Photo courtesy of Emma Lee/WHYY
The Philadelphia area Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub, or MACH2, was spared in the latest round of Trump administration cuts this week that included two planned hydrogen hubs in California and Washington state, along with more than $43 million for projects in Delaware and New Jersey. No clean energy projects were eliminated in Pennsylvania, which President Donald Trump won last November.
The Trump administration targeted $7.5 billion cuts on the first day of the federal government shutdown in what Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought referred to in a post on X as “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.”
The hydrogen hubs were a signature part of the Biden administration’s climate goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 — meaning the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere is balanced by removing carbon emissions over a period of time. This requires replacing coal and oil with cleaner fuels. The goal of MACH2, a public-private consortium of hydrogen producers and consumers, is to fast-track commercial scale “clean hydrogen” production — meaning using renewable energy to produce hydrogen rather than fossil fuels. The bulk of the country’s hydrogen is now manufactured in a carbon intensive process using natural gas.