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ES&T News
DOE targets clean-energy and nuclear technologies
U.S. Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Proposals
- Overview
- Some new funding at EPA amid a 4% drop
- DOE targets clean-energy and nuclear technologies
- NSF sees a small increase
- USGS budget focuses on hazards and energy
- NOAA faces 6% decrease
The Bush Administration’s $23.6 billion FY ’07 budget request for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), unveiled on February 6, would boost funding for nuclear, biofuels, solar, and hydrogen-fuel initiatives while completely eliminating funds for geothermal, hydropower, petroleum, and oil and natural gas research and decreasing spending on clean coal technologies. But an administration favorite, FutureGen, an emissions-free coal-fired electricity plant, would be funded with a 200% increase. The overall proposed budget is nearly $10 million less than what Congress provided DOE in FY ’06.
“The budget request makes bold investments to improve Americans’ energy security while protecting our environment, puts policies in place that foster continued economic growth, spurs scientific innovation and discovery, and helps address the threat of nuclear proliferation,” DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman told Congress during a hearing in February on the budget request.
The request would increase nuclear-power R&D nearly 55%, to $347 million, and funding for the Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nevada would increase from $495 million in FY ’06 to $545 million.
Central to Bush’s support for nuclear power is an additional $243 million for the new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which aims to foster international cooperation in dealing with nuclear-waste disposal. Similar research was funded at $79 million in FY ’06. In addition, defense-related nuclear nonproliferation accounts would increase from $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion, and defense-related nuclear-waste-disposal accounts would increase from $347 million to $388 million. The DOE proposal would also lift funding for U.S. participation in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a nuclear fusion project, to $60 million from $30 million.
DOE officials emphasized new funding to support the president’s call for energy independence. In the proposed budget, biofuels, hydrogen-fuel, and solar initiatives would receive increases of 65% to $150 million, 26% to $196 million, and 78% to $148 million, respectively. Spending highlights include an increase for wind-power research, from $38 million to $44 million, and a nearly $500 million boost to the general science account, to $4.1 billion.
FutureGen continues to be an administration focus. The project, to develop an emissions-free power plant that relies on coal to produce electricity, would be funded at $54 million, up 200% from FY ’06.
To offset increased spending on these initiatives, the budget makes small cuts in many programs while completely zeroing-out funds for several others. For example, Bush would cut all funding, or $23 million, from geothermal programs, $193 million from fossil-fuel research, $33 million from clean-coal research, $33 million from natural gas, and $32 million from petroleum and oil R&D.
In addition, total environmental management and cleanup accounts would be pared down to $12 billion from $13.6 billion.
