The Trump administration is financing its $625 million investment in the coal industry with money that was originally appropriated for carbon capture programs and rural energy projects.
A Department of Energy funding opportunity announcement — the details of which were previously unreported — states that a first round of funding for the administration’s broader coal industry investment is from money first allocated under the Biden-era Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, or bipartisan infrastructure law.
It’s the latest example of President Donald Trump and his team taking behind-the-scenes steps to move taxpayer dollars around to prioritize their energy agenda. The quiet moves have raised questions from critics about the administration’s lack of transparency. And the terms outlined in the DOE document are prompting concerns about how much the agency is staying within legal guidelines in reprogramming funding for coal projects.
“They have absolutely kind of done their best to turn down transparency, to sort of dim the switch on transparency when it comes to how funds are actually being spent by government agencies,” Faith Williams, a director with the open government advocacy group Project on Government Oversight, told NOTUS of the Trump administration.
“It would not surprise me if some of that control is ultimately, sure, legally something that an agency can do, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of that control is legally something an agency can’t do, because [Office of Management and Budget director Russ] Vought believes that they should be able to do it all,” Williams said.
In the $625 million investment announced last month, $100 million is set to be pulled from base appropriations for the Energy Department’s Office of Fossil Energy. The other $525 million is money that was allocated but has not been obligated for clean energy programs under the Biden-era bipartisan infrastructure law, the agency’s funding opportunity announcement said.
Of that Biden-era funding, $350 million was originally meant for two different carbon capture programs, and $175 million was set to be used for a program to improve grid reliability and efficiency in rural communities.
Instead, the Trump administration is planning for the $350 million to go toward modernizing coal infrastructure and $175 million to go toward coal projects in rural communities, according to the department’s announcement about its investment.
DOE did not respond to a request for comment about why it decided to reroute those funds and whether it informed Congress about the reprogramming.
The moves are infuriating those who believe the agency is overstepping Congress’ authority.
“I don’t understand how they can possibly use funds that were provided for a carbon capture technology program to fund things that they are explicitly saying don’t need carbon capture,” a source familiar with the program told NOTUS. “That program in particular, that 350 million, we would say does not align with the purpose at all.”
The agency’s funding notice outlines that coal projects can be eligible for awards from the $350 million pool originally allocated for carbon capture projects even if they do not immediately include carbon capture utilization and storage components.
That source added that DOE has not been transparent in communicating about how or why the funds were reprogrammed.
“This was a very annoying one where we saw it in the news first, and then we actually went to DOE and asked them, ‘what is this?’” the source told NOTUS.
Agencies are allowed to move funds between programs and offices under congressional rules that allow some flexibility around appropriations. But there are restrictions on how funds can be reprogrammed, and budget experts suggest that agencies should notify Congress if reprogramming involves steps to “create or eliminate a program,” among other conditions.
Other statutes like the Antideficiency Act — which more expressly prohibits agencies from obligating money for a given purpose before Congress explicitly appropriates money for that purpose — could also come into play.
The White House has rescinded and canceled other Biden-era energy funding, including almost $8 billion in clean energy grants last month in a move that the White House has indicated was a pressure tactic on Democrats amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The Trump administration has also previously moved taxpayer dollars around in multiple agencies and kept the details vague. In some cases, that funding reprogramming has been in line with the president’s criticisms of renewable energy projects.
For instance, the Department of Transportation withdrew or terminated almost $680 million in grants to wind-energy-related infrastructure projects with a note that the funding “will be recompeted” for port upgrades and “other core infrastructure needs” but did not specify where the money would go.
Another source familiar with the funding told NOTUS that the coal reprogramming is a small part of something the administration has “done again and again this year and had complete disregard for not only statutory requirements, but just for any rule of law.”
This source added that the agency is not providing the public with much detail on how or why they are reprogramming funds, adding that the administration is simply citing “other transactional authorities” — broad language in a statute that gives the energy secretary some discretion over funding — to explain the funding moves.
Alongside concerns about how the coal funding came about are concerns about the administration’s approach to the investment itself.
“The coal production industry has been on the decline for quite a while,” Michelle Solomon, a manager for the electricity program at the nonpartisan clean energy research organization Energy Innovation, told NOTUS. “This funding isn’t going to meaningfully change the cost of those power plants, and so simply propping them up is just going to potentially slightly increase the time that consumers have to pay for that expensive coal power.”