In an era of charged partisanship, there is at least one part of the government that consistently draws at least some across-the-aisle support: The Department of Energy.

The DOE — which has a hodgepodge portfolio of maintaining the nation’s nuclear arsenal, conducting the bulk of basic science research in the United States and funding breakthroughs in both fossil fuel and renewable energy technology — has many stakeholders in Congress. That reservoir of support will test President Trump’s ability to significantly cut the department’s budget, as the president has proposed.

“I don’t think any of these programs with significant proposed cuts are safe,” said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford. That said, he added: “You’re going to have a lot of bipartisan support for restoring a lot of pieces of this budget.”

Read More