[ RadSafe ] " White House Urges Oil Appropriations Be Given To Nuclear, Coal "

[John Jacobus]

Maybe if the administration did not request money for
nuclear weapons development, there might be more
research funds for nuclear power development.  

I remember when Republicans used to claim about
"spend-thrift" administrations and rising deficits. 
So, what's the Bush's Administrations problem?

--- "Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj at aecl.ca> wrote:

> So much for the "oil president" monicker.....
> 
> Jaro 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> White House Urges Oil Appropriations Be Given To
> Nuclear, Coal
> Energy Washington Week
> Vol. 2, No. 22
> 1 June 2005
> 
> The Bush administration is criticizing the
> House-passed energy
> appropriations bill for underfunding several high
> priority programs,
> including a DOE program aimed at bringing new
> nuclear power plants online in
> the next several years; carbon sequestration
> research; and the international
> fusion reactor program. The White House is calling
> on appropriators to
> divert funds from oil and gas programs to increase
> funding for these coal
> and nuclear initiatives. 
> 
> The House May 24 passed the nearly $30-billion
> fiscal year 2006 energy and
> water spending bill (H.R. 2419) with no major
> changes to the version passed
> out of the Appropriations Committee. Just before the
> vote, the White House
> released a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP)
> criticizing the bill.
> The Senate has yet to draft its appropriations bill,
> for which a markup is
> expected in June. 
> 
> "The administration is concerned . . . that the bill
> fails to adequately
> fund a number of initiatives crucial for advancing
> the Nation's interest,
> and does not reduce or eliminate funds for programs
> that have outlived their
> purpose or are lower priority," the SAP states. 
> 
> The administration is particularly upset that the
> House bill only provides
> DOE's Nuclear Power 2010 program with $46 million,
> $10 million shy of the
> budget request. President Bush is relying on new
> nuclear power as a key to
> his energy plan and the Nuclear 2010 program is the
> primary administration
> vehicle to subsidize nuclear utility efforts to
> navigate the new plant
> licensing process at NRC. DOE already has agreed to
> help two separate
> consortia with their combined construction and
> operating license application
> and there are other proposals pending. The SAP urges
> the House to fully fund
> the program by "redirecting funds from the
> oil-and-gas programs." 
> 
> The House bill reduces funding levels from last
> year's appropriations for
> the oil technology and natural gas technology
> programs, but does not
> terminate them, as the administration requested. The
> administration wants
> research and development funding for oil and gas
> drilling technologies
> phased out, seeking only $10 million for each
> program in FY-06 for costs
> associated with shuttering them and closing out
> contracts. The House bill
> funds the natural gas program at $33 million and
> does not call for its
> termination. The oil program is funded at $29
> million and also is not
> terminated. 
> 
> The House bill cites concerns about "U.S.
> over-reliance on foreign oil
> imports and the pressure to increase greatly imports
> of natural gas" as
> validating the funding. The SAP asserts that the oil
> and gas programs are
> often duplicative of private sector R&D efforts.
> "The oil and gas industry
> has the financial incentives and resources to
> develop new ways to extract
> oil and gas from the ground more cheaply and safely,
> without taxpayer
> assistance," reads the SAP. 
> 
> The administration also disagrees with the bill's
> stance on carbon
> sequestration funding. The bill appropriates DOE's
> carbon sequestration
> program at $50 million, $17 million less than the
> administration requested.
> "The Committee believes this level of funding is
> sufficient to accomplish
> numerous pilot-scale capture tests. The program
> cannot absorb the scale of
> resources proposed in the request, and these
> resources are better utilized
> for other nearer-term technologies within the Fossil
> Energy R&D portfolio,"
> the bill states. 
> 
> The administration wants the $17 million restored,
> arguing that carbon
> sequestration will "improve energy security, by
> expanding the use of clean
> coal technology." 
> 
> Lastly, the administration slams the bill for
> reducing by more than half the
> U.S. contribution to the International Thermonuclear
> Experimental Reactor
> (ITER). Though the bill increases fusion research
> funding above the request,
> it redirects funds from ITER to domestic fusion R&D.
> The administration
> requested $50 million, but the House provided less
> than half. The bill warns
> DOE in the future to get funding from other Office
> of Science research
> funding, rather than trying to short-change domestic
> fusion research. 
> 
> "If the Department does not follow this guidance in
> its fiscal year 2007
> budget submission, the Committee is prepared to
> eliminate all U.S. funding
> for the ITER project in the future," the bill reads.
> 
> 
> The SAP responds: "Such a significant reduction
> could harm the standing of
> the United States during the critical final phase of
> the international
> negotiations this summer and would result in
> unnecessary schedule delays and
> cost escalation." 
> 
> To the surprise of some observers, the
> administration remained silent on the
> nuclear waste storage plan offered by Rep. David
> Hobson (R-OH), chairman of
> the House Appropriations energy and water
> subcommittee. The bill meets the
> administration's fiscal year 2006 request to fund
> Yucca Mountain at $651
> million, but it adds an additional $10 million that
> would be used by DOE to
> select one or more above ground interim storage
> sites and to begin moving
> nuclear waste there by next year. The administration
> touched only briefly on
> the topic of Yucca Mountain, noting it was pleased
> the House bill fully
> funded the project. The SAP urges a compromise over
> the administration
> budget proposal that would place the Nuclear Waste
> Fund off-budget.
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+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com


		
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