Cutting Clean Energy Funding Puts American Competitiveness at Risk
As the appropriations process for the FY19 budget starts moving, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry will have to defend the administration’s budget request before committees in both chambers of Congress.
March 19, 2018
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
The Trump administration’s FY19 budget request proposes cutting a whopping 67 percent of the budget for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Such a cut would decimate the clean energy program. Not only does EERE fill an indispensable role in the introduction of innovative advanced and clean energy and energy efficiency technologies that contribute to marked reductions in the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy security, but it does so with annual return on investment to taxpayers of more than 20 percent. One of the core focuses of EERE is to invest in the innovative energy and technology solutions that have laid the foundation for America’s renewable energy industry. EERE’s research, commercialization, and deployment efforts have helped drive down the costs of innovative clean energy technologies, solidified our place as a world leader in developing clean energy technology, and driven the creation of thousands of jobs manufacturing, installing, operating, and maintaining advanced clean energy systems. For example, one EERE program, the SunShot Initiative built momentum in the solar industry, helping to drop the cost of solar power by 50 percent since 2011. Gutting EERE would put this progress at risk. EERE also plays a critical role in advancing new methods of energy reduction, establishing energy performance standards and advocating for building codes that keep America continually moving forward to higher and higher levels of energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is creating jobs right now. The BlueGreen Alliance Foundation’s Building Clean program documented more than 3,000 facilities in the United States manufacturing the appliances, insulation, sealants, HVAC, lighting, and other products used in energy efficiency retrofits.While we have more work to do to ensure all of the jobs being created in the clean energy and energy efficiency sectors are good jobs, now is not the time to step back. We should be doubling down both on these investments driving innovation in the sectors of the future and our work ensuring these are quality, family-sustaining jobs.Funding for EERE also supports the work of DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office and other vehicles, fuels, and advanced manufacturing programs. These programs are at the forefront of developing and commercializing key advanced clean vehicle and fuel technologies that are saving Americans money at the pump, deeply cutting pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and aiding job growth in the domestic auto industry. And they have helped spur domestic advances in critical electric vehicle battery, electronics, and fuels technologies. Meanwhile the department’s Advanced Manufacturing Office works with other agencies and programs across the government to help ensure America leads not just in inventing new technology, but in the cutting edge technologies and processes to manufacture it, and to spur energy and manufacturing efficiency and competitiveness.