WASHINGTON—Following the administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2022, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from ITIF Senior Fellow David M. Hart, director of ITIF’s clean energy innovation program:
The administration’s budget provides a much-needed boost in federal clean innovation programs. Sustained federal investment in research, development, demonstration, and early deployment of promising technologies is essential to generate new climate solutions, drive down the cost of clean energy, and accelerate decarbonization of the U.S. economy. Such investment strengthens the competitiveness of U.S. technology developers and manufacturers as well.
ITIF Senior Policy Analyst Colin Cunliff added:
The fiscal 2020 budget proposal includes $46.1 billion for the Department of Energy, a 10 percent increase from 2021, with more than $8 billion for DOE’s clean energy innovation programs. It would put the United States on a path to more than triple clean energy innovation investments by 2025, as ITIF recommended in Energizing America. The administration’s budget for energy innovation builds on the momentum of prior-year growth and successful passage of the Energy Act of 2020, the first reauthorization of many DOE programs in more than a decade.
Innovation policies that address climate change, while strengthening the economy and U.S. competitiveness, maintain broad bipartisan support. But federal funding for energy innovation has lagged far behind other national innovation missions, like health and defense. ITIF calls on Congress to adopt the administration’s proposal and support a federal innovation budget that is commensurate to challenges and opportunities of the global transition to clean energy.
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