Climate Changed
Trump Wants to Gut the Agency Behind the Shale Boom
- Funding for U.S. Office of Fossil Energy would be cut in half
- DOE unit’s research helped spark the shale revolution
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An agency instrumental to America’s surge in energy production would lose half its funding in President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget.
The Energy Department’s Office of Fossil Energy, whose research helped push the U.S. closer to self-sufficiency, is slated for a 58 percent cut for next year, to $280 million. The shale innovations the office develops are available to any company that can use them, including industry giants that keep results of their own studies, but they’re most beneficial to independent drillers that might otherwise find it tough to compete with behemoths such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and its $1.06 billion annual research-and-development budget.