WASHINGTON – President Trump will seek nearly three-fourths cuts to federal renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, according to White House budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Currently, annual spending by the Department of Energy’s renewables and efficiency office is about $2 billion. Trump is poised to ask Congress to slash the office’s funding to $575.5 million, a 72 percent reduction, the Post reported.
This sledgehammer to government investments in the clean energy economy would be Trump’s latest gift to his friends in the fossil fuel industry, said EWG President Ken Cook.
“This shouldn’t come as a surprise from a president who thinks coal is both beautiful and clean,” said Cook. “President Trump seems incapable of backing winners over losers, and that is no more apparent than with these proposed cuts to vital renewable energy research. It’s a craven attempt to please his pals in the coal industry and the hardcore base of voters who buy into the fairy tale that he’s going to bring back coal mining jobs.”
“Who knew the ‘new American moment’ would look so much like 1850,” Cook added.
According the Department of Energy’s 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report, in 2016 there were 474,000 jobs in the wind and solar fields combined, while the number of U.S. coal jobs continues to fall, with just 160,000 in 2016.
In November, an analysis of federal government data by EWG showed that at least 75 coal and nuclear units are expected to shutter in the next three years.
