According to the
Christian Science Monitor, More than a dozen efficiency efforts will be cut or eliminated as a cost-cutting move.
A few years ago a little-known US Energy Department program helped produce a design technology for lightweight cars and trucks that in 2004 alone saved the nation 122 million barrels of oil, or about $9 billion.
Even without that breakthrough, the tiny Industrial Technologies Program routinely saves the United States $7 worth of energy for each dollar it spends, proponents say.
So, with energy prices spiking and President Bush pushing for more energy research, the ITP would seem a natural candidate for more funding. In fact, its budget is set to get chopped by a third from its 2005 level. It's one of more than a dozen energy-efficiency efforts that the Energy Department plans to trim or eliminate in a $115 million cost-saving move.
...the Bush administration is anxious to fund its new Advanced Energy Initiative - long-term research into nuclear, coal, wind, solar, and hydrogen power. But to accomplish that, it is cutting lesser-known programs like ITP whose payoffs are far more near-term.
Let me get this straight, we borrow money from the Chinese to give tax-cuts to rich people and we borrow money to wage wars that didn't need to be fought, but we can't afford to borrow money that pays a 700% return on investment ($7 back for each $1 invested)? These are the decisions from pin-striped Republican business types? I can't believe that. These ass backwards policies are coming from fossil fuel interest groups that don't want to save energy. They want window-dressing programs, that look like the government is doing something but won't pay-off for 20 years.