WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is putting a target on renewable energy research, and a federal laboratory in Golden that has been a longtime pioneer in solar, wind and biofuel technologies could be in the bull’s-eye of its proposed budget cuts.
According to a 2019 budget plan obtained by The Washington Post, the White House wants to slash funding at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy — a division of the U.S. Department of Energy — from its current level of about $2 billion to $575.5 million.
If the cut goes forward, it would weaken the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, the agency’s primary facility for this kind of research. Currently, the laboratory employs about 1,700 workers and hundreds of contractors, interns and visiting researchers, who all contribute to the facility’s mission of developing alternatives to fossil fuels.
It’s not the first time President Donald Trump has suggested deep cuts to renewable energy research. His 2018 budget plan proposed a similar reduction. Nor is it automatic, as Congress has a big say and there remains bipartisan resistance to the idea, including from U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo.
“The lab is good for Colorado and good for our country’s energy future,” Gardner said in a statement. “Congress controls the power of the purse, and I will continue to advocate” for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
But Trump’s latest shot at funding for renewable energy research — coupled with his praise for “beautiful clean coal” in his State of the Union speech — has removed any doubt from activists and lawmakers that the White House won’t prioritize this kind of work.
And it makes more likely there will be some sort of budget cut, the extent of which is subject to future negotiations between Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress.
“I plan on working with my colleagues to push back against these proposed cuts so the men and women at NREL can keep doing their part to innovate for the future and to better our economy,” said U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Arvada, whose district includes the lab.
At a U.S. House hearing on Tuesday, Perlmutter asked a top Energy Department official whether a $1.5 trillion tax package passed by Congress in December would force the agency to “cut like crazy” — including to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Responded Mark Menezes, the agency’s undersecretary of energy: “They are able to make the best with the resources that they have ultimately.”
Asked about the potential cuts, Heather Lammers, a spokeswoman for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said in a statement that the agency wouldn’t “speculate on rumors prior to the release of the official budget.”
Last year, Trump proposed cutting the $2 billion budget of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy down to about $636 million. But that idea — along with his other spending plans — has been stymied by Congress’ months-long impasse over the federal budget, which briefly led to a government shutdown.
Josh Freed, vice president for clean energy at Third Way, a center-left think tank in Washington, D.C., said it isn’t clear how big a slice NREL’s budget would take. Last year, NREL faced a 20 percent cut, from $292.6 million to $231.4 million, a fraction of the two-thirds cut proposed for all funding in the energy efficiency and renewable energy program.
A variety of other energy research programs were at risk, including ones on grid reliability and clean coal. Had all the Department of Energy cuts gone through, Colorado was at risk of losing 2,830 research and science jobs and $1.5 billion in economic activity, the most of any state, the group estimated.
“It is disconcerting to Colorado given how much the work of NREL and the clean energy sector has driven growth and it is bad news for the nation,” Freed said.
Beyond renewable energy research, federal energy efficiency programs have paid to weatherize more than 10,000 homes and help low-income families reduce their heating bills, said Howard Geller, executive director of SWEEP, a group that promotes energy efficiency in Southwestern states.
Builders of new homes in Colorado have also benefited from a Department of Energy program that assists them in building more energy-efficient homes, including some that are “net zero,” or don’t pull energy from the grid, Geller said.
“Deep cuts in funding for DOE’s renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs would be devastating to NREL and would harm clean energy businesses throughout Colorado. We urge the Colorado congressional delegation to push back,” Geller said.
Freed said that even if Congress restores funding for DOE research programs, the country risks falling behind competitors who are making ever-larger investments in renewable energy research.
“We are far behind China already, and the Trump administration is waving the white flag. The investment by the government has an impact on how much funding the private sector provides, particularly with early-stage R&D,” he said.
The Trump administration is reported to be mulling a federal 5G wireless network to stay ahead of the Chinese while at the same time cutting the research dollars that helped make Colorado and the nation leaders in renewable energy.
“The real risk is that the next generation of renewable-energy technology will be invented in China. That has big economic and national security and global leadership ramifications for the country,” Freed warned.
The University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business estimated that, back in 2014, NREL converted $380 million in federal funding into $870 million in economic impact nationally.
NREL had 300 partnership agreements with collaborative partners, developed 166 technologies and issued 440 patents. The lab also hosted 24,700 visitors that year who spent $1.2 million.
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, raised concerns about American competitiveness when asked about the potential cuts.
“It would set us backward on the necessary transition we must make to renewable energy, leaving the U.S. in the dust and the environment in shambles,” Polis said in a statement.
