Fusion office bill introduced in line with DOE reorganization plan

Sens. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) and John Cornyn (R., Texas) have introduced bipartisan legislation to formally establish the Office of Fusion at the Department of Energy. This move seeks to codify one of the many changes put forward by the recent internal reorganization plan for offices at the DOE.

Companion legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Don Beyer (D., Va.) and Jay Obernolte (R., Calif.), who are cochairs of the House Fusion Energy Caucus.

Details: According to Obernolte, "Congress must provide clear direction and a coordinated federal strategy to move fusion from the lab to the grid, and this legislation does exactly that."

A bill summary states that the Office of Fusion would advance both near- and long-term fusion goals on energy, environmental, and economic fronts. It also calls out that heavy fusion investment is needed in order to stay competitive with China and highlights California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as an important national asset for advancement in the sector.

This is not Padilla's and Cornyn's first piece of fusion legislation. In 2024, the pair's Fusion Energy Act was signed into law as part of the broader Fire Grants and Safety Act. According to Padilla, that law "streamlines the creation of clear federal regulations to support the development of commercial fusion facilities by codifying the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regulatory authority over commercial fusion energy systems."

Enacting changes: This piece of legislation serves as a first move to make official one of the changes put forward in the DOE's recent reorganization plan. That reorganization delisted 16 offices and listed eight new ones. A small portion of those apparent deletions and creations are likely simple renamings. The newly created Office of Energy Dominance Financing, for instance, may fulfill much of the delisted Loan Programs Office's role.

Other changes have left larger question marks. For instance, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) was created in 2021 by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which also appropriated for the office more than $21 billion in federal funding. Practical and legal questions remain regarding how OCED's delisting, among others, will actually unfold in the department.

The Office of Fusion legislation, though, shows positive momentum in formalizing one piece of the broader reorganization and serves as a first step in concretizing and catalyzing more federal support for fusion.

California tie-in: With two of the congresspeople involved in these bills representing California, and the bills' highlighting of LLNL, it came as no surprise that the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a pro-fusion press release shortly after Padilla's announcement.

In it, Newsom called California "the nation's fusion energy research and development leader" and added that "California's fusion ecosystem can revolutionize the clean energy sector through deep collaboration between our universities, national laboratories, industry partners, and state leaders."