In addition to major cuts to renewable energy incentives in HR1, House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee are working to further gut any support for renewables in the 2026 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies funding bill.
The bill would decrease the Dept. of Energy’s budget by $1.4 billion and cut the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs nearly in half to focus only on technologies that “promote firm baseload power.” The bill specifically requests no funding for solar and wind energy R&D.
According to House Appropriations Committee Democrats, the bill would revoke $5.1 billion of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law resources from DOE’s programs that support hydrogen, direct air capture, carbon dioxide transportation infrastructure, battery recycling and energy improvements in public schools.
The bill would also cut $110 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), which focuses on rapid development of innovative energy technologies. And it would decrease the Loan Programs Office budget, which has recently backed solar + storage loans for Puerto Rico and a U.S. solar panel factory, by $20 million.
“Sadly, this Republican Energy and Water bill does not meet our nation’s imperative for the future,” said Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Marcy Kaptur (D-OH-09) in her opening remarks on the bill. “America must become energy independent in perpetuity. This bill fails to address the cost-of-living crisis and instead will result in higher energy bills for families and businesses. China is investing record levels in energy, but this bill retreats from U.S. global leadership in the future clean energy economy. America can and must do better. America’s future relies on the new age frontiers of energy and water.”
“The bill would decrease the Dept. of Energy’s budget by $1.4 billion and cut the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs nearly in half to focus only on technologies that “promote firm baseload power.” The bill specifically requests no funding for solar and wind energy R&D.”
I see an upside to this. The industry has been talking “clean energy” for decades that is tethered to didactics that should have changed as new technology was introduced and used in the public and commercial, industrial sector.
The big money over the next decade will probably NOT be in “big oil” but [Big Data]. Server farms used for AI, Bitcoin, “cloud” services will need on site baseload generation and probably still need substantial on site utility scale energy storage facilities as part of the energy mix. THIS already has a baked in return on investments in the IOU regulated monopoly electric utilities. Start by building local infrastructure for server farms, energy storage, ‘some’ thin wires upgrades to the local grid and the utility is allowed an assured average of 8% to 12% return on investment for years to come. So, one can expect a hard push to build SMR/MSR micro reactors on site, data server farms could use the micro-reactor(s) and on site energy storage for grid services as a secondary revenue stream. The overarching question becomes, does one ‘need’ 45X and such when utility “assured” returns on investments and ancillary revenue streams for on site nuclear and energy storage can be used for grid services revenue streams?