There are Department of Energy programs in the Trump administration’s FY2027 budget request that I would cut too. Hydrogen for buses, trucks, building heat and routine electricity storage has consumed years of public funding and attention without overcoming the basic efficiency and cost advantages of using electricity directly. Ending more attempts to force those applications into existence would be progress. The problem is that the administration has wrapped those defensible cuts into a much broader retreat from batteries, electric vehicles, buildings, solar, wind and public energy research while treating several much weaker technological bets far more gently.

Across thirteen selected DOE technology program lines, FY2026 enacted funding totals about $4.288 billion. Trump’s FY2027 request reduces that to $2.618 billion, a decline of roughly 39%. The distribution matters much more than the aggregate. Solar, wind, vehicles and buildings together fall from $1.005 billion to only $40 million, about a 96% reduction. These are selected annual DOE programs, not the entire department or every federal dollar that supports the technologies, and the FY2027 figures are a presidential request rather than enacted appropriations. But budget requests tell Congress what an administration thinks deserves public support, and the pattern is difficult to mistake.

The useful way to judge these programs is not to divide technologies into politically favored and politically disfavored camps. Research, demonstrations and deployment support should face different tests. Early-stage research should answer a credible question that is worth answering. A demonstration should resolve specific technical, operating or commercial uncertainties. Deployment funding should accelerate something with a plausible path to delivering useful services competitively.

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