On November 20, 2025, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright announced a large-scale reorganization of the Department with the stated goal of “strengthening efficiency and unleashing American energy dominance.” These sweeping actions include some less structural changes, like renaming offices to better align with administration priorities, some major structural changes, like recombining offices and functions, and some major programmatic changes, like the creation of entirely new offices or the elevation of suboffices.

A quick breakdown of the changes:

• The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) and the Grid Deployment Office (GDO) have been eliminated;

• The Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) is a new office that contains most of the old Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), and has been realigned to report to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary;

• Hydrocarbons and Geothermal (HGEO) is another new office that contains the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), which was moved from EERE, and the rest of FECM;

• Strategy and Technology Roadmaps: this was likely a function formerly housed within the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation;

• Fusion; Applied R&D into fusion energy has been elevated to reflect prioritization of commercialization activities and to reduce competition with overall Office of Science funding;

• AI and Quantum: A new office under the Under Secretary for Science. It is likely a formalization of the role of the Office of Critical and Emerging Technologies.

• Some offices were largely unchanged, including Electricity, Nuclear Energy, and the Energy Dominance Finance office, formerly the Loan Programs Office;

• With the proposed elimination of OCED and GDO, it remains to be seen what functions of these will be realigned into the rest of the department.

Budgetary and Operational Challenges

This reorganization could create budgetary and operational difficulties for staff. Currently, three months into Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26), DOE is operating on a continuing resolution that extends funding levels from Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) and utilizes the FY24 budget structure signed into law in March 2024. (Note that some lawmakers are questioning the legality of OMB’s proposed Fiscal Year 2025 reallocation of funding across DOE, and especially across EERE. Additionally, the House and Senate FY26 budgets maintain the previous Department structure. A conference bill could be written to codify the new structure, but the FY26 budget request doesn’t include this structure. 

Importantly, the Secretary has broad authority to rename and move Departmental functions. Congress, with rare exception, does not create offices; it creates functions. It is the Secretary’s and Department’s job to ensure that Congressionally mandated functions are carried out. These functions are laid out in authorizing bills and appropriations bills.

For example, the realignment of GTO to a new office poses an operational challenge in that GTO formerly was funded from the EERE appropriations account. Now that it sits under a new office, CMEI will receive EERE’s appropriations and then must reallocate them to Hydrocarbons and Geothermal to ensure execution. This means multiple budget offices and sets of books need to be kept updated and aligned, rather than just one. This also makes oversight of the flow of funding more difficult and creates inefficiencies in carrying out Congressionally mandated functions.

Reorganization of federal agencies can be a useful tool to ensure that staff and organizations are set up to deliver on Congressional direction and administration goals, like AI, geothermal, and fusion. On the other hand, reorganizing an agency always diverts attention from the mission. This one may be especially challenging due to the unique budget circumstances of this fiscal year.

OCED is one of the rare exceptions to the principle above; it was established by name and with a stand-alone appropriation in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Some lawmakers are questioning the legality of DOE’s move to eliminate OCED.

Organizational and Programmatic Notes

Some of these changes raise additional organizational questions, while others emphasize new Administration priorities. Prime among them is the realignment of CMEI and all of its constituents to be a direct report to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary. These are almost entirely R&D and implementation offices, but they are not being organized with other similar offices falling under an Under Secretary. Placing similar offices under similar leadership structure generally allows for equal footing and facilitates collaboration with other offices within the same reporting structure.

Removing GTO from CMEI/EERE and combining it with hydrocarbons likely has technological benefits given their focuses on drilling and geoscience, allowing these offices to concentrate that expertise. However, these technologies also are at different levels of commercial readiness with different research needs.

The reorganization also creates a new office focusing on AI and quantum science investments. These fields have different research needs. AI largely requires research into mathematics and computing, and a large portion of the work in AI will likely need to focus on reducing its resource intensity and infrastructure needs. This work would build on activities conducted for decades within the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) and at the existing Advanced Computing Leadership Facilities at the National Laboratories. Quantum science covers a wide range of topics, including quantum computing, detection and analysis, nanophotonics and optics, even some biological research. In addition, DOE’s Office of Science has a multi-decadal track record of cutting edge investments in AI and quantum science.

Elevation of fusion energy has been a priority of the last few administrations. This part of the reorganization reflects an effort to engage in more focused commercialization-oriented R&D and align DOE’s efforts with commercial interest and international competition in fusion energy. There is broad industry support for creating a standalone fusion office, and this positions DOE to deliver on the recommendations in the SCSP Fusion Commission Report.

These two new offices (AI and Quantum, and Fusion) will not be replacing the existing functions within the Office of Science, and are intended to perform applied R&D that is non-duplicative of Office of Science research.

Remaining Questions / Things to Track

What happens to the National Labs? EERE provided stewardship for the recently renamed National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly National Renewable Energy Laboratory). Will CMEI do the same? FECM provided stewardship for the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Will HGEO do the same? The Office of Science provides stewardship for ten national laboratories. Will elevation of its functions into their own offices require changes in stewardship? For example, will the new Fusion office manage the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory given its long history of focus on fusion energy?

What about Departmental contracting functions and field offices? For example, the Golden Field Office is formerly part of EERE and provides business services to other parts of the Department that will remain in the new structure (Indian Energy, Office of Technology Commercialization, Arctic Energy, Geothermal). Is GFO now embedded in CMEI? Also as part of the reorganization, DOE is consolidating contract officers/specialists and grants officers/specialists will move to the Office of Management (MA). This represents a major organizational change for which the Secretary and his management team will need to steward carefully to ensure efficacy and efficiency of process, roles and responsibilities, coordination with and visibility for technical program leadership, oversight, and authority across the whole Department.

How will DOE and the public keep track of all of these changes? This requires a massive change effort. Does the agency have the workforce to do this? Can the Department be transparent with the public and with Congress about:

• Movement of people and alignment of reporting chains;

• Crosswalking all funds, past and current; and

• Tracking all program and project realignments?

How will the Department balance this change effort with winding down terminated programs, and starting new, labor intensive, and sensitive programs (such as an order to restart nuclear weapons testing), and a labor shortage of thousands of staff?

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This piece was drafted by trusted and vetted alumni of the U.S. Department of Energy. Any views and opinions expressed are that of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the DOE Alumni Network.