When new presidential administrations enter the White Home, federal companies typically discover their funding and priorities shifting, generally dramatically.
I’m a scholar who research how coverage and market shifts have an effect on regional economies, labor markets and public systems, notably within the context of vital infrastructure corresponding to power and water. I’ve seen how each of these forms of adjustments – of funding ranges and priorities – destabilize companies and lower off long-term tasks earlier than they obtain their supposed targets.
In a single research project, with co-authors Dr. Deborah A. Carroll and Zach Perkins, I took a detailed have a look at one workplace inside a federal company, the Division of Power’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. What we discovered serves for instance of how these adjustments have performed out previously, and it offers context to how the Trump administration’s changes are enjoying out now in that company and throughout the federal authorities.
The workplace, recognized by researchers and its personnel as EERE, is principally centered on funding analysis and growth to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and reduce the costs of those technologies to shoppers. Its key efforts contain low-emission transportation, renewable electricity generation and reducing the carbon emissions of buildings and industry processes.
It makes grants to, and enters analysis and growth agreements with, small companies, trade, nationwide laboratories, universities and state and native governments. Recipients are sometimes required to contribute matching funds or different assist to the undertaking to enrich the federal funding.
On the whole, Congress appropriates funding to the workplace as a part of the yearly finances course of. Nevertheless, the workplace additionally receives sporadic influxes of extra funding to stimulate the financial system or deal with issues associated to power safety and greenhouse fuel emissions. In the end, the quantity of funding EERE will get relies upon partly on general financial situations or nationwide crises.
Boosting funding ranges
A few of these supplemental allocations may be important, and lots of final till the funds have been spent, even when that takes a lot of years. Following the power disaster within the early 2000s, Congress allotted EERE a total of about $7 billion in funding for research and development in power effectivity, renewable power and biofuels.
Then in 2009, following the Nice Recession, Congress gave EERE $16.7 billion – most of which was to assist low-income households pay to install efficient light sources or insulation to avoid wasting them cash. About $5.4 billion was for analysis and growth.
In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress handed the Power Act of 2020, mainly focusing on nuclear energy and carbon capture technologies but additionally offering over $500 million in research and development funding for EERE.
In 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allotted about $16.3 billion to EERE. And in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offered an extra $18 billion. As with different extra funding allocations, Congress made most of that cash accessible till the overall licensed quantity has been spent.
However the future of these allocations is uncertain. A January 2025 executive order by President Donald Trump requested that every one companies instantly pause the disbursement of funds Congress authorized in each legal guidelines.
In its 2026 finances, the Trump administration is proposing spending $900 million on EERE’s work – a 70% reduction from its 2025 allocation of $3.5 billion. This echoes a transfer throughout Trump’s first time period when the White Home proposed the office’s funding be cut by nearly 70% between the 2017 and 2018 budgets. Nevertheless, at the moment, Congress decided to keep the office’s budget largely intact. Congress will overview and determine on this proposed finances as properly.
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Shifting priorities
How these various quantities of cash are spent additionally adjustments, typically based mostly on shifts in political management with totally different views about what types of technologies are most price investing in, and concerning the most effective role of government in growing new applied sciences.
Our qualitative analysis has discovered that Republican administrations sometimes imagine that very-early-stage analysis and growth is an acceptable function for the federal authorities, however that as applied sciences transfer nearer to commercialization, the personal sector ought to take the lead.
In distinction, we discovered that Democratic administrations imagine that promising improvements typically fail to achieve the market as a consequence of inadequate personal sector assist in the course of the demonstration and deployment phases. So they have a tendency to advocate for elevated federal involvement to help with the transition from analysis to market-ready applied sciences.
There may be additionally a partisan distinction through which applied sciences get monetary assist. Photo voltaic and wind power applied sciences have traditionally obtained greater funding below Democratic administrations. In distinction, bioenergy and hydrogen applied sciences have obtained greater funding below Republican administrations.
Funding the longer term
EERE typically funds projects that are considered too risky for private investors to fund alone. Increasing data requires experimentation, so some EERE tasks have achieved notable success, whereas others haven’t.
As an example, the workplace’s investments have performed a pivotal function in each spreading electrical car applied sciences and reducing their cost to consumers. Starting with a serious funding enhance from the American Restoration and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and with additional allocations in subsequent years, EERE helped fund breakthroughs in battery manufacturing, power electronics and electric drive systems.
These developments contributed to a pointy rise in adoption: In 2012, there have been simply 100,000 electrical autos registered within the U.S. By 2022, that quantity was above 3 million. And in 2014, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electrical autos accounted for 3% of all new light-duty vehicle sales. By 2024, that share had grown to 19%.
EERE’s investments in electrical autos powered by hydrogen gasoline cells, in contrast, haven’t achieved so properly. Regardless of significant government support in the 2000s, their business availability remains largely limited to California, the place a lot of the nation’s hydrogen refueling stations are positioned.
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A change in strategy
Our evaluation of the workplace’s operations finds that the quantity of change in funding ranges and priorities can create an environment that hinders thoughtful project selection. Applications that start below one administration can’t be counted on to proceed below subsequent presidents, and {dollars} allotted for the longer term could also be repurposed down the highway, leaving tasks solely partially completed.
Research additionally discover that quickly rising budgets can create misaligned incentives as public directors scramble to make use of the funds in the course of the authorization interval. For instance, some might prioritize grantees who can settle for and spend cash quickly, whatever the potential public advantage of their innovation.
Additional, the shifting priorities complicate long-term planning for presidency officers, researchers and companies. Sustaining innovation over an extended interval takes years of dedication. Research have proven that inconsistent or risky authorities funding can hinder overall technological progress and discourage private investment. One instance is the exploration of algae-based biofuels within the Eighties, which was shut down within the Nineties as a consequence of shifting federal priorities. That stalled progress within the discipline and led to a lack of greater than half of the genetic legacy collected by means of this system. Within the late 2000s, the federal authorities resumed funding algae-based biofuel analysis.
General, analysis by us and others underscores the significance of sustained funding and institutional continuity to make sure the success of publicly funded analysis and growth. That’s what different peer international locations are doing: boosting long-term investments in clean energy with constant priorities and predictable funding.
Following that mannequin, in distinction to the present observe of ever-shifting priorities, would create more practical alternatives to develop, produce and deploy progressive power applied sciences within the U.S., serving to to keep up international competitiveness and cut back reliance on international manufacturing.
