The Department of Energy has restructured, reflecting a strategic shift away from renewable energy and toward both fossil fuels and nuclear energy. The news came with no fanfare beyond a statement about the changes being necessary to better execute the Trump administration’s “American energy dominance” agenda.
As reflected in an organizational chart published Thursday, the Trump administration appears to have cut several offices: the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the Grid Deployment Office, the Office of State and Community Energy Programs, and the Office of Federal Energy Management Program.
It’s not clear whether the work of these offices is being subsumed by another office or eliminated altogether. That said, the Trump administration has long telegraphed plans to cut at least OCED, despite the fact that the office, which helps first-of-a-kind projects get off the ground, has enjoyed bipartisan support.
The Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains is also missing, though a new office — dubbed the Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation — appears poised to take on a measure of MESC’s work. According to the org chart, that new office reports directly to Wright, likely reflecting the importance of critical minerals to the administration. One DOE source, who spoke to Latitude on the condition of anonymity, said the new office is also absorbing EERE.
OCED, GDO, MESC, and SCEP were all created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to manage the billions in funding. Much of that funding is now being cut, according to two lists — one confirmed by the office and a second that remains unofficial but appears to reflect further termination plans. Between the two lists, DOE appears poised to cancel nearly $24 billion in awards across six offices; OCED, MESC, GDO, and EERE were particularly hard-hit, though the Office of Fossil Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy also saw cuts.
The shift also involved several renamed offices. The Office of Fossil Energy (Fossil Energy and Carbon Management under the Biden administration) is now the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office. The Loan Programs Office is now the Office of Energy Dominance Financing. That office, which has seen a breakdown of authority and process since Trump took office, has already been used to support more nuclear and fossil fuel projects under the “energy dominance” mandate, though it also closed a loan for a $1.6 billion transmission project.
Other major changes include new focus areas under the Under Secretary for Science (previously Science and Innovation): offices devoted to fusion, artificial intelligence and quantum, technology commercialization, and strategy and technology roadmaps. On their face, these seem to build upon the work of the Biden administration creation known as the Office of Critical and Emerging Technology, which does not appear on the new list. That office pulled together the efforts of the country’s 17 national laboratories and other DOE research on critical technologies to inform policymaking.
The structure of DOE’s nuclear security work — which largely involves managing the country’s stockpile of nuclear waste — remains largely unchanged.
