According to The President’s energy blueprint, the Obama Administration is calling on Congress to establish a $2 billion Energy Security Trust to invest in breakthrough research into technologies, such as advanced electric vehicles, homegrown biofuels, fuel cells, and domestically produced natural gas. The funds would come from oil and gas royalty revenues generated from development in Federal waters off the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
Other highlights of the blueprint include:
- Making the renewable energy Production Tax Credit permanent and refundable;
- A new $25 million prize for the first, natural gas combined cycle power plant to integrate carbon capture and storage;
- Increasing funding for energy programs of the Bureau of Land Management by roughly 20 percent;
- Cutting net oil imports in half by the end of the decade;
- A new Energy Efficiency Race to the Top challenge as part of a larger goal to double American energy productivity by 2030.
What’s your take on the President’s energy blueprint? How would you allocate the $2 billion Trust among the different areas?
The only mention of nuclear power is “nuclear exports” and dealing with nuclear waste? That seems highly problematic. The blueprint, not surprisingly, sounds like a lot of what people more… Read more »
[…] budget, released April 10th, contains many of the energy initiatives previously outlined in his Energy Blueprint. Programs such as the Race to the Top energy efficiency challenge and the… Read more »