John Sneed, director of the Loan Programs Office at the Department of Energy, will leave his post March 21 “to return home to Texas,” DOE said Tuesday.
Sneed, who was also executive director of the loan office during President Donald Trump’s first term, took the leadership role again when Trump started his second term in January. He had been an Austin-based independent consultant before joining the administration.
The Loan Programs Office (LPO) has been in the spotlight since 2022, as the office has closed tens of billions of dollars in loans for low-emissions energy projects under the Inflation Reduction Act. Under former President Joe Biden, the hefty loans angered Republicans in Congress, even as infrastructure projects in GOP districts benefited from the project financing.
It isn’t clear what Energy Secretary Chris Wright intends to do with the office’s expansive loan portfolio, but Trump has vowed to swing federal policy back to oil, gas, coal and nuclear.
