Feb 24, 2020 - Energy & Environment

Private-sector heavyweights push for more energy R&D federal spending

Expand chart
Reproduced from AAAS via the American Energy Innovation Council; Chart: Axios Visuals

The chart above shows how the share of federal spending on energy research and development has largely declined over decades.

Driving the news: It's one of the data points in a report last week urging Congress to greatly expand the federal programs that help develop and commercialize climate-friendly tech.

What they're saying: Recommendations from the American Energy Innovation Council — a group of private-sector heavyweights including Bill Gates and Royal Dutch Shell chairman Chad Holliday — include...

  • Boosting funding for the Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program (ARPA-E) to $1 billion per year, which is over twice current levels.
  • Also expanding funding for DOE's Office of Technology Transitions and its lab-embedded entrepreneurship program.
  • Creating a federal Clean Energy Deployment Administration and transforming today's renewable energy tax incentives into a technology-neutral credit that would support newer technologies.

Go deeper: 2020 climate plans have lofty goals for energy research and development

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Axios
Updated 1 hour ago - Politics & Policy

Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 10 p.m. ET: 32,471,119 — Total deaths: 987,593 — Total recoveries: 22,374,557 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 10 p.m. ET: 7,032,524 — Total deaths: 203,657 — Total recoveries: 2,727,335 — Total tests: 99,483,712 — Map.
  3. States: "We’re not closing anything going forward": Florida fully lifts COVID restaurant restrictions — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam tests positive for coronavirus.
  4. Health: Young people accounted for 20% of cases this summer.
  5. Business: Coronavirus has made airports happier places —The expiration of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance looms.
  6. Education: Where bringing students back to school is most risky.
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Biden pushes unity message in new TV wave

A fresh Joe Biden ad, "New Start," signals an effort by his campaign to make unity a central theme, underscoring a new passage in his stump speech that says he won't be a president just for Democrats but for all Americans.

What he's saying: The ad — which began Friday night, and is a follow-up to "Fresh Start" — draws from a Biden speech earlier in the week in Manitowoc, Wisconsin:

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Trump prepares to announce Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court replacement

Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Photo: Matt Cashore/Notre Dame University via Reuters

President Trump is preparing to nominate federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana, a favorite of both the social conservative base and Republican elected officials, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Republican sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: Barrett would push the already conservative court further and harder to the right, for decades to come, on the most important issues in American politics — from abortion to the limits of presidential power. If confirmed, she would give conservatives a 6-3 majority on the high court.

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