washington -- Reflecting a shift in priorities under the Democratic majority, Congress is moving to spend as much as $6.7 billion next fiscal year to combat global warming, an increase of nearly one-third from the current year.
House appropriations bills call for about $2 billion in new spending on initiatives aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependency, significantly expanding the budgets for numerous federal research initiatives and launching some new ones.
While legislation to raise vehicle miles-per-gallon standards and cap emissions from power plants has been slower moving -- because of resistance from some lawmakers -- Democrats have turned to the budget to advance their environmental priorities by increasing spending on a variety of lower-profile programs.
That is likely to set up a showdown this fall between Congress and President Bush, who wants to spend less on climate-change initiatives. The White House budget office, which has criticized excessive spending in the overall appropriations bills, noted that the president's proposed budget provides for a 3% increase in spending for climate-change activities.
"Congress is putting its money where its mouth is," said Lowell Ungar, senior policy analyst at the Alliance to Save Energy, a Washington coalition of business, consumer, environmental and government leaders. "They are devoting real resources to trying to address the problem of climate change."
Lawmakers from both parties also see the public's heightened interest in climate change and energy security as an opportunity to steer federal money to their states through earmarks billed as environmentally friendly.
Money has been set aside for scores of home-state research initiatives and construction projects, including $1 million for a plug-in hybrid vehicle demonstration project at Southern California's South Coast Air Quality Management District.
"Green is becoming very fashionable," said Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), a senior appropriator who secured $500,000 for a geothermal demonstration project. "I think members are going to be challenged in their district" about how they are responding to concerns about climate change and U.S. dependence on foreign oil, he said.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), for example, got $500,000 for a fuel-cell project by Superprotonic, a Pasadena company started by Caltech scientists. "America needs to wean itself off of foreign oil," Schiff said in a statement. "This is as much a national security imperative as it is an environmental one. And federal support for innovative new technologies is part of the answer."
