President Donald Trump proposed drastic budget cuts today that could stymie green energy projects, gut environmental protections, and further hobble health and climate research in the US.
Topline budget proposals released today for the 2026 fiscal year would ax $15 billion in federal funding for renewable energy and new technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions. It would strip nearly $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health, while the Environmental Protection Agency would see its budget slashed in half.
All in all, it’s yet another wrecking ball aimed at federal agencies after Trump and billionaire-crony Elon Musk swiftly moved to layoff thousands of government employees and defang regulators charged with protecting Americans’ homes, health, air, and water. The proposal also reads like a tirade against civil rights and any solutions for combatting climate change.
“The budget document is laced with racist, anti-science, petty, and cruel language that should be beneath the president of the United States.”
“The budget document is laced with racist, anti-science, petty, and cruel language that should be beneath the president of the United States,” Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a press release.
The budget line cutting $624 million for the Economic Development Administration and Minority Business Development Agency describes programs as “subsidies for idealogues [sic] who prioritize ‘racial equity’ and the radicalized climate agenda” and criticizes funding of a “Pride Plaza” in Portland, Oregon.
The agency that leads weather forecasting and research into climate change and marine ecosystems, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, takes a major hit with a proposed $1.3 billion loss in funding. It “terminates a variety of climate-dominated” initiatives including educational programs it claims “radicalize students against markets and spread environmental alarm.” The budget would also take away $209 million for procuring weather satellites.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would lose $646 million, even as a growing number of billion-dollar weather disasters take a toll on the US. The document says FEMA will no longer “instill equity as a foundation of emergency management,” and falsely claims that the agency “discriminated” against people who voted for Trump — echoing disinformation about FEMA that Musk and others promoted on social media last year that stoked violent threats against the agency’s staff.
To try to prevent worsening climate disasters, the Biden administration funneled an unprecedented amount of federal funding into carbon pollution-free energy projects. Trump has been quick to try to claw those funds back, despite facing legal challenges for attempting to take away funding that had been approved by Congress. His budget proposal today says it would cancel more than $15.2 billion from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021. That includes funding for for EV and battery manufacturing and cutting $5.7 billion that had been earmarked for EV chargers.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been another target of Trump and Musk’s deregulatory agenda, and would lose more than $4.2 billion if the President’s budget is enacted. Some of the most severe cuts would be to the Hazardous Substance Superfund, a loss of $254 million that would otherwise go toward the clean up of more than 1,300 toxic sites across the US. The EPA’s scientific research arm would similarly lose $235 million. The budget also eliminates the EPA’s environmental justice programs, slashing $100 million in funding.
“When the next toxic disaster strikes, who will answer the phone and respond? Americans overwhelmingly support EPA’s mission, and the public must speak up and tell Congress to stop these attacks on public health,” Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network made up of hundreds of former EPA staff, said in a press statement.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which had a budget of roughly $48 billion last year, would lose nearly 40 percent of its budget under President Trump’s plans. The document criticizes NIH of promoting “radical gender ideology to the detriment of America’s youth.” It comes a day after the Department of Health and Human Services published a report on treating transgender youth based on harmful pseudoscience that the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics said, “misrepresents the current medical consensus and fails to reflect the realities of pediatric care.”
