Energy Secretary, Congress Collide Over Hydrogen Car Funds

By STEPHEN POWER
WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to kill research and development on cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells, but a spending bill approved by the House this month and another scheduled for a Senate vote this week would restore funding for the program.
Mr. Chu has said that hydrogen fuel cells are an impractical technology for vehicles, partly because they would require the creation of a network of hydrogen fueling stations.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu's efforts to overhaul federal energy research are encountering resistance in Congress, where lawmakers are moving to give him money for projects that he doesn't support while withholding funds for others he says are critical. Energy reporter Stephen Power explains.
A Nobel-Prize winning physicist and former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which conducts federal energy research, Mr. Chu argues that improved internal-combustion engines and plug-in electric vehicles are more realistic technologies for cutting oil consumption over the next 20 to 30 years.
Former President George W. Bush championed the development of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, saying they could reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The federal government has spent roughly $1.5 billion since 2001 on hydrogen fuel-cell research.
Among those fighting to keep federally funded hydrogen-vehicle research alive are General Motors Corp., Daimler AG, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. The companies, which are in various stages of developing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, say the U.S. needs a broad range of technologies to combat climate change.
Some lawmakers fear cuts in hydrogen-car subsidies would translate into job losses at university and corporate labs in their states.
"The department's made a significant mistake here," Sen. Byron Dorgan (D., N.D.) told Mr. Chu at a recent hearing of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development. Mr. Dorgan, the panel's chairman, has steered millions of federal dollars over the past five years to the National Center for Hydrogen Technology at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

Mr. Dorgan acknowledged that hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are "not near term." But he said that "if somebody is going to look at things that are...essential in the longer term, who but the Department of Energy should do that?"
The spending bill to be voted on by the Senate this week added $204 million for research and development across various hydrogen technologies, compared with the $68.2 million the administration had sought for work focused mainly on near-term fuel-cell applications, such as power supplies for buildings and forklifts.
Overall, the House and Senate spending bills would fund the Energy Department at roughly the levels called for by President Barack Obama. But they greatly scale back funding for Mr. Chu's $280 million plan to create eight new research-and-development labs, staffed by scientists from multiple disciplines.
Dubbed "energy innovation hubs," the labs would focus on what Mr. Chu argues should be the Energy Department's research-and-development priorities, such as making solar power competitive with fossil fuels and creating energy-efficient building designs.
Mr. Chu has said the labs would function as "little Bell Lablets," a reference to AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he conducted much of the work for which he won the Nobel Prize.
But the House bill would provide Mr. Chu with only $35 million, enough for just one hub. "It's not that it's a bad idea, but the implementation is something we need to see," Rep. Ed Pastor (D., Ariz.) said. "What you don't want is duplication."
The White House said in a statement Monday that the administration "strongly opposes" lawmakers' attempts to cut funding for the energy-innovation hubs. The labs "will advance highly promising areas of energy science and technology from their early states," the statement said.
A third bill, passed last week in the House, authorizes the Energy Department to spend $30 million annually for five years on research and development of natural-gas vehicles, even though the Obama administration hasn't sought money for such activities. The legislation was written by Rep. John Sullivan (R., Okla.), whose state is home to Chesapeake Energy Corp. and other large natural-gas producers.
Mr. Sullivan said the legislation will contribute to the fight against climate change, citing research that shows natural-gas vehicles produce significantly lower greenhouse-gas emissions than gasoline-powered vehicles.
Mr. Chu has said using natural gas as a transportation fuel "will put a strain on natural gas for industrial uses, for heating, and other things."
Write to Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com