The Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which was brought to the floor of the House Tuesday, garnered a veto threat from the White House, due in part to a lack of sufficient funding to meet the administration’s pledge to double clean energy research and development.
“While the bill increases certain energy research and development activities, it underfunds critical energy research and development activities overall. The bill does not put the Nation on a sufficiently ambitious path toward doubling clean energy research and development by FY 2021,” according to the statement of administration policy released Monday.
At the opening of the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change in late November 2015, the U.S. and 19 other countries pledged to double their respective clean energy research and development under a new initiative dubbed “Mission Innovation.”
Mission Innovation itself has been a fairly uncontroversial initiative, gaining at least measured support from Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “Republicans and Democrats agree that government sponsored research has and continues to be important for our continued prosperity and job creation,” Alexander said during a March 9 hearing.
According to the administration’s statement, “the bill underfunds the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs, with levels significantly below the FY 2017 Budget request.”
The administration requested $500 million for ARPA-E, $209 million more than fiscal year 2016 funding levels. The House version of the bill would fund the program at $305,889,000, an increase of $14,889,000 from FY16, but $194,111,000 less than the request. “This reduction would hinder the ability to invest in transformational technologies that reduce energy-related emissions, increase energy efficiency across multiple economic sectors, and reduce energy imports,” the statement says.
The administration is also unimpressed with the House’s denial of its request to reallocate significant funding pulled from the Texas Clean Energy Project carbon capture and storage demonstration. “The Administration urges the Congress to provide adequate funding for clean energy priorities by using or reallocating $240 million in balances within the Fossil Energy R&D account identified in the FY 2017 Budget request as unnecessary for Fossil Energy R&D activities,” the statement says.
The House bill funds fossil energy R&D at $645 million, $285 million above the administration’s request, which relied on the $240 million of reallocated prior-year balances to fund the program at $600 million.
