U.S. Department of Energy
The U.S. Department of Energy is the federal executive department responsible for energy policy, the nuclear weapons stockpile, and the national laboratory system. Entries naming it from 2025 onward record the removal of public information from its websites and decisions on the administration of appropriated energy funding.
2026 Events (6)
Trump administration redirected $500 million clean-steel grant to fund coal-fired furnace at Ohio steel mill
On August 21, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it had redirected a $500 million grant, originally awarded to Cleveland-Cliffs in March 2024 to decarbonize its Middletown, Ohio, steel mill, to instead fund continued operation of the plant's coal-fired blast furnace. The grant was restructured after Cleveland-Cliffs said the "green premium" business case for the original hydrogen-ready project no longer held; DOE Secretary Chris Wright and Vice President JD Vance, a Middletown native, appeared at the plant to promote the change. A former DOE official said the revised scope conflicts with the Inflation Reduction Act's statutory definition of eligible "advanced industrial technology," which requires funded projects to accelerate progress toward net-zero emissions.
U.S. Department of Energy deleted 1,600+ energy-saving webpages amid summer heat wave
At least 1,662 U.S. Department of Energy webpages providing guidance on lowering energy costs and protecting the electrical grid during heat waves had gone dark as of July 3, 2026, according to a Guardian analysis of deleted-URL data from the Internet Archive published July 15. More than 300 of the removed pages had drawn over 160,000 views in the preceding 30 days, and at least 18 were removed within days of a proposed DOE rollback of home-appliance efficiency standards. The department did not respond to questions about when or why the pages were removed.
Trump invokes Defense Production Act to direct ~$700M to the coal industry
On June 4, 2026, the Trump administration moved to direct roughly $700 million in federal support to the coal industry, invoking the Defense Production Act — a 1950 national-defense statute — to fund coal-fired power plants and export infrastructure. The package routes about $425 million in DPA funds to 13 existing plants across 10 states, roughly $185 million in Energy Department grants to build two new coal plants (Alaska and West Virginia) and restart a Maryland plant, and $75 million in DPA funds toward the West Gateway coal export terminal in Oakland, California. It builds on an April 20, 2026 Presidential Determination declaring coal supply chains and baseload power "essential to national defense," with the stated rationale being rising electricity demand from AI and data centers rather than a defense emergency.
DOE and Commerce awarded SoftBank a federal AI data-center land deal two months after its $50 million gift to Trump's library
On March 20, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Commerce announced a partnership letting SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy redevelop the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon, Ohio into a 10-gigawatt AI data-center campus on federal land. SoftBank had donated $50 million to Trump's presidential library in January 2026, while its proposal was reported to be on the administration's shortlist for the project; congressional Democrats disclosed the donation's timing on August 6, 2026, after SoftBank confirmed the dates in a written response to their inquiry.
Wright invokes Defense Production Act to override California, restart Sable oil pipelines
On March 13, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order delegating his Defense Production Act authority to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who that same day ordered Sable Offshore Corp. to restart the Santa Ynez Unit and its offshore pipeline system along the California coast. The lines had been shut since the 2015 Refugio oil spill and remained subject to California regulatory approval; invoking the 1950 national-defense statute let the administration override the state hold, and oil resumed flowing on March 14. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued days later, calling the order executive overreach that purported to authorize illegal oil transportation through state-regulated pipelines.
NPR investigation reveals DOE secretly rewrote nuclear reactor safety rules, kept them hidden until forced release
NPR reported on January 28, 2026 that the Department of Energy had quietly rewritten internal safety, security, and environmental rules for a new generation of experimental nuclear reactors under its Reactor Pilot Program, cutting roughly 750 pages -- about two-thirds -- of requirements including guard-training and nuclear-material-security standards, and loosening groundwater protections. The department shared the rewritten rules with ten companies participating in the program but did not make them public; NPR obtained copies and reported the changes were made without any public comment process, months after DOE officials told companies they intended to cut red tape to meet a Trump executive order deadline of July 4, 2026 for at least three of the reactors to come online.
2025 Events (4)
Trump White House directed five agencies to condition Colorado funding on political alignment, then cut hundreds of millions
On December 15, 2025, a Trump White House deputy assistant emailed officials at the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Interior, and Agriculture and the Office of Management and Budget, directing them to identify actions "with respect to Colorado" to keep "grants and federal support...in line with administration priorities," hours before President Trump publicly called Colorado Gov. Jared Polis "weak and pathetic" over the imprisonment of former county clerk Tina Peters. In the days that followed, the Department of Energy canceled $615 million in Colorado funding, the Department of Transportation ended $109 million in grants, the Office of Management and Budget moved to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, and the Department of Agriculture ordered an accelerated food-assistance recertification review. The email became public on August 11, 2026 at a federal court hearing in Colorado's retaliation lawsuit against the administration, where a judge called it "extraordinary" and ordered the White House to produce more records, while the administration denied the actions were tied to Peters.
DOE terminated 284 renewable energy grants based solely on whether recipient states voted for Trump, its own legal filing later admitted
On October 1, 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the termination of 321 financial awards covering 223 projects, publicly citing financial review and energy policy grounds. A July 15, 2026, DOE legal filing in subsequent litigation admitted that 284 of those terminated grants were canceled "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state" — specifically whether the state awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in 2024 and had two Democratic-caucusing senators. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had repeatedly testified to Congress that politics played no role in the terminations; the court filing contradicted that testimony.
E&E News investigation reveals Energy Department banned 'climate change,' 'decarbonization,' and other terms from EERE work products
The Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy directed employees to avoid approximately a dozen scientific and policy terms — including "climate change," "decarbonization," "clean energy," and "energy transition" — in all work products, including the agency website, internal reports, and federal funding opportunity descriptions. E\&E News first reported the directive on September 29; NPR independently obtained an internal email confirming it, contradicting DOE\'s public denial that any such ban applied to those terms. EERE is the federal government's largest funder of clean energy technology, with a $3.46 billion annual budget and a statutory mission under the Energy Policy Act to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy research.
U.S. Department of Energy adopted blanket "still interested" FOIA policy, closing pending public-records requests
On August 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy published a Federal Register notice requiring requesters with pending Freedom of Information Act requests filed before October 1, 2024 to reaffirm interest within roughly 30 days or have their requests administratively closed. American Oversight sued, and on August 5, 2026 a federal judge vacated the policy as exceeding DOE's statutory authority.