Barton set to complain to Bush about administration energy plans

Washington (Platts)--9Mar2006

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton Thursday said he
planned to complain to President George W. Bush later in the day that the
administration is shortchanging programs authorized by the Energy Policy Act
of 2005 while proposing costly new initiatives like the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership.

     The Texas Republican said he also would use the meeting with Bush, which
was expected to be attended by other Republican and Democratic House members,
to urge the president to redouble his commitment to the proposed nuclear waste
repository in Nevada. 

     "The Department of Energy has basically, I think, dropped the ball on
everything in the Energy Policy Act," Barton said to reporters outside a
hearing on the department's fiscal-year 2007 budget proposal. 

     He said DOE had met only three of 30 deadlines set for the department in
the energy bill. A DOE spokeswoman said, however, that the department had met
the "vast majority" of the law's deadlines. 

     "Here's this probably $100 billion program that they want us to
authorize, and they're not doing any of the things that we've already
authorized," Barton said of GNEP. "I don't think there is a member of the
committee on either side of the aisle that is satisfied with the budget
priorities in the Department of Energy budget." 

     Barton expressed particular concern over the administration's planned
budget cuts for clean coal, weatherization and ultra-deep-drilling programs.

     At the hearing, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman reiterated his earlier
statements that legitimate energy programs were cut or left out of the new
budget in the interests of fiscal restraint. 

     Representative David Hobson, Republican-Ohio, chairman of the House
Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development, which decides on
DOE funding, Wednesday challenged the administration's plans for GNEP, for
which Bush sought $250 million in FY 2007. Bodman has said the program's
total costs could ultimately reach $60 billion.

                  ---Daniel Whitten, daniel_whitten@platts.com

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