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White House Seeks 72 Percent Cut To Clean Energy Research (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The Trump administration has made it very clear that it is pro fossil fuels and has little interest in pushing programs the promote renewable energy. Now, the Washington Post reports that the president's proposed 2019 budget slashes funds for Energy Department programs focused on energy efficiency. While the proposal is just a jumping off point, the fact that it seeks to cut such funding by 72 percent underscores where the administration's interests lie and in which direction its policies will continue to go. The draft budget documents viewed by Washington Post staff showed that the president is looking to cut the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) budget to $575.5 million, down from the current $2.04 billion level. Included in the budget cuts are funds for programs researching fuel efficient vehicles, bioenergy technologies, solar energy technology and electric car technologies. Additionally, the draft budget proposal seeks to cut jobs, dropping staff levels from 680 down to 450. One EERE employee told the Washington Post, "It shows that we've made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value, and if anything, our value based on these numbers has dropped." The report notes that the Energy Department had requested less extreme spending cuts, but the Office of Management and Budget pushed for the more substantial ones found in the draft proposal. It's also worth noting that the proposal could still be changed before being released in February.
The Democrats might be bought and paid for, but at least their sponsors are leaders for the 21st century instead of the 19th.
It's a train wreck. Freight cars full of GOP everything.
This joke is in very poor taste. Shame on you.
A person is dead.
That's true. The government's role should be to make the market work efficiently, which means eliminating market failures such as monopolies and negative externalities.
But the federal government doesn't seem to be eager to internalize negative externalities by charging polluters the cost of air pollution, about $1,000 per person annually. Instead, the current administration has been doing the opposite by dismantling protections!
While it lasted, the government's investments in clean energy research were a good way to repay its negligence in making sure the market cleaned up after itself. Ending the research will only accelerate the environmental debt that our children and grandchildren will inherit from us.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
The DOE performed basic research in the 1970s that led directly to our leadership in today's fracking technology. Basic research funded by the government can be critical to a nation's technology and economic strength. As the articles note, it's not about choosing technologies, but helping them along. This is an important distinction, but it's clear that industry does not always fund basic research very well, esp. that with a long time to pay off. http://www.aei.org/publication... https://www.forbes.com/sites/l...
No. Whatever state the country is in it cannot be laid at Trump's feet after being in office for one year. The state of the nation is the end result of all of Trump's predecessors. The largest contributing factor to any downturn in the country can be laid at the feet of those who don't have a fucking clue about how the three branches of government actually work. The executive branch wields the least amount of power when it comes to making any meaningful changes in the country. If you are going to go protest something at least target your protest to the fuckers causing all the problems. The no term limit legislative branch combined with no limits on the amount of money can be funneled into it's members would be a damn good place to start. The legislative branch has created their own brand of internal government that go out of their way to limit the amount of transparency as possible. They have rules protecting themselves from public investigations of their conduct. This branch of government also controls the government purse which they use to payback their campaign donors.
The budget numbers leaked are only a starting point on the negotiations and the President cannot unilaterally impose his budget on the country. Only Congress has that power. The use of renewable energy in the country has been increasing every year for the past 15 years. Fossil fuel use has declined. Understand these figures have absolutely nothing to do with the government. Outside of renewable energy tax credits the government is contributing very little to the process. Any research efforts paid for by the government is nothing more than corporate welfare. Any research brought to market will not generate any government profits. The research will most definitely benefit the corporations who use the government funded research to slash there own R&D efforts. The government doesn't build anything. At most they are the worlds largest general contractor that doles out billions of dollars to their campaign supporters.
And those who have made billions of dollars in the fossil fuel industry are the same people positioning themselves to do the same thing with new energy markets in the future. The largest contributors of R&D investments for alternative energy sources are the top fossil fuel corporations in the world. The people running those companies are not stupid. Up until now it has been easier to generate fortunes in the fossil fuel sector while the profits for renewable energy sources are just know becoming a viable and profitable sector. No silly International bullshit environment treaties are going to magically create a cleaner environment. It is the rising profits in the commercial renewable energy industry. Electric vehicles will replace fossil fuel vehicles when the technology matures. Right now the 300 mile re-charge barrier, high vehicle costs, and the lack of a public and convenient recharging infrastructure will keep the number of electric cars from becoming a serious consumer choice.
It was DOD funding that brought us the internet protocol. This is a cut for the DOE. The argument was made to put the money that would be spent on the DOE into the DOD instead. Early computer research was also funded under the DOD. Interstate highways? A DOD project.
Seems to be a lot of people on Slashdot that think we need to cut military spending and put that into energy research instead. Where would that energy research be today without computers, the Internet, interstate highways?
Ironic indeed.
Sorry for your brain injury. I hope losing the ACA doesn't mean you can't still get treatment.
Maybe this is news to you, but a good 50% or more of education is controlled at the local level, through the local school board. That's made up of people voted in by the members in the community. Unless you're telling us that everyone in every state is voting in liberals for their local school board, your shrieking about the left is pretty stupid.
Another 25% or so of education is controlled by the state education agency, generally headed by a board and/or a state superintendent who's appointed by the governor of the state. Last I looked, all of the state governors weren't liberals, so it stands to reason that most of the state education agencies are not liberal.
Probably the last 25% is controlled by federal law, which, and this may surprise you, tends to be written by both republicans and democrats. The last major bill was ESSA, which was sponsored by Lamar Alexander and passed on a bipartisan vote.
Where do you get the idea that education is somehow owned by the left? Because the left is smart and the right is dumb?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Almost all of the incremental improvements I've seen with solar panel technology have come from private industry doing their own in-house R&D so their specific brand of panel can outperform the competition in some way. It wasn't a matter of the U.S. government doing all that R&D and then sharing it with industries so we could have better panels for all.
Actually, there are a lot of universities in the USA doing research on solar panels, and then publishing the research (sharing it with industry). Private companies do research too, but it doesn't make sense to ignore the university research which is quite extensive.
Examples of government funded research that made it to private sector:
Cell phones
Radio
Internet
Electron Guns (tube TV's)
LCD displays
Lithium batteries
Just from NASA alone:
Barcodes
Cordless power tools
MRI Machines
Microchips & Integrated Circuits
Quartz clocks
Smoke Detectors
Teflon
Velcro
Infrared thermometers
Ventricular Assist devices (Devices that make heart transplants possible)
Artificial limbs
LEDs
Scratch resistant glass
Aircraft anti icing systems (IE what makes planes able to fly in winter and as high as they do)
Radial tires with a life over 2000 miles
Chemical leak detection systems
Fire breaks & Fire resistant building materials
pressurized Fire extinguishers
Memory foam
Cordless vacuums
Freeze dried foods
Digital cameras
I'm tired of typing, and I'm not even 3% through the list.