The Trump administration is closing a bureau of the State Department in charge of expanding U.S. energy exports, a key policy goal of President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda.
The department’s Bureau of Energy Resources, which helps connect U.S. exporters of domestic oil, natural gas and renewable energy technology to buyers overseas, has been shuttered as part of the cuts ordered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to a department fact sheet obtained by POLITICO. Critics fear the move could effectively downgrade the bureau’s functions months after Trump signed executive orders aimed at expanding U.S. energy production and exports.
The office’s functions will be merged into an economics and business affairs section that will be led by an undersecretary for economic growth, energy and environment, according to the fact sheet. The energy bureau will “fold into the Economic and Business Affairs to ensure a laser-like focus on expanding and exporting American energy,” the fact sheet states. State Department undersecretaries will also have to submit plans to cut staff by 15 percent.
The elimination of the Bureau of Energy Resources comes just after Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to the Middle East in part to drum up foreign investment in U.S. natural gas export projects.
