Reviving 2022 budget harms green energy plans: Energy official warns of catastrophe.

h2: DOE Warns of Catastrophic Consequences if Budget is Scaled Back

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has warned that the proposal by House Republicans to scale back its budget to fiscal year 2022 funding levels would have catastrophic consequences for consumers, taxpayers, and industry. Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development Subcommittee during a May 3 budget hearing that this move would derail momentum in “re-shoring” domestic manufacturing capacity at a critical moment.

h3: DOE Seeks $52 Billion for Fiscal Year 2024

The department is seeking $52 billion for fiscal year 2024, which is an increase from the $48 billion enacted for fiscal 2023. The “green energy” incentives offered in 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are generating increasing investor interest in emerging technologies and revisioned industries, including manufacturing, according to the department.

h3: Momentum for Re-Shoring

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said the IRA helped induce “a record year” in U.S. manufacturing development in 2022, with $150 billion in investments to build 46 factories that will employ more than 18,000 workers. “We are seeing momentum for re-shoring and we expect to see even more” in 2023 and beyond, Turk said.

h3: Budget Boost Needed

The BIL, IRA, and DOE’s FY24 budget request are all geared to support “cheap, clean, and abundant energy” to drive the economy while incentivizing domestic energy sourcing, generation, and transmission, subcommittee Chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said. “DOE’s budget has tremendous implications for our national security and global competitiveness,” she said. “We have to lock arms and work together to make sure our funding keeps pace” with competitors, such as China.

h3: Consequences of Scaling Back Budget

Among immediate casualties, Turk said, is the $62 million weatherization program “that is incredibly popular.” More than 12,000 U.S. businesses and corporations wouldn’t receive energy-saver rebates approved by Congress in 2022 and consumers would pay $1 billion a year more in energy bills, he said. On the “science side,” Turk said there would be “a significant reduction in research and development.”

h3: Implications for National Security and Global Competitiveness

The DOE would need to “lay off 5,200 scientists and others who work at our labs,” he said, and trim about 2,600 lab spaces for the department’s commercial and university research “partners” who will find somewhere else to do their work. That would undermine “all the science we plan to do, want to do, need to do to be competitive” in the 21st century, Turk said. “China competition? We have less ability to deal with that.”

h3: Conclusion

Imposing FY22 funding levels would repeal or retard “all those historical provisions” in the BIL and IRA “at this critical, critical moment, as we are gaining momentum—$150 billion in manufacturing investment—all of that is pulled back at this critical moment, as we’re actually making progress,” which would dramatically impair the “competitive side” of the equation, he said. It is crucial to maintain the momentum and continue to support the DOE’s budget request to ensure the nation’s economic growth and global competitiveness.