Top Democratic appropriators are accusing the Department of Energy of illegally shifting funds away from specific clean energy priorities and toward a new geothermal energy program.
Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), ranking member on the House Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee, are asking the Government Accountability Office to determine whether DOE violated the law by improperly transferring hundreds of millions of dollars that were designated for specific clean energy research and development initiatives.
The request came moments after DOE announced Wednesday that it is making available $171.5 million “to support next-generation geothermal field-scale tests for both electricity generation and exploration drilling,” per an agency press release.
Murray and Kaptur said in a statement that DOE’s announcement makes available $146.5 million in fiscal 2025 funding for geothermal energy activities — even though Congress only provided $118 million for those purposes.
