Bush Gives Renewable Energy the Shaft

[Dardedar]

And so it continues. Buy a big SUV, get a huge tax cut. Buy a hybrid electric, get nothing. Etc.

Reid: Renewables Shorted by Bush Budget
By Phoebe Sweet
The Las Vegas Sun

Wednesday 06 February 2008

President Bush has again chosen to subsidize coal and nuclear power rather than renewable energy, environmental groups protested Tuesday following the release of his $25 billion federal Energy Department budget.

Bush's last budget request as president includes $1.4 billion to promote new nuclear power plants, $9.1 billion to safeguard the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal and $1.1 billion to research technology that reduces greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired plants.

...

Farquhar said the president's budget appears to increase funding for advanced research on fossil fuels and nuclear technology by the same amount it cuts from an efficiency program that pays to weatherize poor people's homes.

"The budget undermines assistance for low-income families hardest hit by the energy crisis," he said. "The president's priorities appear to be feeding money into large, academic, futuristic programs instead of efficiency that could benefit people today."

Critics of the budget agreed that perhaps the most important thing it's missing reauthorization of tax credits for renewable energy developers. The credits are set to expire at the end of the year.

"That's what would really help the industry most. And unless it gets renewed soon it really brings investment to a standstill," said Charles Benjamin, director of the Nevada office of Western Resources Advocates.

...

Reid promised to fight Bush over the budget, which he said improves funding for coal by 25 percent and for nuclear energy by 37 percent while decreasing spending on renewables and efficiencies by almost 30 percent.

"We have a country that is smothering itself with smoke from coal and oil, and we need to move to more efficient uses of what we have and move to renewables," Reid said Tuesday, adding that the Bush budget was cutting from an already small subsidy for the renewables industry.

...

Some environmentalists and Democrats said they weren't surprised by the budget.

"After seven years of failed energy policy, we are still hearing the same arguments from the Bush White House," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in a statement Tuesday. "Given this record, it comes as no surprise that the president is proposing to increase funding for nuclear energy and coal when we should be charting a new course to energy independence based on solar, wind, geothermal and other forms of green power. As we have seen once again in this latest State of the Union address, the president says one thing, only to turn right around and do the opposite in his annual budget when it comes to renewable energy."

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"Failing to quickly renew these clean energy incentives will snuff out one of the few bright spots in our troubled economy. 75,000 hardworking Americans stand to be thrown out of work in the wind industry alone unless Congress acts. Instead of lifting the economy up, some Senators have apparently decided to kick it while it's down."
--Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director (ibid)

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

What do you expect of people who filibuster a "stimulus" package because it extends unemployment benefits and includes help with winter heating bills? Mark Pryor, of course, will love this one. I don't even bother to call him much any more. I called Blanche Lincoln's office and told them to "just say no" to W's budget. Considering that Congress is still working on the 2008 budget, they may be able to stall the 2009 budget until the new president gets in. That's my only hope.