President Barack Obama's running mate Joe Biden is fond of saying
"show me your budget, and I'll show you where your priorities are."
Media outlets have already begun picking through the wording of the
president's $3.78 trillion 2014 budget to see what is being prioritized
at a time when seemingly every cent of spending results in overheated
press conferences on Capitol Hill and the threat of some catastrophic
government shut-down.
When you look at just one area of
the budget, massive at it is, it gets a little easier. So let's see
what the budget has to say about energy policy. Here are some
highlights:
The budget provides $28.4 billion in discretionary funds for the Department of Energy (DOE)
— an 8 percent increase about the 2012 enacted level. This is meant to
position the U.S. as a leader in clean energy while boosting energy
security.
The budget proposes for $615 million to promote wind, solar, geothermal and hydrokinetic energy.
The
document calls for a "Race to the Top" program to promote grid
modernization and energy efficiency, which is something Obama mentioned
in his most recent State of the Union. The awards would support
state-level policies that increase energy productivity and modernize the
grid — with the goal of cutting energy waste in half over the next two
decades.
Also in the budget is more than $5 billion —
5.7 percent more than 2012 — for energy sector research and development.
The need to continue R&D even in difficult economic times is
something the present has said repeatedly, so finding it in the budget
is perhaps not unexpected.
About $153 million in research and development funding is proposed for grid modernization, cybersecurity
and energy control systems. Advances in the technologies and tools for
improved clean energy integration onto the grid through an $80 million
coordinated effort within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy.
Part of this tranche would include $20 million for a new Electricity Systems Hub, which would explore the interface between transmission
and distribution systems in the smart grid context. The budget would
support hardware and modeling R&D to improve the integration of
renewable energy into the distribution grid, distributed generation,
electric vehicles and residential/commercial buildings loads behind the
meter.
About
$575 million will be invested in alternative vehicle technologies,
according to this budget — presumably this goes further than electric
vehicles and charging stations, but likely includes both. There is also
mention of a $2 billion of proposed mandatory funding for an Energy
Security Trust (also mentioned in the State of the Union), intended to
transition cars, trucks and other vehicles off of oil (biofuels,
hydrogen, natural gas and electricity are specifically mentioned).
The
budget provides $735 million for the Office of Nuclear Energy, which
includes funding for small modular reactors. There is also $379 million
for the Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy, or ARPA-E, which is
the agency that investigates "long game" technologies.
Carbon
capture and storage is mentioned in the budget breakdown, with $421
million for the Fossil Energy Research and Development program,
including an investment of $266 million in fossil energy R&D
primarily dedicated to carbon capture.
The budget
eliminates $4 billion yearly in "unnecessary subsidies to the oil, gas
and coal industries;" restructuring the plutonium disposition program;
cutting low performing programs; and using existing facilities and
infrastructure.
In another energy efficiency measure,
the budget calls for funding of the president's Better Buildings
Initiative, which is meant to help consumers and businesses save money
through energy efficiency.
There is $16 million — up from $10 million — in enhanced energy infrastructure security and energy recovery capabilities.
Separate
from the DOE funding, the Environmental Protection Agency budget is
about $296 million lower than the 2012 level, with the president's
budget allocating the EPA $8.2 billion.
Showing posts with label US energy policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US energy policy. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Thursday, November 15, 2012
What will it take to get energy on the agenda?
The elections are over, the White House successfully defended by the incumbent and neither the House nor the Senate changed hands. Now reporters on the Hill and in the White House Press Corps are asking their questions about what will be on the agenda for the next four years.
Those of us in the utility and energy sector are wondering — and I hope we're not the only ones — whether energy policy will have any space at all on that agenda.
If you want to know what will be on the agenda, look at what the winner ran on. President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign was mostly about taxes, the economy and the role of government — although there were frequent detours into the realms of foreign policy, education and immigration reform.
Energy, when it was mentioned at all, was colored in extremely broad strokes. National politicians seldom get much more specific than the standard lines about energy independence, and the latest buzz phrase appears to be advocating for an "all of the above" energy strategy.
Talking in broad strokes, though, never seems to produce a broad-based, holistic energy strategy that addresses how we generate, deliver and consume electricity. If we want to address the problems we face in this area, we have to get specific.
A complete energy policy would need to take a stand on what our generation mix would be. Where would we get our power from, beginning with what we have work with in the first place? It would need to address the fact that we still use an energy delivery system that Thomas Edison would recognize, were he alive today. How can we improve on that? Finally, our energy policy would need to make investments in the future — not in a way that attempts to pick winners or losers, but instead makes educated guesses at where we could get the most bang for our buck from promising new research areas.
Those of us in the energy arena already know what we need to do, but our friends (if any) in the political arena would tell us it's a matter of political will and ability. As I said before, if you want to know what will be on the agenda, look at who won, consider how much they won by and remember what they talked about before they won.
In this case, Obama won. Again, and by more than 120 electoral votes and all but one or two of the swing states. And he won without talking about energy frequently or specifically. Apparently he (and voters) felt he didn't need to address that subject in any great depth. When his opponent, Gov. Romney, mentioned energy, it was to express his fondness for coal and nuclear energy, or else to name-check Solyndra. There isn't much sign from exit polls that people who didn't vote for Obama made that choice because he wasn't talking about energy issues.
In all likelihood, this means budget battles and possibly immigration reform will probably take the front seat for the next couple of years as Congress handles the fiscal cliff and Republicans and Democrats attempt to find a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants that everyone can live with. Or maybe I'm being too optimistic. One thing I'm less optimistic of is politicians spending much time on energy.
So what would it take? I'm trying to envision a scenario in which energy becomes the No. 1 issue in American politics and coming up short. We just had a major blackout scenario with Superstorm Sandy and that didn't do it. Neither did the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Nothing seems to get people talking about energy, even though this is such an exciting time to be talking about it.
As I was working on this blog, I saw a report that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters, "We would never propose a carbon tax." It wasn't too long ago that a cap-and-trade bill was working its way through Congress — it passed the House before languishing and dying in the Senate. Cap and trade, itself a Republican idea originally, lost its luster in the highly partisan, budget-preoccupied atmosphere of Obama's first term.
Are there still some brief flickers of hope for a dialogue on energy? Well, I thought it was telling that in his election night address in Chicago, President Obama made a pretty direct reference to climate change — no doubt still thinking about the previous week's storm recovery effort along the East Coast. Although few are willing to point to a single storm and say, "This is climate change," it's hard to watch a storm of Sandy's sheer scale unfold without wondering if this kind of weather is here to stay.
In the end, I'm not sure what it will take to get energy back on the agenda. There are plenty of worthy approaches and plenty of policies Congress, the EPA and others could look into, but it feels like the will just isn't there, or else it's gone anemic in the past few years.
Those of us in the utility and energy sector are wondering — and I hope we're not the only ones — whether energy policy will have any space at all on that agenda.
If you want to know what will be on the agenda, look at what the winner ran on. President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign was mostly about taxes, the economy and the role of government — although there were frequent detours into the realms of foreign policy, education and immigration reform.
Energy, when it was mentioned at all, was colored in extremely broad strokes. National politicians seldom get much more specific than the standard lines about energy independence, and the latest buzz phrase appears to be advocating for an "all of the above" energy strategy.
Talking in broad strokes, though, never seems to produce a broad-based, holistic energy strategy that addresses how we generate, deliver and consume electricity. If we want to address the problems we face in this area, we have to get specific.
A complete energy policy would need to take a stand on what our generation mix would be. Where would we get our power from, beginning with what we have work with in the first place? It would need to address the fact that we still use an energy delivery system that Thomas Edison would recognize, were he alive today. How can we improve on that? Finally, our energy policy would need to make investments in the future — not in a way that attempts to pick winners or losers, but instead makes educated guesses at where we could get the most bang for our buck from promising new research areas.
Those of us in the energy arena already know what we need to do, but our friends (if any) in the political arena would tell us it's a matter of political will and ability. As I said before, if you want to know what will be on the agenda, look at who won, consider how much they won by and remember what they talked about before they won.
In this case, Obama won. Again, and by more than 120 electoral votes and all but one or two of the swing states. And he won without talking about energy frequently or specifically. Apparently he (and voters) felt he didn't need to address that subject in any great depth. When his opponent, Gov. Romney, mentioned energy, it was to express his fondness for coal and nuclear energy, or else to name-check Solyndra. There isn't much sign from exit polls that people who didn't vote for Obama made that choice because he wasn't talking about energy issues.
In all likelihood, this means budget battles and possibly immigration reform will probably take the front seat for the next couple of years as Congress handles the fiscal cliff and Republicans and Democrats attempt to find a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants that everyone can live with. Or maybe I'm being too optimistic. One thing I'm less optimistic of is politicians spending much time on energy.
So what would it take? I'm trying to envision a scenario in which energy becomes the No. 1 issue in American politics and coming up short. We just had a major blackout scenario with Superstorm Sandy and that didn't do it. Neither did the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Nothing seems to get people talking about energy, even though this is such an exciting time to be talking about it.
As I was working on this blog, I saw a report that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters, "We would never propose a carbon tax." It wasn't too long ago that a cap-and-trade bill was working its way through Congress — it passed the House before languishing and dying in the Senate. Cap and trade, itself a Republican idea originally, lost its luster in the highly partisan, budget-preoccupied atmosphere of Obama's first term.
Are there still some brief flickers of hope for a dialogue on energy? Well, I thought it was telling that in his election night address in Chicago, President Obama made a pretty direct reference to climate change — no doubt still thinking about the previous week's storm recovery effort along the East Coast. Although few are willing to point to a single storm and say, "This is climate change," it's hard to watch a storm of Sandy's sheer scale unfold without wondering if this kind of weather is here to stay.
In the end, I'm not sure what it will take to get energy back on the agenda. There are plenty of worthy approaches and plenty of policies Congress, the EPA and others could look into, but it feels like the will just isn't there, or else it's gone anemic in the past few years.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Update on the power race: Europe leaves us in the dust
A little less than 400 years ago, the pilgrims hopped on the Mayflower and left England in the nautical rearview mirror for a number of reasons, not the least of which was a lack of progressive thought (especially in the areas of religious freedom). Now, it seems that England, and Europe as a whole, have lapped us in some areas of progressive thought, including energy.
Yesterday, European Union Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger stunned a lot of the EU community by not getting more conservative or free-market in his planning (as the U.S. did in last week’s elections). Instead, despite media speculation that he would follow the flow of fellow German and home country Chancellor Angela Merkel, he set out a huge five-point, trillion-euro agenda to make energy in Europe (gas and power included) one big happy family by the much-chatted-about 2020 deadline.
So, while the U.S. will be gridlocked on energy policy with a Democratic Senate and a Republican House and little-to-no elbow room in sight, the EU plans to sweeten the financial incentives for energy efficiency; create an EU-wide market with upgraded, interconnected infrastructures; direct energy policy from the top down (rather than by country); expand technology in multiple areas (including the “smart city” concepts) and push for consumer options on price comparisons, supplier changes and billing.
Along with those smaller goals are the overarching plans of the 2020 strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent, increase the share of renewable energy to 20 percent and make a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency all by the year 2020.
By the year 2020 here in the U.S. we might have come to some final “yea” or “nay” decision on cap and trade. Maybe. But, I’m not going to hold my breath.
A lot of this indecision in the U.S., I realize, is due to a strong states-rights mentality that makes it hard to get all 50 states on board for anything, really. But, there are 27 member states of the European Union. And, while called “member states,” those are separate countries, with separate cultures, governments and, heck, even languages. Yet, they seem to work better for a common energy cause than we do under the umbrella of a single federal government.
Granted, the European goals may not be reached by 2020. That’s only a decade off. But, it’s vexing that they can get their people to at least agree on the concepts, the need and the planning---to at least “think” the energy forward. Getting even a pow-wow to plan for energy here in the U.S. seems improbable; getting a plan together for sold changes in the next decade appears nearly impossible at this point.
I hope that the U.S. can catch up to Europe in terms of power policy. It’s 1620 no more, and, at the official 400-year Mayflower landing mark (2020), Europe may have made advances we can’t possibly touch with energy efficiency, infrastructure, investment and, yes, the smart grid.
Yesterday, European Union Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger stunned a lot of the EU community by not getting more conservative or free-market in his planning (as the U.S. did in last week’s elections). Instead, despite media speculation that he would follow the flow of fellow German and home country Chancellor Angela Merkel, he set out a huge five-point, trillion-euro agenda to make energy in Europe (gas and power included) one big happy family by the much-chatted-about 2020 deadline.
So, while the U.S. will be gridlocked on energy policy with a Democratic Senate and a Republican House and little-to-no elbow room in sight, the EU plans to sweeten the financial incentives for energy efficiency; create an EU-wide market with upgraded, interconnected infrastructures; direct energy policy from the top down (rather than by country); expand technology in multiple areas (including the “smart city” concepts) and push for consumer options on price comparisons, supplier changes and billing.
Along with those smaller goals are the overarching plans of the 2020 strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent, increase the share of renewable energy to 20 percent and make a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency all by the year 2020.
By the year 2020 here in the U.S. we might have come to some final “yea” or “nay” decision on cap and trade. Maybe. But, I’m not going to hold my breath.
A lot of this indecision in the U.S., I realize, is due to a strong states-rights mentality that makes it hard to get all 50 states on board for anything, really. But, there are 27 member states of the European Union. And, while called “member states,” those are separate countries, with separate cultures, governments and, heck, even languages. Yet, they seem to work better for a common energy cause than we do under the umbrella of a single federal government.
Granted, the European goals may not be reached by 2020. That’s only a decade off. But, it’s vexing that they can get their people to at least agree on the concepts, the need and the planning---to at least “think” the energy forward. Getting even a pow-wow to plan for energy here in the U.S. seems improbable; getting a plan together for sold changes in the next decade appears nearly impossible at this point.
I hope that the U.S. can catch up to Europe in terms of power policy. It’s 1620 no more, and, at the official 400-year Mayflower landing mark (2020), Europe may have made advances we can’t possibly touch with energy efficiency, infrastructure, investment and, yes, the smart grid.
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