How Trump should celebrate Energy Week
The Trump administration is celebrating a self-designated “Energy Week,” which culminates today with a presidential speech and participation in an “American Energy Dominance Panel.” But President Trump’s proposed budget cuts to energy innovation programs are no reason to celebrate. In fact, they could prove even more damaging to the environment than his decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.
Not only would innovation programs be cut across the board by $3.1 billion (18%), popular programs such as the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program and Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy would be axed entirely.
Energy Department innovation programs have not been without controversy. Failed loan guarantees for Solyndra and Fisker sparked outrage during President Obama’s first term. The Clinton administration and congressional Democrats killed the Experimental Breeder Reactor program, setting back efforts to develop advanced nuclear reactors by decades. And environmentalists and conservatives alike have lampooned costly synthetic fuels and oil shales programs from the 1970s and 1980s that failed to deliver cheap transportation fuels.
But energy innovations have also brought economic, energy security and environmental benefits. Clean, carbon-free nuclear energy, commercialized by the old Atomic Energy Commission for less than $10 billion in today’s dollars, supplies almost 20% of U.S. electricity. Investments in hydraulic fracturing and turbines have allowed natural gas to displace coal as our largest power source, the main reason we have led the world in emissions reductions for a decade.
Wind and solar energy were commercialized through the Energy Research and Development Administration, which became part of the department in 1977. Technological advances from the Clinton-era Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles paved the way for today’s electric cars. The Energy Department and the National Laboratories also played critical roles in developing transformative energy efficiency technologies such as LED lighting, high-definition video screens and high-efficiency appliances.
Federal investments have worked best when there was private skin already in the game. Competitive grant processes, requiring that private investors share in the cost of developing better technologies, help ensure that promising technologies are vetted for their economic viability by market actors before federal investment starts to flow.
Warts and all, federal investments in clean energy technology over the past six decades have paid off for consumers, health and energy security. That is why key Republicans have criticized the administration’s proposed cuts. Even for those skeptical that climate change is caused by humans and bullish that today’s era of cheap fossil energy will continue for decades, these sorts of investments represent cheap insurance to protect our planet.