PoliticoPro: Republican lawmakers urge DOE to save California hydrogen hub
By Christa Marshall
Four Republican lawmakers are backing a push to save a $1.2 billion “clean” hydrogen hub in California, as new details emerge about the Trump administration’s potential cuts to the Department of Energy’s low-carbon energy projects.
The majority of California’s congressional delegation — including GOP Reps. Vince Fong, David Valadao, Jay Obernolte and Young Kim — say eliminating the hub would violate existing contracts and threaten 220,000 jobs across the state. Their letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright comes as DOE considers eliminating some of the hydrogen production hubs funded with $7 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law.
The hub known as the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, or ARCHES, “plays a critical role in securing American energy dominance, advancing world-leading energy technology, creating new manufacturing jobs, and lowering energy costs for American families,” the lawmakers wrote.
The hub projects “are dispersed across the state of California from the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland to the reservation of the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians to Lancaster, California. The investment is already being used to bring together private industry, local governments, and community organizations to collaborate and build a secure, American-made energy future,” the letter said.
Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff and Reps. George Whitesides and Mike Levin led the letter, which is signed by 49 of the state’s 52 congressional members. Some projects tied to the hub are slated for GOP-leaning districts.
The lawmakers said they were concerned that DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), which oversees the hubs, is considering eliminating four out of the seven hubs. Those four hubs are in mostly Democratic-leaning states.
According to documents circulating inside DOE viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News, Trump administration officials are looking to keep the three hubs located in mostly red states: the HyVelocity hub in Texas, the Heartland hub in the Dakotas and Minnesota and the Appalachian hub in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Unlike ARCHES, those hubs are not focusing on “green” hydrogen produced with renewable electricity.
At a congressional hearing last week, Padilla asked former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair James Danly, Trump’s nominee to be deputy Energy secretary, if he would commit to meeting with ARCHES staff before cuts are made.
Danly said he had “no objection” to doing so but that it would be premature to plan on meetings since he has not been confirmed yet.
ARCHES was the first of the seven hubs to reach a financing deal, inking an agreement with the Biden administration last July to receive $30 million in initial funds for the project. According to the lawmakers, the project would generate $2.95 billion annually by the end of the decade.
DOE did not immediately provide comment but has said the department is undergoing a review of programs and that multiple plans are being considered.
Some conservatives, including backers of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, say OCED distorts energy markets and should be eliminated. Backers of the office say it is important for cutting emissions, creating jobs and boosting projects that might not otherwise get built.
Will OCED survive?
As President Donald Trump looks to eliminate all climate-related funding — and shrink the federal workforce — documents have been circulating in DOE and on Capitol Hill that detail potential cuts.
One document suggests that Trump call for eliminating OCED in his budget request and set up a temporary office with 35 people to wind the office down by September. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency — led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk — has viewed the document and is pushing to shutter the office and conduct reductions in force as early as this week, according to one person familiar with department operations who was granted anonymity to speak freely.
The infrastructure law created OCED to administer roughly $27 billion in clean energy programs. The document calls for $9 billion in OCED programs to be rescoped or terminated.
It also recommends continued funding of $3 billion for the hydrogen hubs, $3.5 billion for two advanced reactor projects, $1.9 billion for industrial demonstrations, $120 million for long-duration energy storage initiatives, $81 million for projects on mine lands and $365 million for projects already obligated at the national labs.
The document proposes judging a project by three criteria: whether it will expand American energy, whether it will reduce energy costs and whether it is designed with a good chance of succeeding.
Other circulating lists show that large carbon capture and direct air capture hubs may also be on the chopping block, along with ARCHES and hydrogen hubs in the Pacific Northwest, mid-Atlantic and Midwest. One document prepared by DOE officials states that more than 40 percent of the staff is nonessential, meaning they could be subject to job cuts.
When asked about potential cuts at OCED on Tuesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) didn’t say whether she supported the office but said “there are good things that come out of our Department of Energy.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill have been pushing back on potential cuts, including at the National Nuclear Security Administration overseeing nuclear weapons.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), ranking member on the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Friday that potential NNSA cuts are “extremely concerning.”
“We call for this foolishness to be set aside and for cooler heads to prevail for the sake of our communities, country, and world,” they said.
DOE employees were told they had until Tuesday to decide whether to voluntarily leave through a deferred resignation program before mandatory cuts take place.
“This is a difficult but necessary effort to make government more efficient and accountable,” Wright said in a letter last month to staff about the plan.
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