Round 1 in the US budgeting process has begun, with key green priorities such as carbon capture surviving with barely a scratch.
In the face of relentless pressure to cut public spending, President Obama proposed a U.S. federal budget for fiscal year 2012 that “essentially treads water on energy and the environment” as The New York Times’ John M. Broder put it.
Against a larger effort to trim over $1.1 trillion from federal spending over the coming decade, Obama proposes raising Department of Energy (DOE) funding by 12 percent to $29.5 billion.
Obama’s proposal is, of course, the first move in multi-round bout of give-and-take that will unfold in coming weeks with the Republican-dominated Congress playing spoiler and Democrat-controlled Senate acting as a possible wild card.
For backers of new energy technology—from renewables to carbon capture and sequestration—the news is good given sharp cuts proposed elsewhere in the request. Indeed, within Obama’s proposal, funding for some environmental protection programs is cut deeply.
Carbon capture programs are largely shielded. While other fossil fuel R&D programs were trimmed sharply, the plan includes $453 million in funding focused primarily on efforts to develop technologies to capture and entomb carbon dioxide emissions from major emitters such as electricity generators, refineries and cement makers.
Obama’s commitment to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions remains a priority in the request. Without detailing how to hit the target, the document repeats a standing goal to lower U.S. emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
In the absence of federal policy on greenhouse gas emissions, the White House has increasingly been looking to regulations as the main tool to boost efficiency and reign in the CO2 output of heavy industry.
The budget points to the weakness of this approach. Already facing withering political pressure from conservative Congress members intent on defanging the agency’s goals of regulating CO2 emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency, would see a sharp 13% cut in funding; loosing $1.3 billion from 2010 levels, to $9 billion.
Conventional fossil fuel industries have reason to frown, with Obama pushing once again to cancel out some $3.6 billion in long-standing tax breaks and other subsidies to oil and natural gas players to use the funds to support alternative energy technologies.
Whether this reordering of the priorities of energy subsidies passes Congress remains to be seen. The fossil fuel has proved able at blocking similar, earlier efforts.
After the release of the White House proposal, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, took aim: “His budget reads more like a blueprint for losing the future.”
The energy department budget overview also boosts a number of goals that could benefit utilities efficiency and grid efforts. Stated goals include:
- Reduce Buildings’ Energy Use by 20 Percent by 2020.
- Help Put One Million Advanced Technol¬ogy Vehicles on the Road by 2015.
- Modernize the Electric Grid.
To see more details on the nitty gritty of these proposal’s, download the energy section here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview (click “Energy” for a PDF of the subsection).