Jul 19 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Jeff Wilkinson The State, Columbia, S.C.


Congress is closer to restoring money for hydrogen research to the federal budget after the Obama administration originally submitted an executive budget request that cut it to $60 million from $160 million.

The House is considering $153 million for hydrogen and fuel cell research. A vote is expected as early as next week.

The Senate is also set to vote soon on $190 million in hydrogen and fuel cell funding.

The two bills then would go to a conference committee before being set in the final national budget and sent to President Obama.

"We are in the middle of the process," said Patrick Serfass, spokesman for the National Hydrogen Association, which had its annual conference in Columbia in March. "Congress is ... making sure there is funding for a variety of alternative vehicle technology. It's too early to pick winners and losers (in the alternative energy industries), which is what the administration's request did."

Columbia Mayor Bob Coble and others traveled to Washington in May, after the Obama budget proposal was made, to lobby the S.C. delegation to help restore the money.

"We left feeling very confident," the mayor, who is on a trade mission to China, wrote in an e-mail. "While there is much work to do, this is great progress."

The president's requested cuts might have affected work at the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken County, which studies hydrogen production and storage, but would not have affected grants at USC, which focuses on fuel cells.

However, Coble said any cut in research anywhere in the state's "Hydrogen Triangle" of Columbia/USC, Aiken County/Savannah River and Clemson would be a step backward.

"If the S.C. hydrogen economy is dealt a blow, it hurts Columbia's hydrogen economy," he wrote. "We need our entire congressional delegation to support our efforts in Columbia. We can't go it alone. We need allies in Greenville, etc."

U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-Greenville, chairs the hydrogen caucus in the House, and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Seneca, is chairman of the Senate caucus.

This year, the federal budget included $212 million for hydrogen research, up from $210 million in 2008 because of an influx of federal stimulus money for alternative energy.

Serfass said he is "cautiously optimistic" funding will be restored by Congress in its final budget.

But even then the funding level would pale in comparison with the $1 billion being considered to research better batteries for electric cars, considered by many a quicker cure for the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Serfass said that's OK.

"We need both," he said. "They do not take away from each other. We need a portfolio approach."

Staff writer Sammy Fretwell contributed to this story.

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