Not sure who you are talking to dude, but if you are being told that anything approaching a deliberate or methodical evaluation process is occurring to decide what projects get cut, someone is lying to you.

I promise you there is no sober decision-making process for keeping or killing projects. No career people are involved. The few political hacks making the calls never investigate beyond name of DOE office, location of project, and title. Don't give these hacks credit they don't deserve