It’s over a week old, but it’s still worth reading Michael Stebbins’ piece in Seed about the cool things coming out of the EPA’s Clean Automotive Technology program — including the nifty "hydraulic hybrid" UPS truck — and Congress’ short-sighted refusal to fund it adequately:
… between 2002 and 2006, the President’s annual budget requests and Congress had tag-teamed the Clean Automotive Technology program, slashing its budget in half to $10 million per year for the 35 engineers working to reinvent the engine. In his budget request for 2007 — released just after his State of the Union address, in which he announced his Advanced Energy Initiative to decrease our oil imports from the Middle East as much as 75% by 2025 — the President asked Congress to cut the budget for the program to a paltry $3.6 million.
Jerks.
