Senators Criticize Energy Secretary: Loan Guarantee Program Lagging
Michael Coleman, Albuquerque Journal, N.M., Feb 8
Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici gave U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman a bipartisan blasting at a Senate hearing Wednesday for failing to implement loan guarantees to stimulate clean energy technologies
Bingaman, Democratic chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Domenici, the panel's top Republican, said the Energy Policy Act of 2005 provided for federal loan guarantees, but the DOE hasn't put them to use.
Bodman said DOE has been hamstrung by tight budgets, and that it doesn't want to "rush" to get the program in place. ...
This has been one of my biggest complaints about the DOE program, it is really holding up development of cellulosic ethanol by not building demonstration plants. I am glad that someone in power is trying to do something about it. Finding the money to do this is a simple matter of placing less emphasis on hydrogen and nuclear and more on clean energy technologies. They don't seem to be willing to take risks. One of the main reasons for government assistance is to provide aid when normal financing is unavailable because of risk. If we have to wait until the processes are commercial what is the point. Just look at some of my recent posts on cellulosic ethanol to see that companies are starting to build plants on their own (or investors) bucks. The better technologies are probably being used by the companies that are building, while the companies with less developed technologies are waiting for government support.
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