12. Department of Energy and Related Commissions · Major · Needs Congress
Eliminate all DOE applied energy programs, including the Office of Electricity's
Printed page 374 12. Department of Energy and Related Commissions
“Eliminate applied programs. OE administers grant programs for things like energy storage and the testing of grid-enhancing technologies (GETs). These programs should be eliminated. The next Administration should work with Congress to eliminate all DOE applied energy programs including OE (except perhaps those related to basic science for new energy technology).”
What has happened
- Attempted
DOE terminated 321 financial awards (223 projects, $7.56 billion) issued by OCED, EERE, Grid Deployment, MESC, ARPA-E and Fossil Energy after an award-by-award review — an executive workaround that cancels grants inside programs Congress continued to fund. The FY2026 Energy-Water act (2026-01-23) then appropriated $235 million for Electricity, $3.1 billion for EERE, $190 million for CESER and $25 million for Grid Deployment; the Office of Electricity survives the November 2025 reorganization and the FY2027 request funds it at $203 million.
- Attempted
The FY2026 budget request proposed a 26% cut to DOE's non-defense energy programs — EERE -$2.572 billion, Office of Science -$1.148 billion, Nuclear Energy -$408 million, ARPA-E -$260 million — and cancellation of $15.2 billion in unobligated IIJA funds, while keeping every applied office. A request to shrink, not eliminate.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- The 2025-11-20 organization chart (energy.gov, see #962) keeps the Office of Electricity, Nuclear Energy, and a Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office, and folds EERE, OCED and GDO into CMEI: applied programs were consolidated, not ended.
- Overlaps #962 (EERE) and #926 (OCED/GDO/ARPA-E/loan program); this item carries the department-wide reading and the Office of Electricity, which nothing has proposed to abolish.
- Confirmed at attempted on review, leveled with #962 and #977 against the object each Quote names. This Quote names the applied programs: DOE has taken concrete steps against them — a budget request to cut them and $7.56 billion of their awards canceled — but every applied program survives and Congress funded them all for FY2026, so nothing has been eliminated. Executive action that routes around a Requires-Congress ask, rather than eliminating its object, is attempted, not partial.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- DOE applied energy programs
- ID
- 947