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Guest Commentary March 7, 2002
Bush Budget Hinders Clean Energy Efforts
The Honorable Robert Byrd
The Administration's top policymakers understand there is a direct link between our ability to develop and deploy new energy technologies and our nation's energy security.
Yet, as I look at the department's budget request, particularly the request for the Office of Fossil Energy, the connection between rhetoric and reality seems to have been lost.
The budget request seeks an overall cut in Fossil Energy research of 16 percent from the enacted level. It would cut 37 percent from petroleum research, with specific programs geared toward boosting oil exploration and production being cut 49 percent. And, in natural gas research, the budget proposes to cut 51 percent.
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Rather than respond to the challenges we face by increasing our research and development activities as a way of securing our nation's energy independence, this Administration has instead chosen to retreat.
Now is not the time to walk away from the type of research that will secure our nation's energy independence.
This Administration consistently pushes to expand fossil energy production. Yet it cuts the very initiatives that allow for those fuels to be utilized in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner.
It seems like a short-sighted approach.
Robert Byrd, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from West Virginia. The above commentary has been adapted from remarks by Sen. Byrd at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, March 7, 2002. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
