President Donald Trump’s economic policies have come under much scrutiny of late with many questioning if his decision-making is based on a sound financial footing. Those questions may find their answer in the recent White House release of Trump’s discretionary budget request for 2026. It features, among many proposals for cuts in the federal budget, plans to slash almost $18bn from the Department of Energy (DOE) alone. The bulk of these cuts derive from the cancellation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which tallies over $15bn of the total. Nonetheless, it is indicative of the direction of travel for the Trump administration that the budget proposal refers to elements of this programme as the “Green New Scam”. Signed into law by President Joe Biden in November 2021, the Act was part of his Build Back Better agenda and, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), its nuclear power provisions included $6bn of subsidies to commercial nuclear reactors which are not economically viable in the current market and a further $2.5bn for advanced reactor demonstration projects.
The theme of pulling back on measures to address emissions associated with climate change is a strong thread throughout the budget document and it is a message couched in provocative terms. The Office of Research and Development, for example, will see its budget cut by $235m in the proposal, which intends to put an end to “radical environmental justice work, woke climate research, and skewed, overly-precautionary modeling that influences regulations.” Similarly, the $100m Atmospheric Protection Program is to be eliminated in the 2026 budget as set out. The Office of Science is facing cuts of more than $1.1bn and will instead be required to focus on “priority areas” although this does include fusion.
Climate change aside, even nuclear-specific programmes are under the cosh. The Office of Nuclear Energy will see a $408m budget cut, reducing funding for “non-essential research on nuclear energy” to instead focus on what is described as achieving national dominance in nuclear technology, including “developing innovative concepts for nuclear reactors, researching advanced nuclear fuels, and maintaining the capabilities of the Idaho National Laboratory”. Meanwhile, the Environmental Management (EM) programme, which currently works at 14 active cleanup sites and operates the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) geological disposal facility in New Mexico is also facing cuts. The programme’s budget is being slashed by $389m although a substantial chunk of this amount stems from the transfer of responsibility for the Savannah River site to the National Nuclear Security Administration. The budget proposal also maintains the Hanford site at the 2025 level but reduces funding for various clean-up activities at other sites.
Although the budget plans are likely to see many changes before they are finalised, for the nuclear sector the proposals represent sobering reading. While Trump has generally been perceived as neutral if not friendly towards nuclear power, the message from this budget is that the current administration is stepping back from many of the initiatives that will support and foster the industry going forward. There is no question that, even accounting for greater efficiency and better targetting of federal investment, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding will have dire conseqences.
As has been seen many times already, Trump is the unabashed master of the provoke and pivot strategy. For nuclear the hope must be that the budget proposals form part of the on-going mission to ‘break things and move fast’ before eventual retrenchment and a more considered approach. The alternative is that even as much of the world looks to the US for some leadership and future thinking on nuclear, it is actually just breaking things.
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By GlobalData
