Biden Energy Budget Charts 2024 Choice Between Polar Paths to the Same Future

The most distinctive divergency between the Democrat and Republican parties is in energy policy, the fundamental fulcrum that guides government-wide federal administration while influencing nearly every substantive decision made in Congress—and at millions of family kitchen tables across the country every day.

Despite expressions of bipartisan support for an “all-of-the-above” approach that invests in renewable energies while also enhancing fossil fuel infrastructure, there’s little common ground in practice, with both parties championing opposite “either/or” paths in a 2024 campaign cycle with scant tolerance for nuance or consensus.

This policy polarity surfaced in stark relief during a three-hour May 1 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy, Climate & Grid Security Subcommittee on the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) $51.42 billion Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget request.

DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm and panel Democrats praised the proposed spending plan as building on President Joe Biden’s green energy initiatives, capitalizing on the carbon-cleansing, job-generating momentum established with adoptions of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).