The Department of Energy’s loan guarantees for clean energy projects are on the chopping block, as lawmakers finalize negotiations for the 2011 budget deal this week.
Since it was signed into law by President George Bush in 2005, the program has guaranteed roughly $18 billion dollars for 20 projects, and another 25 projects are in line to receive guarantees in the near future. But those applications could be cancelled if House Republicans have their way.
"The House proposal will cost us tens of thousands of renewable energy jobs today and threaten our energy future," Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said in a statement. "We need to tackle our budget deficit, but killing American clean energy jobs and worldwide market opportunities will only set our recovery back."
Cantwell also noted that the loan guarantees have leveraged private-sector dollars into a total investment of more than $40 billion.
Federal energy innovation investments were cut 10% ($325 million) relative to 2010 funding levels. They are funded at levels 14% below President Obama’s FY2011 budget request and 30% below his 2012 budget request.
The budget for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which supports advanced manufacturing and technology research, are almost 19% below the Administration’s FY2011 requests.
Overall, the spending bill cut about $1.05 billion from the combined budgets of these non-defense research agencies, while President Obama’s FY11 budget requests would have increased them by about $2 billion.
The largest cuts are from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which is engaged in the research, development, demonstration and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies – decreased by $179 million, or 17%.
EPA Cuts
The EPA’s budget will be slashed $1.6 billion (16%) – the largest cut of any agency. That’s half of what House Republicans wanted.
According to the NY Times, 75% of the EPA cuts, totaling $1.19 billion, would come from State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STAG), which mainly fund water infrastructure upgrades and state plans to comply with new federal rules. That includes a $997 million cut from two revolving funds that finance local drinking water projects and efforts to clean up polluted bodies of water.
It also includes a $191 million cut to regional programs, such as the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which covers the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound.
The cuts will hurt state agencies, which are already struggling from years of state budget setbacks.
That means, while Republicans seek to reduce the size of the federal government, they are doing it by taking money from state and local agencies.
It isn’t fair that "Congress asks the states to carry out the will of these environmental statutes, and then savages the funding required to do these tasks," Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, told the NY Times.
And while the deal preserve the right of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, it removes funds EPA scientists need to design the regulations.
Other Environmental Cuts
It blocks funds for the Dept of Interior to enact its "wildlands policy," handing western Republicans a major victory. The policy, which prevents energy development on critical lands, allows the Bureau of Land Management to create conservation designations on federal land without additional legislation from Congress.
The bill prohibits the use of funds to set up NOAA’s climate service.
Cuts Energy and Water programs by $1.7 billion (5%) below FY2010 levels and 10% below the FY2011 request. The plan cuts funding for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by $438 million (roughly 20%) from FY2010, and cuts Defense Environmental Clean-up $638 million (11%).
The bill eliminates new funding for High Speed Rail and rescinds $400 million in previous year funds, for a total reduction of $2.9 billion from FY2010 levels.
Final Bill
The deal provides just over $1 trillion in spending for the last six months of the year, a cut of roughly $40 billion from FY2010 levels.
The cuts focus largely on the "non-security" portion of the federal discretionary budget, while leaving the "security" portion (Defense, Veterans) virtually untouched, and provides "real" (inflation-adjusted) growth for the Pentagon’s annual base budget of roughly 1%.
Non-security spending is cut an average of 10%, with all non-security programs subjected to a 0.2% "across the board" cut.
Programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and federal assistance programs to state and local law enforcement, experienced much larger cuts.
Here’s the Deal:
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