Lookin’ Good: Obama Releases Budget, Significant Funds for Energy
This has been an exciting few weeks for energy: The stimulus bill had a mix of funding for renewables and efficiency, proven technologies and emerging ones. And maybe you got just as excited as I did when Obama said in his pseudo-State of the Union: “…I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America.”

To complete the trifecta, Obama released his proposed $3.55 trillion budget yesterday. It’s got significant funding to address the energy problem, both in terms of expanding homegrown, secure energy sources, building up our renewables capacity, and making our existing infrastructure more efficient. Here’s the latest:

  • Includes $15 billion per year for renewable energy programs
  • Proposes a five-year, $5 billion high-speed rail state grant program
  • Uses money from a cap-and-trade program to pay for middle-class tax cuts and further investments in renewables
  • Investments in R&D and demonstration of smart grid technologies (i.e. a more efficient transmission system)
  • Investments in carbon capture and sequestration projects (sometimes called “advanced coal technologies”)
  • Funds for the development of space-based research sensors for climate monitoring
  • Creates a new Energy Innovation Fund to support an energy-efficient housing market — including retrofits of older, inefficient homes

Cries of over-spending have already come up from some camps. But spending on energy addresses the vital issues we can all agree on: Cutting our reliance on foreign sources of energy, securing our energy supply, making our energy more efficient and clean, and growing a new sector of our economy.

via the Washington Times, Earth2Tech.com and AFP

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