The Rocky Mountain Institute, a green energy nonprofit that pushed the Biden administration to ban gas stoves, will lose millions of dollars in federal funding as its net-zero emissions goals clash directly with Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The Department of Energy canceled two Biden-era grants totaling nearly $7 million.
The Energy Department is expected to cancel more of the Biden administration’s green energy grants in the coming weeks as it seeks to revive fossil fuel energy production and end government funding of groups that want to convert the U.S. energy grid to wind and solar.
“The Department of Energy is focused on delivering on President Trump’s pledge to lower energy costs, unleash American energy dominance, and promote the more efficient use of taxpayer dollars,” an Energy Department spokesman said. “The department reviewed the contract to see if it met agency priorities and it did not. These contracts failed to advance any of these goals or priorities, and the department acted in the best interest of the American people by terminating them.”
The Energy Department will claw back funding provided to Rocky Mountain Institute in 2022 for a demonstration project to “decarbonize” a low-income apartment building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with green building materials and an electric heat pump pod.
“To fight the climate crisis and protect our country long-term from upheaval caused by the global fossil fuel market, we need to invest in domestic clean energy and in energy efficiency,” Sen. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, said when the grant was announced.
The Energy Department canceled a second grant to the institute to study business models for electric vehicle ride-sharing viability, factoring in “resiliency, equity, and EV charging integration.”
Rocky Mountain Institute spokeswoman Caroline Bennett said the Energy Department terminated the grants because they “no longer effectuate program goals or agency priorities.”
The canceled grants are part of Mr. Wright’s reversal of decades of net-zero policies that vilified fossil fuels as a danger to the environment and the planet.
“The biggest barrier in energy development the last few decades is people, for political reasons, calling climate change a crisis,” Mr. Wright told reporters at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
Mr. Wright’s guiding philosophy and departmental goals run directly opposite those of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit founded in 1982 that seeks “to transfer the global energy system to secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all.”
The institute played a key role in launching the Biden administration’s failed effort to ban gas stoves. It was behind a study that claimed gas stoves, used in 2 out of 5 American kitchens, caused nearly 13% of childhood asthma cases in the U.S. The study contradicted other research that does not show gas stoves cause asthma.
In 2023, Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. cited the Rocky Mountain Institute-funded study when he proposed removing gas stoves from American kitchens. He called them “a hidden hazard” that the commission could ban.
The institute is also closely linked to the Chinese government through a partnership to help China reduce its “carbon intensity” by 60% within the next five years and “dramatically reduce its dependency on fossil fuels.”
Robert Bryce, an energy industry expert and former fellow at the Institute for Energy Research and the Manhattan Institute, described Rocky Mountain Institute as an “anti-hydrocarbon, anti-consumer elitist group” that, with the U.S. government’s help, has become one of the most influential nongovernmental organizations in the world.
“It’s clear that from the record that Rocky Mountain Institute was very influential in the Biden administration, not just in getting money, but also in pushing anti-natural gas policy, including this, electrify-everything push,” Mr. Bryce said.
The institute has received $26.4 million in federal grants since 2009, more than half of it handed out by the Biden administration. The institute in 2024 lists among its donors the Energy Department, the State Department, the Transportation Department, the General Services Administration, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and the National Science Foundation.
The Energy Department leads the list of the institute’s government funders, which has provided $18.35 million, most of it since 2020.
The Transportation Department has paid Rocky Mountain Institute $5.1 million, and the State Department has given the institute $2.43 million. Nearly half the government funding provided to the institute was spent on energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives.
Institute leaders said the organization is nonpartisan and has worked closely with Republican and Democratic administrations since President Reagan.
Projects include working with the Air Force, Army and Navy to “reorient their approach to design and operation of facilities” to reduce energy use and cut costs.
The institute reported that federal funding is just a fraction of its budget. It said the Trump administration canceled grants handed out during Mr. Trump’s first administration, including one to help reduce “energy waste” in low-income households.
Ms. Bennett said the cancellation of grants “will slow and at worst halt the myriad benefits of moving a clean energy agenda forward, including affordable energy costs for families and businesses, resilient community energy sources that support recovery and avert the root causes of natural disasters, and competitive and innovative industries that already provide good jobs throughout the U.S.”
The institute advocates against gas stoves, noting that its 2023 study “sparked a national discussion.” The Biden administration’s efforts to regulate gas stoves out of the market largely fell flat after stoking consumer backlash against banning the appliances.
The Energy Department is expected to propose regulations to overturn less-stringent gas stove rules finalized by the Biden administration.
