Wright addresses staff cuts, funding and nuke reprocessing

Driving the news: Wright told lawmakers he's formally canceled "zero" projects funded by the IRA, infrastructure law or the agency's base budget.

• That's despite proposals floating around the agency to close the Office of Clean Energy Demonstration and terminate various grants for hydrogen and renewables.
• "We don't have a single unpaid invoice at our department. Not one," he said. "If we have an ongoing project for an existing commitment, and work is being done, we've paid our bills."

Wright also explicitly denied that DOE is targeting projects in blue states for elimination in an exchange about the hydrogen hubs program with Rep. Frank Mrvan.

• "I don't even know where these rumors or this stuff comes from," he said.
• He said the hubs are still getting funded for feasibility studies as DOE does a review, but offered little indication about which specific hub projects will move forward.
• As for DOE's larger review of spending, Wright said: "Hopefully before the end of this summer, we will have run through" all of the 400 or 500 large projects currently in the pipeline.

Zoom in: Wright said a larger DOE reorganization is underway, but claimed that to date, the agency has lost "well less than 1,000" staff, representing less than 10% of its workforce.

• E&E News reported last month that some 3,500 employees were preparing to leave, including the majority of OCED's staff.
• And in the second round of voluntary resignations, Wright said, DOE is trying to avoid further staff reductions at the Bonneville Power Administration.
• "I don't think we have room to reduce headcount there anymore," he said.

Friction point: In one heated exchange, Energy subcommittee Ranking Member Marcy Kaptur accused Wright of failing to respond to a series of letters from the Hill on funding freezes and DOE's new cap on indirect costs in university research grants.

• Wright replied that he has gotten "dozens of letters accusing me of things that are reported in headlines, in blog posts and media all over the place, almost all of which are false."

The big picture: Wright also took some bipartisan flak for the Trump administration's budget request, which proposes to cut more than $1 billion from DOE's Office of Science.

• "Candidly, I'm concerned to see such a significant reduction for the Office of Science," said subcommittee Chair Chuck Fleischmann.

Wright also said he wants DOE to help reprocess nuclear waste into fuel.

• Environmental and nonproliferation concerns have historically made reprocessing spent nuclear fuel controversial in the U.S., but it's received more support on the Hill in recent years.
• "A lot of this waste and burden right now could actually be fuel and could be of value to next-generation reactors," Wright said.

Context: DOE is working on a soon-to-be-released study on how to move forward, Wright said.

• "We are aligned on that," he told Fleischmann, a supporter of the concept. "This is a resource, not a burden."