The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) issued a preliminary assessment of the Administration’s FY 2008 budget request, finding that the request continues to shrink funding for the energy efficiency programs that should be front-line priorities in the nation’s energy agenda.
“The President can’t increase our energy security by continuing to cut the clean energy budget,” said Acting Executive Director Bill Prindle. “This request should be dead on arrival in Congress, because it cuts 2007 spending for efficiency and renewables by 16%, and the efficiency budget alone could fall by up to a third.”
The total FY 2008 request for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at the Department of Energy is $1.236 billion. The funding level of FY 2007 for EERE is $1.473 billion based on Congress’ recent continuing resolution decision. Thus, the request represents a $237 million (16%) cut from 2007 levels.
The request also sacrifices important efficiency programs to fund a few Administration priorities. For example, low-income weatherization is cut $98 million, industrial efficiency programs $13 million, vehicles technologies $3 million, and federal energy management $3 million in order to support increases in hydrogen ($59 million), solar ($66 million), and biomass ($90 million). The request also cuts about $46 million from distributed energy systems in the Office of Electricity budget. All of these comparisons are from 2006 levels as DOE’s program allocation for the 2007 budget has not yet been released.
The vehicle technologies program is the home of work to move forward on hybrids and diesels, and to increase heavy truck efficiency. These are the steps that can move us toward oil security in the next decade, yet the Administration proposes no additional funding for the program.
“Budgets whether for individuals, businesses or governments reflect priorities. The president’s FY ’08 budget request clearly signals that energy efficiency is not among the administration’s high-priority programs,” said Alliance to Save Energy President Kateri Callahan. “This is particularly disheartening given that energy efficiency represents the most cost-effective and quickest way to tackle two issues that the president declared of utmost national importance in the State of the Union: to reduce our dangerous dependence on oil and to ‘confront the serious challenge of global climate change,'” she said.
“The good news is that Congress has signaled its intent to make energy-efficiency programs a priority, notwithstanding the administration’s budget request. The House has adopted a continuing resolution (CR) for the current fiscal year that adds $300 million for energy-efficiency and renewable energy programs over what was provided in FY ’06, and the Senate is poised to do the same,” Callahan said.
“Last year the average American family paid more than $5,000 in home and vehicle energy costs a 32 percent increase from two years earlier,” Callahan continued. “We need to save every kilowatt hour of electricity, cubic foot of natural gas, and barrel of oil we can; yet if Congress were to ratify the president’s request for FY ’08, funding for federal energy-efficiency programs would be roughly 37 percent lower, after inflation, than fiscal year 2002 federal funding for these programs.”
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