By James Osborne

May 12, 2016 - Proposed cuts to research into clean-burning coal at the U.S. Department of Energy drew sharp criticism from Republicans Wednesday.

As the Obama administration increases funding to expand research into carbon-free forms of energy like wind power and modernizing the power grid, it wants to also reduce how much the government spends on technologies around fossil fuels.

“It is clear fossil energy is not the priority of the Obama administration,” Rep. Randy Weber, R-League City, said at a hearing in the House Science, Space and Technology Committee Wednesday. “The budget for fossil energy is cut year after year.”

Under the proposed budget for 2017 released by the White House earlier this year, the Department of Energy’s budget for fossil fuel research would reduce 5 percent from this year to $600 million.

Within that budget, research into carbon capture and gasification – in which coal is converted to gas before being burned for electricity – would decrease 3 percent to $368 million.

Research into what the department terms unconventional fossil energy – currently pegged at $20 million – would be reduced to zero.

At the same time, funding for research into energy efficiency and renewable forms of energy would increase 40 percent to $2.9 billion. That follows a commitment by President Obama to world leaders in December that the United States would increase funding for research to combat climate change.

Testifying before the House committee Wednesday, Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Chris Smith said the department was focused on developing technology that the industry had no interest or financial incentive to develop itself.

“These [clean coal] technologies are important and I think we are putting the right effort into them,” he said. “The function of our office is to deploy the technologies for the clean energy economy of the future.”