Trump funding cuts threaten US energy innovation, National Academies warns
The administration has sought to eliminate or dramatically shrink the Energy Department’s innovation arm.
The Energy Department headquarters is seen in Washington on Sept. 16, 2022. Francis Chung/POLITICO
The nation’s top scientific advisory institution offered a strong endorsement Thursday of an Obama-era energy innovation agency that President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to eliminate or starve of funding.
Since it was initially funded in 2009, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has provided more than $4.2 billion to over 1,700 projects, resulting in the formation of at least 173 companies, according to a yearslong review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Those companies have raised a further $15.2 billion from private equity investors, the National Academies found.
Over the years, the budget of ARPA-E has ranged from around $200 million to $450 million, which makes the Energy Department agency a relatively small player in the technology research, development and demonstration space. But its investments “provide valuable technical validation and derisking, enabling hand-off to funders with more resources to support commercialization,” said the 312-page report, which was requested by Congress as part of the Energy Act of 2020.