WASHINGTON — Under a 2005 energy bill signed by President Bush, an array of programs was promised more money.
But when Bush unveiled his new budget Monday, some of these programs -- including energy assistance for low-income families and energy efficiency -- lost out.
The promises of more federal dollars clashed with fiscal reality as a deficit-minded Bush sent his first budget to a Democratic-controlled Congress. The president's spending proposals are certain to provoke fights as energy policy moves back to prominence on Capitol Hill amid heightened concerns about global warming and U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Bill Prindle, acting executive director of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, said Monday that the president's budget "sacrifices important efficiency programs."
"Efficiency is the first fuel in the race for energy security," Prindle said, urging Congress to scrap the president's proposals. "If we don't get our energy demand under control, none of the president's or anyone else's clean-energy proposals will be able to catch up."
Although the proposed $1.24-billion budget for the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is slightly higher than the administration proposed in its last budget, it represents a cut of $237 million, or 16%, from the amount proposed for the current year in a bill moving through Congress.
"The good news is that Congress has signaled its intent to make energy-efficiency programs a priority, notwithstanding the budget request of the administration," said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy.
Bush proposed more money for some of his favorite initiatives: promoting technology to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, and for ways to revive the nuclear-power industry, which has been at a virtual standstill since the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island reactor in Harrisburg, Pa.
And he followed through on his State of the Union proposal to reduce gasoline consumption, calling for more spending to develop home-grown alternative fuels -- such as ethanol made from wood chips, switch grass and other biomass. That proposal appears to enjoy bipartisan support in Congress, especially from farm-state lawmakers.
Drawing the most criticism were proposals to cut the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to about $1.8 billion, from the nearly $2.2 billion expected to be allocated in 2007, and to cut the weatherization program -- which helps the poor insulate their homes -- from the proposed $242 million for the current fiscal year to $144 million.
