WASHINGTON - While President George W Bush kept his promise to put more money in his proposed 2007 budget for research to develop alternative energy sources, the administration also wants to cut a government program proven to save energy.
The Energy Department's budget would increase funding by millions of dollars for solar, wind, ethanol, hydrogen fuel and nuclear research to help fulfill Bush's pledge in his State of the Union speech to slash US oil imports from Middle East suppliers.
However, the department's budget would also cut 32 percent of the money for weatherization assistance grants, which help low-income families buy storm windows and insulation for their homes to make them more energy-efficient. The program's funding would fall to $164.2 million.
The budget would also eliminate all of the current $23.1 million for geothermal technology.
US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman defended the budget cuts, saying the government wanted to put its money in programs that would yield better results.
"Well, these are tough choices," Bodman told reporters at a briefing on the department's budget. "It's not that some of these other areas don't have supports and don't have advocates, but it was a judgment that was made by the president ultimately that this is where we should focus our limited resources."
The administration does plan to try again to end all government funding for oil and natural gas research, arguing that companies can afford to pay for it themselves thanks to high energy prices.
"One has difficulty justifying funding research in new methods to find oil" when crude costs $65 a barrel, Bodman said. "There is plenty of profit margin to pay for whatever research that the private sector wishes to do."
Congress provided about $64 million in oil and gas research funds last year after the administration called for gutting the program.
However, the administration's federal budget does call for Congress to allow energy companies to drill for oil and gas in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The total Energy Department budget would decline a slight $6 million to $23.6 billion, as proposed by the White House.
Almost half the department's budget, $9.3 billion, would go for maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and related weapons research laboratories, and for cleaning up weapon producing sites and accelerating efforts to secure nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.
Story by Tom Doggett
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
