Trump’s budget plan would cut climate programs, boost military spending

The Trump administration on Friday unveiled its 2027 budget proposal, a wish list of changes — primarily cuts — it wants to see enacted by Congress in the upcoming fiscal year.

Perhaps the biggest news related to the proposal from Trump’s Office of Management and Budget is that it seeks a record $1.5-trillion defense budget. But buried in lower line items are other important changes, made to climate and environment programs, that would help further the administration’s efforts to thwart the “green agenda.” They include cuts to clean energy programs and significant reductions for federal science agencies and environmental justice efforts.

“President Trump is committed to eliminating funding for the globalist climate agenda while unleashing American energy production,” the White House said of the plan.

Some Democrats and environmental groups have already vowed to oppose it.

“It’s just an out-of-touch plea for more money for guns and bombs, and less for the things people need, like housing, healthcare, education, roads, scientific research, and environmental protection,” read a statement from Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the budget committee.

Among the big ticket, climate-related items in the proposed budget are the proposed cancellation of more than $15 billion in Department of Energy funds for programs geared toward “unreliable renewable energy, removing carbon dioxide from the air, and other costly technologies that burden ratepayers and consumers,” the proposal says.

“The U.S. Government will no longer subsidize intermittent energy forms that destabilize the grid or Green New Scam projects that increase consumer costs and promote radical leftist policies,” it says.

The budget would redirect about $4.7 billion from President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act toward the deployment of firm baseload power, or power that runs 24/7 and typically does not include wind or solar. It would also cut about $1.1 billion from the Energy Department’s Office of Science, which runs national laboratories and funds research into energy technology.

It would also end subsidies for electric vehicle battery manufacturers, cancel $4 billion in Department of Transportation funds for EV charger programs and eliminate the $4 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, among other changes.

Trump has long been hostile toward EVs. Last year, he worked to repeal California’s authority to set stricter tailpipe emission standards than the federal government, which underpinned the state’s ambitious ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars starting in 2035.

The proposal would also cut the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by nearly half. The change would eliminate some funding for the EPA’s Superfund program as well as funds for drinking water programs and environmental justice programs, which the proposal argues “advance discriminatory and radical ideological projects.”

Also on the chopping block is $1.6 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the National Weather Service and other climate and weather agencies. The cut would target climate research and educational grant programs at NOAA, which the proposal says “radicalize students against markets, promote [diversity, equity and inclusion] and spread baseless environmental alarm.”

NOAA has already taken a considerable hit since Trump returned to office, including mass layoffs and the shuttering of several offices.

Environmental groups on Friday urged Congress to reject the cuts.

“Slashing NOAA’s budget would weaken weather forecasting, disrupt fisheries management and stall ocean research — putting American lives, livelihoods and global scientific leadership at risk,” said Katherine Tsantiris, director of government relations at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy.

Other changes in the budget include new priorities for the U.S. Forest Service, which recently underwent a sweeping structural overhaul. The budget would shift the agency’s focus toward domestic timber production and wildfire risk mitigation and response, and away from more recent turns toward conservation and recreation. Last year, the administration ordered the Forest Service to open up some 112.5 million acres of national forestland to logging, including all 18 of California’s national forests.

The proposal broadly aligns with the president’s actions so far in his second term, which include an emphasis on fossil fuel production and targeted attacks on clean energy programs, especially as offshore wind.

In his first year back in office, Trump has also taken aim at climate science, including dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a leading climate and weather research institution in Boulder, Colo., and laying off hundreds of scientists working on the sixth National Climate Assessment.

Like most presidential budgets, the proposal is unlikely to pass in its current form. Congress will now take up the plan, and final spending levels are expected to be settled later this year.