Energy gaps seen in Bush's budget
Plan would cut funding aimed at conservation
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's latest spending plan is unlikely to substantially reduce US oil consumption in the short term because it slashes $100 million from federal programs promoting conservation and falls short of the commitment in last year's energy bill to make vast new investments in renewable and emerging technologies, like hydrogen fuel and solar power.
Despite Bush's ambitious goal of cutting Middle East oil imports by 75 percent within 20 years -- outlined in his State of the Union address a week ago -- the president's budget calls for an 18 percent cut in programs aimed at reducing energy consumption, like financial aid to help needy families better insulate their homes and research to make cars use fuel more efficiently.
Critics say the budget sends a mixed message on energy policy: The president wants to invest in renewable energy but would spend less on it than he promised in the energy bill he signed and would scale down efficiency programs that would more quickly reduce the nation's demand for oil.
''The reality in no way meets the rhetoric," said Dan W. Reicher, president of New Energy Capital, a Vermont-based renewable energy company. Reicher, deputy energy secretary under President Clinton, said the White House budget cuts ''energy efficiency and other vital programs in order to pay for renewable-energy increases. It's hard to see that we reach the goals the president has set."
Democrats also allege that the president still refuses to abandon his administration's longstanding emphasis on oil drilling and exploration. He is giving the Interior Department's budget for drilling on public lands a 10 percent increase; is reviving a politically nettlesome proposal to allow drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and would provide $4.6 million to manage the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline, a longtime oil industry priority.
Though Bush's budget calls for a $381 million increase in spending on renewable energy technologies, some fear the money set aside for renewable energy isn't enough to make a real difference, while others say it depends too much on nuclear power.
The extra money for renewable energy is still 22 percent less than the commitments laid out in the energy bill signed by Bush last year, according to an analysis conducted by Democratic staff members on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The $195.8 million the president wants for hydrogen research, for example, is barely a third of the total authorized by the energy bill.
Craig Stevens, a Department of Energy spokesman, said the White House's emphasis on new energy sources over conservation reflects the department's current priorities. When federal resources are scarce, Stevens said, the president believes that supporting research into new clean-burning technologies will pay the largest long-term dividends.
''There are competing priorities right now," he said. ''We can impact and help more people by introducing more renewable technologies to market."
Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate energy committee, said Bush's desire to hold total Department of Energy spending flat next year could be the reason for the cuts. ''This budget is taking us backwards in important programs in energy efficiency, clean coal, oil and gas, electricity reliability, and distributed energy, just to name a few," he said.
But Frank Maisano, an energy industry lobbyist, said the energy priorities reflect the progress that's been made in promoting energy conservation. The best long-term solutions, he said, involve finding and developing new sources of energy.
''That doesn't mean you don't need energy-efficiency programs," Maisano said, ''but the technologies are what's going to get us there, in terms of the long-term solutions. New technologies will further improve efficiencies."
With spiraling gas and home heating prices and continued instability in the Middle East, Bush made energy initiatives the centerpiece of his State of the Union speech last week. He said his new Advanced Energy Initiative would help bring cutting-edge technologies to market and wean the nation from imported oil.
''By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past," Bush said last week
Some of the budget's biggest energy investments are in nuclear power; the president wants a $115 million increase for research and development. He also proposes a $250 million Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, designed in part to encourage developing nations to build nuclear power plants.
Representative Edward J. Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the focus on nuclear energy is particularly ill-timed, given global concerns about Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.
''It seems that when [Bush] is talking about renewable energy, he's talking almost exclusively about nuclear power," said Markey, a Malden Democrat. ''I would just call it a business-as-usual budget with regard to energy, with no follow-up on the commitments in the energy bill."
Lowell Ungar, a senior policy analyst for the Alliance to Save Energy, said the president has largely concentrated on increasing the supply of energy, while ignoring the demand for it. Ungar said the president should make conservation a bigger priority and take bold steps, like raising fuel-economy standards in all new cars.
''If the goal is to reduce the American dependence on foreign oil, you can't do it just on the supply side," he said. ''With these cuts to energy efficiency [programs], they're sabotaging their own goals."
In the process, Bush appears insensitive to low-income residents who are struggling to pay soaring heating costs, said John Drew, executive vice president of the Association for Boston Community Development.
The 30 percent cut the president wants in an energy-efficiency program, he said, would force as many as 40,000 poor families in Massachusetts to find other ways to pay for home insulation and efficient heating and cooling systems.
''I find it incomprehensible that the national priorities are where they are," he said. ''The oil companies are getting extremely rich. . . . The people who will get left out will be those of the lowest income." 