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Energy Funding Falling Short?: Bush Officials Say Tough Choices Being Made on Renewable Sources

Posted on: Friday, 24 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Sudeep Reddy, The Dallas Morning News

Feb. 24--WASHINGTON -- The nation's previous energy crises inspired presidential calls for sweeping action and billions of dollars in new funding to address consumers' soaring energy bills.

President Bush appears to be taking a far different approach, at least when it comes to funding.

Administration officials are touring the nation this week touting renewable energy programs, but they're doing so with overall funding that barely grows from previous years.

Some long-running programs for renewable energy research and energy efficiency have been gutted in the president's latest budget proposal.

Bush officials say the funding reflects targeted decisions and tough choices in a budget that's already stretched.

Critics call it a mismatch between words and actions, and say the money is not nearly enough to meet the president's ambitious goals for addressing the nation's energy problems.

With skyrocketing natural gas bills and high oil prices, "these aren't normal times," said Marchant Wentworth of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental advocacy group. "We would've been looking for the administration to take some dramatic new action here."

The Energy Department is promoting the administration's $2.1 billion Advanced Energy Initiative as a 22 percent budget increase. The program is meant to develop new energy technologies and alternative energy sources.

But the department's budget request for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs -- the primary source of alternative energy research -- is up just 0.2 percent from the previous fiscal year. That piece of the budget would be 5 percent lower than two years ago.

The Advanced Energy Initiative includes several renewable energy programs, such as solar and biomass, that are getting higher funding at the expense of many energy efficiency programs that are being cut. About two-thirds of the initiative goes toward programs for fossil fuels, nuclear power and other science research.

'Shifting of resources'

Officials call it a balanced approach for research and development, with a near-term focus on biofuels and clean-coal technology and longer-term strategies for nuclear and hydrogen energy.

"What you have to look at is the shifting of resources within the department's budget," Deputy Commerce Secretary David Sampson told Dallas Morning News reporters and editors Thursday in Dallas.

Instead of how much higher the budget will be, Mr. Sampson said, "we believe the most important question to ask is: How are we using the money already there in the president's budget?"

Mr. Bush's declaration in his State of the Union address that the nation is "addicted to oil" drew attention to the magnitude of the nation's energy challenge. His focus on alternative energy also marks a new direction for the administration, which has lost key battles over Arctic oil drilling.

This week, the president visited the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, where 32 workers had been laid off. Two days before Mr. Bush's visit, the Energy Department announced that $5 million in funding had been restored to rehire the staff.

Critics note that Mr. Bush's renewable energy budget of $1.18 billion funds less than a third of the programs authorized by last summer's energy bill. The gap could lead to a battle during congressional budget proceedings as lawmakers look to save their favorite projects.

Big cuts

The proposed budget would kill funding for hydropower and geothermal technology research. It would also slash numerous energy efficiency programs that could reduce demand and, by extension, lower commodity prices.

Programs to support home weatherization for the poor would also be cut dramatically, though an Energy Department spokesman said about 65,000 homes would still be covered during the year.

Even critics praise the new funding for programs such as biomass. But, they say, it's not the big change they expected from the president after major action last year from Congress.

"Since it's the same pie, they're moving money from one place to another," said Fredric Beck, senior policy associate at the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, among the groups advocating for more renewable energy funding. "Things that are very valuable went down. That's why we see the budget somewhat unbalanced."

The potential payback from additional funding -- especially for research programs -- is difficult to calculate. U.S. presidents for a generation have consistently failed to achieve their goals of energy independence.

President Nixon wanted a pollution-free vehicle by 1975. He instituted oil price controls, which did little to halt price spikes. President Carter promoted the Synfuels program in the late 1970s to oil resources into usable reserves. Critics of government subsidies often cite it as a $20 billion flop.

Low prices through most of the 1980s and 1990s translated into little political momentum for alternative energy, though many programs saw steady increases.

Holy grail

Recently, Mr. Bush has promoted cellulosic ethanol, derived from wood chips and switch grass. Studied for decades, it's viewed by many as the holy grail.

Even so, "it's a technology we're not sure will work in large commercial application," said John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute.

The government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on research to burn coal cleanly, on top of billions for nuclear energy research. Private industry has also been investing heavily in clean energy research.

For the government, "it's been a decision of, how much do you spend for the breakthrough technology and do you really know if it will work?" Mr. Felmy said.

Mr. Bush's energy initiative places its bets on potential breakthroughs in solar technology, biomass such as ethanol, hydrogen fuel cells and advanced batteries.

"If we can make these technologies market competitive, we can make them more attractive to consumers and really accelerate their use," said Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens.

The underlying goal of the funding allocations, Mr. Stevens said, is to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Environmental groups praise the goal of reducing the nation's oil consumption. But they say several other potential breakthrough technologies shouldn't be under-funded in the process.

The renewable energy programs "are serious options that really have a lot of promise," Mr. Beck said. "We can't pick winners. We just want there to be a level playing field."

Staff writer Elizabeth Souder in Dallas contributed to this report.

E-mail sreddy@dallasnews.com

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Source: The Dallas Morning News

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