Overview

The President's fiscal year (FY) 2019 budget request and the addendum include $30.7 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE), approximately $3.8 billion (11%) less than the FY2018 enacted level of $34.6 billion (see P.L. 115-141 and Title III of Division D, Explanatory Statement on page H2481). This request would increase overall funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The request would reduce funding for the Offices of Environmental Management (EM), Science, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Nuclear Energy (NE), and Fossil Energy (FE, including the FE Research and Development [R&D] program). It would also split the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) into two accounts—grid reliability (Electricity Delivery, OE) and cybersecurity (Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, CESER)—and reduce total combined funding to these offices. It would eliminate funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), State Energy Program (SEP), Energy Policy and Systems Analysis, and programs within the Loan Program Office.

Proposed changes to the DOE budget are illustrated in Figure 1, which compares FY2017 and FY2018 enacted levels to the FY2019 request. The FY2019 request for NNSA is $15.1 billion (a 3% increase over the FY2018 level of $14.7 billion). Among other increases, the budget request would provide $120 million to restart licensing activities for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and to initiate an interim nuclear waste storage program.

Several offices would see funding decreases, including EM (7%), Science (14%), and the energy programs (52%). The request decreases funding broadly across energy programs—with EERE seeing a decrease of more than $1.6 billion (70%) below FY2018. Within EERE, all programs would see decreases in funding, and funding for two programs would be eliminated: WAP and SEP.

Figure 1. Department of Energy Budget Comparison billions of current dollars

Sources: FY2017 Enacted and FY2018 Enacted from P.L. 115-141 and Division D, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018, Explanatory Statement. FY2019 request from FY2019 Congressional Budget Request: Budget in Brief. Notes: "Other" refers to programs and funding not within the specified categories. For FY2017 Enacted, "other" includes a Defense contribution line-item to the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) Fund of $563 million that was not included in FY2018 Enacted by Congress or the FY2019 President's Request. "Energy" refers to the Offices of EERE, NE, OE (and the newly proposed OE and CESER), and FE, which includes FE R&D.

Other programs would also be eliminated. The request would eliminate funding for ARPA-E, the Title XVII Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program (Title XVII Loan Program), and the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program. The request expects that operations would shut down in FY2019 for ARPA-E and in FY2020 for the credit programs.

Table 1 shows a summary of changes included in the FY2019 request compared to the FY2017 and FY2018 enacted levels.

Key Changes

The FY2019 request would reduce funding for energy programs by 52%, with the majority of the proposed reductions in EERE. The request would also split the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability into two offices: OE and CESER. The request would decrease funding levels to OE programs by more than $89 million (59%) from FY2017 enacted, and increase funding levels to CESER programs by more than $16 million (21%) over FY2017 enacted (comparison with FY2018 enacted not broken out).

The request would eliminate funding for the Title XVII Loan Program and ATVM Loan Program while continuing to manage the existing loan portfolio through the use of unobligated balances and fees collected from borrowers to support the administrative functions of the programs. The budget request states the expectation that operations would shut down in FY2020 and any remaining monitoring and closeout functions would be transferred to another office.

The FY2019 request would reduce funding for the Office of Science and would change funding levels for individual Science programs "to focus on its core mission of conducting cutting edge, early-stage research," although the request does not specify what this entails. The request would increase funding compared to FY2017 enacted levels by $252 million (39%) for Advanced Scientific Computing Research. Other programs would see reductions compared to FY2017 enacted levels, including Biological and Environmental Research ($112 million or 18%), Fusion Energy Sciences ($40 million or 11%), and High Energy Physics ($55 million or 7%).

For additional information on FY2018 appropriations for DOE, see CRS Report R44895, Energy and Water Development: FY2018 Appropriations.