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President's 2013 Energy Budget Seeks $2.27 Billion for Efficiency, Renewables by Staff Clean Edge, February 16, 2012

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu recently detailed President Barack Obama's $27.2 billion Fiscal Year 2013 budget request for the Department of Energy, emphasizing the President's commitment to an all-of-the-above energy strategy. For the DOE's Office Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the President requested $2.27 billion. The budget request for the Department is part of the President's blueprint for an American economy that it states is built to last based on American energy that is cleaner, cheaper, and focused on new jobs. "The United States is competing in a global race for the clean energy jobs of the future," said Secretary Chu. "The choice we face as a nation is simple: do we want the clean energy technologies of tomorrow to be invented in America by American innovators, made by American workers and sold around the world, or do we want to concede those jobs to our competitors? We can and must compete for those jobs."

Some highlights in the FY 2013 budget include:

• $60 million to perform research on energy storage systems and devise new approaches for battery storage;
• $770 million for nuclear energy, including $65 million for cost-shared awards to support first-of-a-kind small modular reactors and $60 million for nuclear waste R&D that aligns with the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future;
• $276 million for research and development of advanced fossil fuel power systems and carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies;
• $350 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to continue support for early-stage research projects that could deliver clean energy technologies;
• $120 million to support the Energy Frontier Research Centers and $140 million for the five existing Energy Innovation Hubs and to establish a new hub to focus on grid systems and the tie between transmission and distribution systems;
• $11.5 billion to maintain U.S. nuclear deterrence capabilities and provid for the Navy's nuclear propulsion needs; and
• $2.5 billion to support NNSA's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program.

• Eliminating 4.6 million gross square feet of excess real property, over 3 million sq. feet more than the FY 2011 target;
• Reducing its time-to-hire new employees by 45 percent; and
• Reducing, consolidating or moving 40 percent of its websites to the Energy.gov platform in order to try and increase communication and transparency, and streamline website infrastructure processes, which might save more than $10 million a year.