A year into the second Trump administration, energy dominance – global leadership and security through abundant, innovative American energy – has gone from a mantra to a guiding principle. Few technologies are better positioned than geothermal power to deliver on this promise in an era of rising energy demand driven by AI and resurgent American manufacturing.
Clean, reliable, baseload geothermal power has quickly become a favored energy technology on both sides of the aisle. Once limited to rare, naturally occurring reservoirs of hot water or steam, next-generation technologies are dramatically expanding where this resource can be developed by innovative companies. Geothermal has made allies across the spectrum, gaining bipartisan political support in Congress and investment interest from venture capital, big tech and oil majors.
Geothermal has made allies across the spectrum, gaining bipartisan political support in Congress and investment interest from venture capital, big tech and oil majors.
The technology’s rapid maturation reflects cutting-edge American innovation, leveraging technology pioneered during the shale revolution and applying it to previously inaccessible geothermal resources. By adapting techniques like horizontal drilling and hydraulic stimulation, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) engineer a reservoir from scratch. Companies like Fervo Energy have demonstrated how quickly the technology is advancing, having reduced drilling costs by 70 percent since its first wells in 2023.
But in an era of intense partisanship in Washington, the political progress may be even more notable as geothermal’s attributes meet energy priorities across the aisle. Conservatives see a resource that leverages American drilling expertise and provides reliable power. Meanwhile, progressives and climate hawks value its zero-carbon benefits. This convergence of interests has yielded concrete policy outcomes. In 2022, geothermal was included in the clean electricity tax credits enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed by President Biden; in 2025, Republicans preserved geothermal’s eligibility for those same credits in President Trump’s signature Working Families Tax Cuts. The tax policy certainty demonstrated by major bills from both political parties reflects enduring bipartisan support for geothermal. That momentum continues today, as multiple bipartisan geothermal permitting bills have passed through House committees, with additional legislative action expected later this year.
But in an era of intense partisanship in Washington, the political progress may be even more notable as geothermal’s attributes meet energy priorities across the aisle.
This progress is beginning to push forward supportive policy changes that can accelerate geothermal power toward reaching its full potential. While the U.S. already leads the world in installed geothermal capacity, the Department of Energy estimates that next-generation geothermal technologies can unlock an additional 90GW, a 25-fold increase from current levels.
The path to commercialization for the next generation of geothermal power is marked by reforms to three key policy drivers:
- Federal R&D funding parity with other emerging energy technologies;
- A more efficient permitting process; and,
- Predictable tax incentives to accelerate efficiencies of scale, as included in the Working Families Tax Cuts.
Geothermal’s private sector successes have shifted the federal R&D conversation to include more funding for the technology. Over the past decade, geothermal received about one percent of the demonstration funding afforded to other clean, firm technologies like advanced nuclear, hydrogen, and carbon capture. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) authorized $84 million for advanced geothermal demonstrations, while delivering billions in federal investment for other energy technologies, including $8 billion for hydrogen hubs alone.
Geothermal’s underinvestment was largely driven by a timing issue, as EGS was still largely a theoretical concept when Congress enacted the Energy Act of 2020 – the largest investment in federal energy R&D in a generation. When the bill was drafted, Fervo had not drilled a single well, nor had the Department of Energy broken ground on the world-class Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) R&D site in Utah.
In the years since the generational federal demonstration support from the IIJA, new geothermal innovations have validated drilling timelines and substantially de-risked project finance. While the historical funding imbalance has slowed the path to gigawatt-scale deployment, momentum is shifting at a rapid pace. A decision by the Trump administration to allocate more than $400 million to geothermal in 2025 and an increase in federal R&D have delivered a strong signal to investors and project developers.
Policymakers have also recognized the importance of streamlining the federal permitting process for next-generation geothermal projects. As described by a December 2025 ClearPath report, geothermal projects face up to six separate permitting reviews across the project development cycle. These types of duplicative reviews, delays, and uneven practices from field offices raise costs and deter capital investment. Recent legislative proposals, like the STEAM Act, pave the way to resolving the trickiest of these hurdles.
The implications for the nation’s electricity system are profound. As AI data centers, electrified transport, buildings, and industry drive surging demand, clean baseload capacity that can be sited near demand centers will be essential to stabilize the grid and reduce reliance on long transmission lines and expensive long-duration storage. With sustained, focused federal stewardship that matches the bipartisan policy recognition geothermal already enjoys, EGS can quickly become a cornerstone of America’s clean, reliable, baseload power.
Matthew Mailloux is a program director for tax, permitting and geothermal policy at ClearPath, a conservative energy organization whose mission is to accelerate American innovation to reduce global energy emissions.