WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told a Senate panel Wednesday the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy fiscal 2027 budget request is pretty flat once the big picture is considered.
Wright talked about the request from the Donald Trump White House In a Wednesday Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development subcommittee hearing.
Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) took issue with DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy budget request of $1.53 billion. Coons said the fiscal 2027 budget request is around $250 million less than last year’s $1.78 billion budget.
Wright said nuclear energy spending was split into two separate categories, with one being in the baseload power budget. Under the $3.5 billion baseload power budget line, nuclear energy would be allocated $300 million.
According to DOE’s fiscal 2027 budget justification document, the $300 million will be used to support nuclear power plant uprates and nuclear supply chain equipment upgrades to bolster the energy grid.
“The nuclear budget we proposed is pretty much flat or up a hair year over year,” Wright told Coons.
This is similar to the DOE Office of Science budget request, which proposed a $1.2 billion budget cut. The separate artificial intelligence and quantum category, budgeted $1.2 billion, is part of the Office of Science budget, Wright added.
According to the line item numbers, the $1.53 billion request for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy represents a $151 million or 9% less than fiscal 2026, which ends Sept. 30. This comes as $100 million of the Office of Nuclear Energy’s fiscal 2026 budget was repurposed for Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act funding, leaving $1.68 billion for Nuclear Energy.
With the addition of the $300 million from the baseload power category, the Office of Nuclear Energy will be looking at a small increase, Wright alluded to during the hearing. However, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) told Exchange Monitor Tuesday he expects the Office of Nuclear Energy’s budget to be increased from its current budget request of $1.5 billion.
“I spoke with secretary Wright after the budget came out [and] I spoke to him prior to my hearing with my full subcommittee last week, which I thought went very well,” Fleischmann said. “A budget is a framework and I expect NE [Office of Nuclear Energy] to go up.”
Fleischmann, who chairs the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, expects the same for the Office of Science. Upon the expectation of a larger budget for the Office of Nuclear Energy, Fleischmann said he anticipates having more funding appropriated for the agency’s activities regarding the backend of the fuel cycle, such as fuel reprocessing.
“When I sat down with then secretary [Jennifer] Granholm and now secretary Wright and talked about the backend of the fuel cycle with the need to reprocess in America, there was tremendous bipartisan support for that in both houses and with this administration,” Fleischmann said. “So I expect very robust funding on the backend.”
“On the front-end, I put that $2.7 billion up in 2024. I still think we really need to continue to invest in fuels, but the entire cycle, front-end, backend, workforce and designs are very important,” Fleischmann added.