When Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recently testified before Congress, he assured leaders that despite reports of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) forcing cuts to programs, eliminations of offices, and layoffs across the Department of Energy (DOE), Sec. Wright is running a tight ship. He also claimed that no arbitrary nor politically motivated cut lists to manufacturing and energy projects exist—despite widespread reporting to the contrary.
But an announcement by a major steel producer that it was canceling a project, brought to light on the very day the Secretary testified, demonstrates that DOE is in disarray and the American steel industry and power sector are paying the price.
In 2024, amid concern for the future of Cleveland Cliffs’ Butler Works facility in western Pennsylvania, then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm worked with Congressman Mike Kelly, Cleveland Cliffs, and the United Autoworkers to modify an environmental regulation to keep the facility operating. Then, Sec. Granholm awarded $75 million to the facility so it could save money and energy by upgrading its furnaces.
This move sent a wave of optimism through the steel industry.
Cleveland Cliffs announced that due to the government partnership in Pennsylvania, it would not only reopen a shuttered mill in Weirton, West Virginia, but would even transform it from an old tin mill into a new plant that produces high-value electrical transformers. Hundreds of United Steelworkers would go back to work in West Virginia to turn electrical steel produced in Pennsylvania’s upgraded facility into transformers critical to America’s energy security.
But this may all be coming to an end, as Cleveland Cliffs announced in its quarterly earnings call that it cannot proceed with the transformation of West Virginia’s closed Weirton facility.
Why? Well, DOGE’s deep cuts across government agencies and Sec. Wright’s inaction have grave consequences. For the Weirton, West Virginia facility to pencil out, Cleveland Cliffs counts on the steady production of electrical steel at its Butler, Pennsylvania plant. But DOGE is holding hostage and threatening to eliminate funding to upgrade Butler Works, as well as all other awards under the Department of Energy’s Industrial Demonstrations Program (IDP) and across its Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.
IDP was created by President Donald Trump in 2020 and received its first wave of funding on a bipartisan basis in 2021. Now, awards to modernize America’s steel, aluminum, and cement industries have been made and contracts have been signed, but Secretary Wright’s inability to prove that the funding his agency has already committed is on track to be disbursed has become a death sentence for manufacturers.
On May 7, during his testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Sec. Wright tried to assure Members of Congress that there have been no internal agency decisions to cancel state-of-the-art manufacturing and energy projects—despite months of widespread reporting and substantiated leaks. But he did verify that the 500 biggest award decisions already made by DOE will be reevaluated this summer to determine if the agency would make good on its contractual commitments to American producers, workers, and communities.
Sec. Wright just doesn’t get it. Businesses need certainty. Laid off workers need good jobs. Americans need clean air and water and reliable and affordable energy. And President Trump’s tariffs and trade wars will absolutely fail if the federal government fails to continue to invest in a clean manufacturing revolution.
DOE’s investment into Cleveland Cliffs’ Butler Works facility in Pennsylvania to boost the productivity of the country’s only electrical steel plant is on ice. So the proposed transformation of the Weirton, West Virginia facility is on ice too—simply because it cannot count on a long-term and consistent supply of well-priced steel to build into electrical transformers that are essential for energy reliability.
Uncertainty is bad. In his testimony, Sec. Wright agreed, telling Rep. Frank Mrvan of Indiana that it’s too bad that his agency is holding up the fulfillment of innovative awards that would modernize the steel industry: “There probably is uncertainty… ‘are they [DOE] going to fund it?’ So, I get that; that’s real.”
Sec. Wright is urging calm, telling elected officials representing factories and factory workers that they’ll get their answers by the “end of summer.”
That’s too late for Cleveland Cliffs’ plants in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, for union steelworkers, and for the future of advanced US manufacturing. If Sec. Wright wants these projects to succeed, he needs to clean house and get DOGE out of the Department of Energy. He also needs to be honest by admitting that the cut lists making the rounds are real, but that they defy his orders. He needs to confirm that his agency is making good on all contracts now.
Is Sec. Wright leading a strategic review of all contracts, or is DOGE making politically motivated and arbitrary cuts to innovative projects? For hundreds of projects and hundreds of thousands of workers left in limbo, the distinction is meaningless.