On Friday, President Obama proposed the establishment of an Energy Security Trust, which would use $2 billion in royalties from offshore gas and oil leasing to fund clean energy technologies. The idea is based on a proposal suggested by Securing America’s Future Energy, a nonpartisan group headed by business and military leaders. The president stressed that innovation in advanced vehicles and fuel sources is necessary to break the cycle of spiking gas prices once and for all.
According to the Washington Post,
>”Obama first raised the idea in February’s State of the Union address, but Friday he put a price tag and more concrete details behind the proposal. The fund would support research into what the White House calls ‘cost-effective technologies,’ such as advanced vehicles that run on electricity, homegrown biofuels, fuel cells and domestically produced natural gas.”
The Energy Security Trust would be part of the Obama administration’s “all-of-the-above” strategy, which seeks to build a broad energy portfolio for the country, including “expanded oil and gas development; favorable tax treatment for nonpolluting sources like wind, solar and geothermal energy; loan guarantees for new nuclear plants; increased emphasis on energy efficiency; and research into long-term alternatives to fossil fuels,” according to the New York Times.
Sustainable America is a strictly non-partisan organization, but this new proposal is directly aligned with our mission to increase U.S. energy security and fuel efficiency. We support efforts at the national, state, and local level that advance electric vehicles, natural gas vehicles, and advanced biofuels, and therefore agree with the President’s plan.
