President Obama reaffirmed his continuing support for clean energy in his 2014 fiscal year budget, proposing in some cases major boosts in smart grid-related spending. EVs, solar and wind power, biofuels and energy efficiency incentive programs are among the big beneficiaries in the proposed budget. via Smart Grid: Obama budget proposes major clean energy investments.
President Barack Obama proposed a big boost in vehicle research funding in his 2014 budget proposal that he delivered to Congress on Wednesday. He also called for more money for high-speed rail, cellulosic ethanol and boosting manufacturing. Obama wants to hike the Energy Department’s vehicle research budget by 75 percent to $575 million and create Continue reading →
Calling him “another brilliant scientist,” President Obama named Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) theoretical physicist Ernest Moniz as his choice to replace Steven Chu as Energy Secretary. At MIT Moniz has headed up the school’s Energy Initiative where the Washington Post says he oversaw reports on almost every aspect of energy. via Smart Grid: New Continue reading →
Progress aside, we still need a comprehensive national energy strategy insists the Business Roundtable (BRT), a group representing CEOs from major U.S. companies. BRT just released a report of its own – Taking Action on Energy: A CEO Vision for America’s Energy Future – which it says is the national energy strategy we need. In the report, BRT Continue reading →
In last evening’s State of the Union Address, President Obama pledged his commitment to advancing clean energy and investments in domestic energy. “No area holds more promise than our investments in American energy. After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future,” the President said. While many can Continue reading →
Government agencies tasked with U.S. energy policy are “like an orchestra without a conductor,” says former North Dakota Senator Bryan Dorgan, now part of a panel of experts urging the second Obama administration to change the way it approaches energy. Dorgan, a Democrat, is part of a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) energy project that’s hammering Continue reading →
President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney faced off at New York State’s Hofstra University October 17 with polls tightening and each man eager to make their appeals to the country’s remaining undecided voters still available in the 2012 election’s last few weeks. While the first presidential debate saw little mention of energy as Continue reading →
Given the distance on energy issues articulated by their campaigns, one would think that the prospects for the utility industry under a President Romney would be radically different than those under a second-term President Obama. There are notable differences (e.g., on subsidies for wind and solar), but for the immediate future, those differences would not Continue reading →
In the aftermath of the failed attempt to pass federal cyber security legislation through Congress last month, the White House is preparing to issue an Executive Order to help protect the country’s critical infrastructure from dangerous attacks. Senator Susan Collins, who co-sponsored the proposed legislation with Senator Joe Lieberman, has also continued to press the Continue reading →
Washington, America’s power center, recently experienced life without power—the kind that gets generated, not the kind that gets wielded. After a nasty storm knocked out the Beltway’s electricity for days during a heat wave, power brokers of the political type complained: Didn’t President Obama promise a smarter, more reliable grid? Yes, he did. And the Continue reading →
The Obama administration today unveiled plans to boost US offshore wind power by opening up four new wind-leasing regions for wind turbine power generation. Covering an expanse of nearly 800 square miles, the edges of the four zones would range from seven miles away from New Jersey’s shore to 37 miles off the coast of Continue reading →
If there’s one thing the Department of Energy and the Obama administration can do to push clean energy, it’s make sure the necessary transmission lines get built. Miles of transmission lines needed to connect solar and wind farms in the desert can often take years to decades to get built and are one of the Continue reading →
US President Barack Obama proposed on Valentine’s Day to boost funds for clean energy research and deployment in his 2012 budget by slashing subsidies for fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. The announcement comes at a time of great sensitivity on issues related to government support for clean energy, following the US launching Continue reading →
Among the many difficult issues Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao will confront when they meet this week stands one possible bright spot: collaboration on clean energy technology. It represents a critical, urgent need, an enormous market opportunity for both nations and an area of potential common interest – if we can just avoid being our Continue reading →
The administration of President Obama has released a list of “100 Recovery Act Projects That Are Changing America.” Many of the projects involve solar energy, vehicle electrification and electric grid modernization, as well as wind turbine research and manufacturing. Others benefit the military, police, rural communities and the oil and natural gas industry. Although expenditures Continue reading →
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus — has been marketed as a jobs bill, and that’s how it’s been judged. The White House says it has saved or created about 3 million jobs, helping avoid a depression and end a recession. Republicans mock it as a Big Continue reading →
