Clean-Energy Program Fueled by Biden Takes Deep Staff Cuts Under Trump

 WASHINGTON—A federal clean-energy program fueled by hundreds of billions of dollars during the Biden administration has lost about one-fourth of its staff as part of President Trump’s program to reduce employees across the government.

Roughly 60 employees, including dozens of so-called probationary employees hired in the past few years, have resigned since Trump took office or were fired last week at the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, according to people familiar with the matter. The office, which provides cheap funds to clean-energy projects, had more than doubled its staff to about 250 and amassed a $400 billion war chest as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

More cuts are likely to come as the Trump administration’s return-to-work policy kicks in, the people said, with one person estimating that subsequent moves could trim the staff by 50%. Some of the people said they feared the Trump administration would additionally take aim at the loan office’s independent contractors, a move that would likely limit its ability to dole out cheap cash to clean-energy projects.

A person familiar with the Energy Department said the exact number of employees who resigned was unclear because of the bumpy rollout of the administration’s “Fork in the Road” offer to federal workers to leave their jobs, which a federal judge halted briefly before allowing it to continue last week.

The White House and Energy Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The Trump administration last week began stepping up the firing of newly hired federal workers, the next phase of personnel cuts that could affect tens of thousands of people.

Critics of the loan program point to the failure of Solyndra. The collapse of the solar-panel company prompted a $535 million loan to go sour. 

 

The cuts to the loan office are the latest sign of Trump’s plans to pull funds from clean energy to focus more on boosting fossil fuels.

The Trump administration has said it is pursuing a policy of “energy dominance” to lower prices at the pump and inflation more broadly. Last week, the White House launched the National Energy Dominance Council to coordinate increased production of energy resources. 

Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and a member of the council, posted Friday on X: “I will do everything in my power @EPA to urgently help America unleash energy dominance.”

Critics say the administration is focusing on fossil fuels to the detriment of clean energy such as solar and wind and that cuts to programs such as the Energy Department’s loan office threaten to slow U.S. energy capacity. 

“Laying off staff in crucial industrial areas like carbon capture, nuclear and geothermal power, and electricity grid resiliency is weakening America’s efforts to be energy independent and is handing these high-growth future industries over to China,” said Peter Davidson, chief executive of Aligned Climate Capital, a clean-energy-focused firm in New York, who ran the Loan Programs Office during the Obama administration.

The loan office accelerated its activity during the final months of the Biden administration amid concerns that loan commitments would end up in limbo in a Trump administration. Loans have to be approved by political appointees, so the program is subject to the whims of the executive branch. Environmentalists have feared that Trump’s Energy secretary, fracking pioneer Chris Wright, could upend clean-energy funding by the department.