President Trump’s budget blueprint for 2018 includes significant cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE). In the meantime, Congress is planning to approve the the bipartisan fiscal 2017 omnibus package this week, which maintains funding for both the EPA and energy innovation research from the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
– DOE:
President Trump’s 2018 Budget Blueprint: $28 billion
2017 Omnibus Package: $29.7 billion
Percentage change: -5.7%
– ARPA-E:
President Trump’s 2018 Budget Blueprint: Eliminate funding
2017 Omnibus Package: $306 million
– EPA:
President Trump’s 2018 Budget Blueprint: $5.7 billion
2017 Omnibus Package: $8.2 billion
Percentage change: -30.5%
Flash Discussion will be available until 6:00 pm. Please limit your comments to 75-80 words.
*Expert comments may be shared with members of the media.
By Andrew Holland Senior Fellow, American Security Project
One thing I always track funding for is fusion research. I find that how Congress funds speculative scientific research like fusion is an important signal of how Members of Congress value investments for the future overall.
In this budget, the Fusion Energy Sciences program within the Department of Energy’s Office of Science gets $380 million, a reduction of $58 million below the FY16 level. But the distribution of that $380 million is important – the $330 million for the domestic fusion research program is an increase of $57 million over the FY16 enacted, while the funding for construction of the international ITER reactor was cut by $65 million below last year’s enacted funding level to only $50 million.
Given Congressional concerns about ITER’s management and budget over-runs, is was appropriate for a decrease in funding. However, should ITER prove that those problems are behind it, it deserves a significant increase in future years. After all, the United States gets 100% of the scientific results from ITER while only paying 9% of the costs.
In NNSA, there is $523 million for them Inertial Confinement Fusion program. Of that, $330 million is for the National Ignition Facility and $68 million is for the OMEGA program.
Even after threats to close ARPA-E, it remained funded in this budget: with a $15 million increase to $277 million. ARPA-E’s ALPHA program is supporting some pathbreaking fusion research in universities, national labs, and private companies around the country.
Finally, Congress included language in the report to accompany the legislation directing the DoE to submit a report summarizing the fusion energy science community’s to advance and plan for the long term vision of the fusion energy sciences field. This will be an opportunity to discuss the need for real leadership within the DOE on this issue, while also discussing how to match the programs priorities and goals with funding within the program.
As the first time the Trump Administration has had an opportunity to weigh-in on fusion budgets, this deal gives room for growth down the line.
By Daniel Cohan Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering, Rice University
ARPA-E funds the most cutting-edge research in energy technologies. Eliminating ARPA-E funding as sought by President Trump’s budget would have set back our nation’s efforts to lead in energy innovations. For Congress to instead increase funding for ARPA-E sends a signal that the U.S. remains committed to developing the energy technologies of the future.
By Ben Finzel President, RENEWPR
The threatened cuts had a chilling effect on research and development. The Congressional action on the Omnibus restores some hope that sanity will prevail and necessary Federal support for important energy innovation activities will continue, even if only for the rest of this fiscal year. Looking forward, it will be important for business, industry, labor, NGOs, academics and others to continue to make the case for appropriate Federal involvement in research and development including, and especially, at DOE, EPA, ARPA-E and related agencies.
By Henry M. Goldberg Consultant, Independent
The Trump administration budget proposal to reduce funding to the EPA and DOE and rather obtain funding for a US-Mexico border wall clearly reflects their misalignment of priorities for the welfare and security of the nation. Ignoring climate change and de-emphasizing environmental impacts as well as reducing research into clean-energy technologies will have serious long-term damaging impacts on the country that far outweigh any dubious benefits of a border wall. Hopefully, reasonable members of Congress will be able to diminish the Trump administration initiatives in this direction in the future.
By Bill Klun Senior Advisor, MJ Beck Consulting
It means pretty much same old…same old.
Il Duce: 0: our institutions: 10.
Go Team.