Trump really wants to kill ARPA-E; federal agency says that’s folly

Enlarge / The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy annual summit opens. (credit: Megan Geuss)

WASHINGTON, DC-Ten years ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers created ARPA-E, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy. Today, the agency may be living on borrowed time. Or maybe not.

The Trump administration has, for two years in a row, recommended that ARPA-E be defunded and mothballed. But last year, a Republican-led Congress actually voted to increase the agency's budget from its 2016 levels.

But until Congress passes a new budget, the fate of ARPA-E is uncertain. In the face of that uncertainty, the agency's annual summit still convened in Washington, DC, this week, and its leaders addressed the crowd of scientists and entrepreneurs with words that seemed to be more for administration higher-ups than for the choir to whom they preached.

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