutdown, nor targeted at blue states.

“We’ve announced project cancellations before that in both red and blue states, and as this fall goes on, you’ll see cancellations in red and blue states,” Wright told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.

“The projects are under review and most of the decisions have not been released yet,” Wright said, adding a full list would be released “in the next few weeks.”

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