House panels gets first glimpse of Department of Energy’s $45 billion spending request, which is nearly 10-percent less than this year’s enacted budget.
The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 Department of Energy $45.1 billion budget guts $19.3 billion in dedicated funding for Biden-era “green energy” initiatives, including slashing three-quarters of approved allocations for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.
Overall, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fiscal Year 2026 spending request is 9.4 percent less than this year’s $52 billion budget, but increases funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which develops and maintains the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal, by 25 percent.
Without that bump, the remainder of the proposed DOE budget trims spending by 18.2 percent, cutting $15.2 billion in allocations from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, $2.6 billion from its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, $1.1 billion from its Office of Science, and $389 million from its Office of Environmental Management.
The House Energy Committee’s Energy and Water Development Subcommittee got its first glimpse of the tentative plan during a 135-minute May 7 hearing.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright cautioned further changes are likely with the Trump administration ferreting through tentative “skinny budgets” to find more than $163 billion in cuts.
“President Trump is committed to balancing the budget and implementing fiscal restraint, focusing agency funding on the crucial goal of unleashing American energy dominance,” Subcommittee Chair Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) said.
“This is a commitment I share and a duty I intend to fulfill.”
Fleischmann said the administration’s budget refocuses policy on production rather than mitigating climate-related impacts, and gears resources into expanding the nation’s electrical grid to accommodate increasing demand spurred by data center development, artificial intelligence computing, and bitcoin “mining.”
Fleischmann praised the administration for ending Biden’s pause on liquified natural gas exports, for its deregulatory actions, and for opening federal lands and waters to more fossil fuel development.
Fleischmann also said lawmakers “still are awaiting the full details of the president’s fiscal 2026 budget request.”
Among issues with the plan that alarm him is the proposed $1.1 billion trim in DOE’s Office of Science budget.
By John Haughey
