ST. LOUIS — A half-billion-dollar North St. Louis investment appears all but dead after the Trump administration's energy department halted a $200 million grant pledged to the company under the Biden administration to support the construction of the new battery factory.

The grant to ICL Specialty Materials, an Israeli firm that employs about 300 people in the region at a factory in Carondelet and its North American headquarters, was awarded through the 2021 federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

ICL's plan to use the grant to build the massive plant to produce lithium iron phosphate, a key component in batteries for vehicles and consumer electronics, in St. Louis was hailed by area leaders and Missouri's former Republican governor as a major win for the state and region.

Last week, however, ICL said in a financial filing it had received word from the Department of Energy that it was pulling the funding for the St. Louis factory, which had been expected to create 150 jobs.

"The DOE’s decision was made as part of a comprehensive review that led to the discontinuation of the funding eligibility for a number of projects that were previously approved for grants in the renewable energy sector and other sectors, with the objective of aligning such grants with the Congressional budget framework and, among other considerations, in response to the anticipated increase in the Project’s costs," the company said in the filing.

ICL did not explicitly say it was killing the St. Louis battery component facility, but the DOE grant made up one-third of the project's nearly $600 million cost. And ICL signaled to investors the write-off it would take by scrapping the factory — $40 million. It already has doled out cash for the project, including the December purchase of a 19-acre site on the North Riverfront near Adelaide Avenue and Hall Street for $4.4 million.

The company said it was "examining the continuation of the project" as well as all of its activities involving lithium iron phosphate as part of "an overall review of the company's strategy."

A spokeswoman for ICL did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The Trump administration's move comes amid a broader push to slash government grants and contracts, particularly those supporting clean energy authorized by Congress during former President Joe Biden's administration. The DOE's move also comes amid a federal government shutdown that is nearing its third week, and President Donald Trump has signaled he would use the shutdown to target projects in Democratic districts. St. Louis is represented in Congress by Wesley Bell, a Democrat.

The ICL battery component plant initially had been proposed as an expansion of its Carondelet factory, but the company pivoted late last year to the large, open site on the industrial North Riverfront.

The facility was to be the largest of its kind in the United States and had drawn bipartisan support. The city approved more than a decade of property tax breaks to woo the investment, and Missouri officials chipped in $1 million from a state development board.

When Biden's Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, stopped in St. Louis to tout the project two years ago, former Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, also spoke of the importance of the undertaking.

"I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that Missouri is (as) competitive as we can be in that energy market when it comes to the battery situation," the former governor said.

©2025 STLtoday.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.