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January 13, 2000; Thursday 5:34 PM Eastern Time
SECTION: Washington - general news
LENGTH: 397 words
HEADLINE: Clinton Wants Biofuel Production
BYLINE: JENNIFER LOVEN
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
Aiming to replace fossil fuels with cleaner, renewable energy sources, President Clinton is proposing to more than double federal spending on efforts to turn corn husks, chicken droppings and other waste into power for cars and buildings, White House officials said Thursday.
In his fiscal 2001 budget request to Congress next month, Clinton will ask for $439 million to fund research and grants to aid the production of ''bioenergy'' and other products such as plastics and chemicals created from agricultural waste.
That is $243 million more than the $196 million Congress approved for similar efforts in the current year, said Paul Bledsoe, spokesman for the White House Climate Change Task Force.
The administration hopes to boost the commercial viability of alternative fuels such as ethanol toward the president's goal, set in August, of tripling bio-based energy use by 2010. The key is producing the fuel from agricultural waste or specialty crops such as switchgrass in addition to using grain, such as the corn kernels from which ethanol is primarily made now.
The administration also envisions the use of such waste as an energy source itself, without conversion into a liquid gasoline additive.
Supporters say there are four key benefits: reducing dirty emissions that contribute to global warming; turning waste into marketable products; lowering American dependence on foreign oil; and boosting the struggling farm economy with a new income stream.
''These technologies allow us to use the whole plant, and that is the huge breakthrough,'' Bledsoe said. ''What were formerly known as waste products now have significant market value.''
Biomass energy, generated mostly from lumberyard waste, is currently about 3 percent of the total U.S. energy supply.
A spokesman for GOP Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said new congressional authority may be needed for some of what Clinton wants to do. Still, he welcomed the president's commitment to the promotion of bioenergy.
''There have been major breakthroughs in the technology,'' Andy Fisher said. ''So this is sort of the right time to strike.''
Lugar has his own legislation promoting ''biomass'' development that would authorize $300 million over six years for research. Approved in the Senate, it has received a cooler reception in the House.
LOAD-DATE: January 13, 2000
March 19, 2004 Friday
EDITION: THE WEEK AHEAD
LENGTH: 101 words
EVENT: FORUM - PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE (PPI)
SUBJECT: Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) holds a forum on "Kicking America's Oil Habit with Clean Cars."
LOCATION: PPI, 600 Pennsylvania Institute SE, Washington, D.C. -- March 19, 2004
PARTICIPANTS: Greg Dana, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; Dan Lashof, Natural Resources Defense Council; Roger Ballentine, Green Strategies, Inc. and Jan Mazurek, PPI
CONTACT: 202-547-0001; http://www.ppionline.org
LOAD-DATE: March 14, 2004
A classic example of, in Reagan's words, Washinton subsidizing problems, not solving them.