President Joe Biden on Thursday proposed a $6.9 trillion fiscal year 2024 budget that includes increased funding for key Biden administration priorities such as deploying clean energy resources, speeding up energy infrastructure permitting and energy efficiency.
Biden proposed an 8.7% spending increase for the Department of Energy from fiscal year 2023 enacted levels to $52 billion. He proposed a 9.3% hike for the Interior Department to $18.8 billion and a 19.2% jump for the Environmental Protection Agency to $12.1 billion.
Biden said the budget would reduce federal deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade in part by increasing taxes on people making more than $400,000 a year and, in a move that could affect investor-owned utilities, raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%.
Biden’s proposal sets the stage for a fight with Republicans, who control the House.
“President Joe Biden’s budget is a reckless proposal doubling down on the same far left spending policies that have led to record inflation and our current debt crisis,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Calif., and other House leaders said in a joint statement.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said the “bloated budget is dead on arrival.”
The proposed budget includes $11.9 billion for DOE climate and clean energy research, development, demonstration and deployment, a 20% hike over the FY 2023 enacted level.
It provides a “historic” $8.8 billion for DOE’s Office of Science and $1.2 billion at the National Science Foundation, partly to identify and accelerate the development of new clean energy technology. The budget also includes $1 billion for fusion research.
It provides $245 million to enhance the cybersecurity of clean energy technologies and the energy supply chain.
It has nearly $4.5 billion for clean energy infrastructure, including $1.8 billion to weatherize and retrofit low-income homes, $83 million to electrify tribal homes and transition tribal colleges and universities to renewable energy,and $107 million for the DOE’s Grid Deployment Office to support building a more secure, reliable and resilient grid.
The budget includes $181 million, a $70 million increase, to help the Interior Department speed the deployment of clean energy on public lands and waters. The administration aims to have 25 GW of clean energy on public lands by 2025.
It would give the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration $60 million, a $39 million increase from the 2023 enacted budget, to expand offshore wind permitting activities. The Biden administration has a goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
The budget invests in environmental permitting programs, the White House said. It would let federal agencies transfer funds provided under the bipartisan infrastructure law to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries to improve efficiencies and increase capacity for environmental planning and consultation.
“Together with existing law, this proposal would accelerate and improve environmental reviews in support of responsible development of priority infrastructure projects and energy solutions,” the White House said.
