$31 Million to Fund European Clean Energy While American Energy Bills Climb

The EU Has a €300 Billion Clean Energy Plan. It Needed $31M From American Taxpayers.

Between 2021 and 2025, USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia ran a cluster of clean energy and energy transition programs totaling $31 million across more than ten countries in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus. The programs funded renewable energy policy reform, regulatory development, investment facilitation, and “just transition” planning for coal-dependent economies.

In 2022, the European Commission launched REPowerEU — a €300 billion framework to accelerate the EU’s clean energy transition in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy security crisis. Several countries receiving USAID clean energy funding — including EU member states and EU candidate states — were simultaneously eligible for REPowerEU funds an order of magnitude larger than anything USAID was providing.

The Original Case: Reduce Russian Energy Dependence in NATO-Adjacent Countries.

USAID’s energy programs in Europe and Eurasia have roots in a legitimate strategic interest: reducing the economic leverage Russia gains from supplying natural gas to Eastern European and post-Soviet states. Countries that depend on Gazprom for heat and electricity are structurally compromised in their ability to oppose Russian foreign policy. Programs that help Moldova, Georgia, or Ukraine diversify their energy sources have a national security rationale that goes beyond climate policy.

The Trump administration’s DOGE review did not distinguish between programs with a genuine strategic interest and programs that reflected domestic clean energy ideology exported abroad. The entire cluster was suspended under Executive Order 14169. Critics of the suspension argued that the strategic-energy-security programs in Ukraine and Moldova, in particular, were advancing direct American interests and should not have been lumped with ideologically-driven clean energy initiatives elsewhere in the portfolio.

Suspended January 20, 2025. Not Restarted.

Executive Order 14169 suspended all U.S. foreign assistance programs pending a 90-day review by the Secretary of State, who was directed to assess whether programs advanced American interests as articulated by the new administration. The USAID Europe and Eurasia clean energy programs were among thousands of programs suspended. None have been formally restarted as of the date of this publication.

DOGE’s public review flagged the $31 million cluster as clean energy spending in wealthy or near-wealthy European countries — emphasizing the contrast with the EU’s own clean energy commitments. The review did not separately analyze the strategic-security rationale for programs in Ukraine and Moldova versus the climate-ideology rationale for programs in Western Balkans EU candidate states. All were treated as equivalent in the DOGE tracker.

“The programs targeted energy sector reform in countries with access to substantial EU and multilateral clean energy financing. USAID's additionality — what American taxpayers were buying that others were not providing — was not clearly documented.”

GAO — Foreign Assistance: USAID's Energy Programs in Europe and Eurasia (2024)