White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration’s preference for fossil fuels [and nuclear!]

As reported by Chris Mooney and Steven Mufson in the Washington Post.

The article reports that the Trump administration's proposed cuts this year, are significantly deeper than the ones last year, and that:

One person familiar with the negotiating process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe what the person had learned, said that the budget request had been lowered after negotiations with the Office of Management and Budget, and may have been lowered further because of a desire to channel more funding toward nuclear energy, a favored subject for Energy Secretary Rick Perry (emphasis added)

The article concludes:

The renewable and efficiency programs represent about 7 percent of the Energy Department’s overall budget. The majority of the department’s budget goes to maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile and cleaning up sites contaminated by federal nuclear programs. (emphasis added)