Bush administration cuts energy plans

Conservationists are reportedly upset by a Bush administration plan to reduce the budgets of several energy-efficiency research programs.

Included is a U.S. Energy Department program that in 2004 saved 122 million barrels of oil, worth about $9 billion, The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday.

Also being subject to spending cuts is the government's Industrial Technologies Program that saves the United States $7 worth of energy for each dollar it spends, ITP proponents told the newspaper.

Those projects are among about a dozen Energy Department efforts that will be trimmed or eliminated in a $115 million cost-saving move.

The reductions, designed to help the government's budget problems, are being implemented despite the administration's stated eagerness to fund research into alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, nuclear and hydrogen power.

"This is the worst time to be cutting these programs," William Prindle, deputy director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a Washington think tank, told the Monitor. "At this point in time, with high energy prices and pressures, you'd think maybe we'd want to invest in a suite of energy-efficiency programs that make a dent right away."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International