DOE’s 2025 in Review: A Year of Radical Uncertainty (February 2026) reviews U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) actions over Year One of the second Trump administration and examines the extent to which the administration is making progress on its agenda for “American energy dominance.”
The analysis suggests that DOE’s past year was marked by uncertainty, institutional disruption, and underuse of resources. The White House established a command-and-control approach to energy policy led by its Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and formed a National Energy Dominance Council to coordinate interagency actions. At the same time, DOE canceled hundreds of projects, removed and reorganized internal offices, issued very few new solicitations, and spent only a fraction of its historically large available budget. It remains to be seen how OMB will handle the large sum of funds from canceled projects. The figure below highlights the mismatch between DOE’s near-record funding and its 2025 spending, with just 2% of its $80 billion obligated for science and energy innovation.
Meanwhile, Congress rejected many of the White House’s proposed cuts and actually boosted DOE appropriations—including for departmental agencies that the administration cut or reorganized—creating a sharp disconnect between legislative signals and executive priorities. The analysis notes significant staff losses under the Deferred Resignation Program, a strong tilt toward nuclear energy in the limited awards that were made, and the growing use of nontraditional tools like DOE’s Other Transaction authority and taking equity stakes in private companies.
The analysis finds that, after one year, the energy dominance agenda leaves open critical questions about DOE’s future capacity, technology priorities, relationship with Congress, and whether it can effectively deploy its massive budget.
