Hello! I’m Maria Gallucci, a senior reporter at Canary Media, the newest member of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Canary Media is a nonprofit newsroom covering the clean energy transition, and this week I’ve got a story on the hollowing-out of a little-known federal office that was helping make that transition happen.
Congress created the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) four years ago to solve a “chicken-and-egg situation” for climate solutions, Zahava Urecki at the Bipartisan Policy Center told me. Emerging technologies that could unlock major environmental and climate benefits need serious capital to scale up and prove themselves, and investors are often unwilling to shoulder those financial risks alone.
That’s where the OCED comes in. During the Biden administration, Congress gave the office about $27 billion to back projects that could drastically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from heavy industries such as steel manufacturing—including at a plant in JD Vance’s hometown—along with more controversial initiatives like hubs for hydrogen production and direct air capture. These subsidies, contingent on private investment, act as a force multiplier such that “a relatively small investment from taxpayers,” notes one expert, is expected to yield “an enormous benefit.”
But those efforts “all started crumbling” on Day 1 of the second Trump administration, according to a former staffer of the clean energy office. First came the White House’s anti-DEI order, which affected many of its grant recipients. Sweeping layoffs followed. Then the Energy Department started canceling existing grants. The final blow is now in the works. The White House’s OCED budget request for the coming fiscal year: $0.
Read my story for the inside scoop on the undoing of this critical office, which, following on the administration’s disruption of major solar and wind projects, has delivered yet another gut-punch to investors’ trust in the government—and America’s leadership on energy innovation.
—Maria Gallucci
