NAT’L ENERGY POLICY NEEDED – GAO

House Bill Would Cut Clean Energy and Efficiency Programs by 40 Percent; Appropriations bill puts renewable energy and efficiency funding about $1 billion below current levels, roughly equaling dollars doled out in 2005
Elizabeth McGowan, June 21, 2011 (SolveClimate News via Reuters)

"…In the midst of this season's budget travails, the Government Accountability Office has issued [Climate Change: Improvements Needed to Clarify National Priorities and Better Align Them with Federal Funding Decisions] recommending what likely seems obvious to even casual observers of congressional politics — the need to replace a piecemeal approach to climate and energy with a national plan…[T]he GAO spells out a two-step solution that is probably easier written on paper than actually accomplished.

"First, federal authorities need to set clear strategic climate change priorities that identify specific roles and responsibilities of key federal entities involved in the enterprise."

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"Second, those same authorities have to assess how effective they are now at not only defining and reporting federal climate change funding but also lining up that funding with agreed-upon priorities. Those practices will have to be polished so Congress and the public can fully grasp how the government spends money designated for climate change."

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"The trick is that before embarking on step one, entities that fall under the executive branch such as the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, the Office and Management and Budget, and Office of Science and Technology Policy have to consult with Congress and collaborate with relevant federal agencies and interagency coordinating bodies.

"And that looks to be a daunting challenge if those tasked with GAO's recommendations refer to the baffling maze of a chart…[in the report showing the] federal climate change program as complex and crosscutting…"