Follow-up.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Anderson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: Important, Congress set to gut renewable energy programs
Importance: High
Ive just
returned from a meeting at NREL (where I am a small contractor). The
lab expects a 40% cut in the Wind Powering America program.From: Bob Anderson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: Important, Congress set to gut renewable energy programs
Importance: High
Bob Anderson
On 11/16/05 1:45 PM, "Van Jamison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
FYI
----- Original Message -----
From: Patrick Judge <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 7:50 AM
Subject: Fwd: Important, Congress set to gut renewable energy programs
>Congress to Terminate National Bioenergy Center
>Congress is getting ready this week to terminate the National Bioenergy
>Research Center and gut the Wind Research Program at the National Renewable
>Energy Laboratory (NREL). NREL researchers who are CRES members sounded the
>alarm over the weekend after finding out on Friday that many of them may be
>out of work next month.
>
>Here is what I can piece together about what happened last week. On Tuesday
>the House of Representatives passed the House and Senate Conference
>Committee markup of the Energy Water and Development Appropriation Bill for
>2006. The bill keeps federal funding for renewable energy research level
>with last year's spending.
>
>Unfortunately, it more than doubled the earmarks that take money out of the
>Wind Energy and Bioenergy Research Programs and direct it elsewhere.
>Earmarks are when individual representatives direct funding to particular
>projects in their districts. With passage of the Energy Bill earlier this
>year, these earmarks have been in the forefront of the news. In fact, the
>American Solar Energy Society said the Energy Bill was so full of pork
>barrel spending that ASES did not endorse it.
>
>Congressional leaders usually wait until the conference committee is meeting
>behind closed doors to introduce earmarks. They emerge as part of a much
>larger bill that is hundreds of pages long.
>
>It appears that in this case, the House of Representatives voted on this
>bill without many of
>its members having had time to read it.
>
>It took NREL staff a couple of days of read through the pile of paper and
>figure out what it will mean for the research programs. Some of the earmarks
>were listed together to support state initiatives, and others were buried in
>different portions of the massive spending bill. This year these added to
>$62 million in total, more than two thirds of the entire "research and
>development" budget for bioenergy. Then the staff had to calculate DOE's
>contractual obligations to its industry partnerships and the 10% cut that
>the agency takes from all programs to pay the salaries of its staff.
>
>Staff of the National Bioenergy Center, which number more than 90 people,
>were told Friday afternoon that all that the funding that would be left was
>sufficient only to cover their severance checks. The National Wind
>Technology Center is facing similar, severe cutbacks. It seems incredible,
>but Congress is getting ready to gut the two research programs in renewable
>energy technologies that have enjoyed the most success and commercial
>development just at a time when fossil fuel prices are their highest level
>in history. In the case of creating transportation fuels from biomass, these
>technologies represent our greatest near-term hope of
>reducing imports or fossil fuels.
>
>The Senate is scheduled to take up the appropriations bill today or
>tomorrow. Please call Senators Allard and Salazar today and ask them to vote
>no on the appropriations bill from the Energy and Water Committee. Tell them
>that renewable energy R&D is one of this country's best investments.
>
>- Wayne Allard: call the Colorado office at 303-220-7414 or the Washington
>office at 202-224-5941, or send an email message at:
>http://allard.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactHome
>
>- Ken Salazar: call the Colorado office at 303-455-7600 or the Washington
>office at 202-224-5852, or send an email message at:
>http://salazar.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
>
>Russ Doty, CEO
>New World WindPower LLC
>PO Box 1734
>Billings, MT 59103-1734
>406-656-2763
>email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>web site: http://www.newworldwindpower.com
>
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