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Q: Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE Obama addressed a crowd at the Argonne National Laboratory urging Americans to continue investing in scientific research. VPC 
  
 President Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on March 15, 2013 enroute to Illinois. The president is touring the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois, where he will discuss energy policies. (Photo: JEWEL SAMAD AFP/Getty Images) Story Highlights Obama urges Congress to set aside $2 billion for Energy Security Trust 
  
 The announcement was made at Argonne National Laboratory 
  
 A new EPA report shows significant progress has been over the last five years improving fuel economy 
  
 WASHINGTON — President Obama called on Congress Friday to set aside $2 billion over the next decade to support research of advanced vehicle technology as part of an effort to dramatically improve the fuel efficiency of cars and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. 
  
 Obama, who first floated the idea of establishing an Energy Security Trust in his State of the Union address, detailed his proposal in a speech at the Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago on Friday. 
  
 Argonne was chosen, in part, because the laboratory has been at the forefront of research of high-tech vehicle technology. 
  
 Obama wants to support research of "cost-effective technologies" of vehicles that run on electricity, homegrown biofuels, fuel cells and natural gas. The new program, which would require Congressional approval, would be paid for through royalties generated by offshore drilling of oil and gas development of the outer continental shelf. 
  
 Obama reiterated his administration's goal that by the middle of the next decade,cars will go twice as far on a gallon of gas. 
  
 "By investing in our energy security, we are helping our businesses succeed and we're creating good middle class jobs right here in America," Obama said. "The only way to really break this cycle of spiking oil prices -- the only way to break that cycle for for good -- is to shift our cars entirely...off oil." 
  
 Obama noted that the Washington advocacy group Securing America's Future Energy, which includes a non-partisan coalition of CEOs and retired generals and admirals, has called for establishing a trust. 
  
 "These leaders came together around a simple idea," Obama said. "Much of our energy is drawn from lands and waters that we the public own together. What they supposed is, let's take some of our oil and gas revenues from public land and put it toward research that will benefit the public, so we can support American ingenuity without adding a dime to our deficit." 
  
 The president's proposal, however, is being met with a measure of skepticism from some GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner. Some Republican lawmakers have called for expand drilling to Artic National Wildlife Refuge, something that Obama doesn't support. 
  
 "For this proposal to even be plausible, oil and gas leasing on federal land would need to increase dramatically," said Brendan Buck, a Boehner spokesman. "Unfortunately, this administration has consistently slowed, delayed and blocked American energy production." 
  
 Still, the White House is optimistic they can muster bipartisan support for the plan. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, also suggested she could support the proposal the day after the State of the Union message, calling it "an idea I may agree with." 
  
 The stepped-up push for establishing the trust comes as the Environmental Protection Agency releases a new report on Friday on progress that's been made over the five years in improving fuel economy. Carbon emissions have decreased by 13% and fuel economy values have increased by 16%, according to the new EPA report. 
  
 The report also notes that consumers have twice as many hybrid and diesel vehicle choices. 
  
 In a speech before the Chicago Council of Global Affairs last month, Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin described the Energy Security Trust as a crucial part of Obama's strategy to wean the U.S. from its reliance on foreign oil. 
  
 "We've made considerable progress over the last few years to decrease our dependence on foreign energy," Wolin said, according to prepared remarks of the speech. "And we can make even more progress by investing in battery technology and wind and solar power; by speeding up new permits to expand natural gas production; and by creating a new Energy Security Trust fund to get our cars and trucks off oil completely." 
  
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/YvSRGA ||||| ARGONNE, Ill. — Warning that the United States risks falling behind in the international race to develop alternative energy, President Obama on Friday proposed diverting $2 billion in revenue from federal oil and gas royalties over the next decade to pay for research on advanced vehicles. 
  
 Mr. Obama toured a vehicle research facility at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago and then spoke to employees about his plan, first proposed in his State of the Union address last month, to use oil and gas money to find ways to replace hydrocarbons as the primary fuel for cars, trucks and buses. 
  
 The president said the nation was experiencing one of its regular spikes in gasoline prices, in effect a tax on every American household. 
  
 “The only way to really break this cycle of spiking gas prices, the only way to break that cycle for good, is to shift our cars entirely — our cars and trucks — off oil,” the president said. “It’s not just about saving money. It’s also about saving the environment. But it’s also about our national security.” 
  
 “It’s not a Democratic idea or a Republican idea,” he added. “It’s just a smart idea.” 
  
 Perched on a platform behind Mr. Obama as he spoke were three alternative fuel vehicles now for sale in the United States: a Chevrolet Volt and a Ford C-Max Energi, both plug-in electric hybrids, and a Honda Civic outfitted to run on natural gas. 
  
 He spoke inside a building housing a giant X-ray chamber known as the Advanced Photon Source, described by Argonne officials as the brightest source of X-rays in the Western Hemisphere. The facility allows scientists to explore materials on a nanoscale and to study ways to improve engine combustion. 
  
 The idea of devoting some oil and gas royalties for alternative energy research has some support from both parties and from business leaders, but it is likely to encounter strong resistance from Congressional Republicans, who have been critical of Mr. Obama’s spending on nontraditional vehicle technologies. The White House says that the money will come from growth in royalties from leases on offshore oil and gas fields over the next decade, and that it represents a tiny fraction of the overall federal research and development budget. 
  
 Mr. Obama said he was seeking to build as broad an energy portfolio as possible for the country, with expanded oil and gas development; favorable tax treatment for nonpolluting sources like wind, solar and geothermal energy; loan guarantees for new nuclear plants; increased emphasis on energy efficiency; and research into long-term alternatives to fossil fuels. 
  
 Mr. Obama has given up on moving comprehensive climate change legislation through Congress and has ruled out a carbon tax as a way to finance the development of alternative energy sources, so he is pursuing smaller projects that do not require new sources of revenue. The Energy Security Trust, as he calls his proposal to shift oil and gas royalties to alternative energy research, is one of those projects. 
  
 The money will support research on a range of cleaner means of powering vehicles, the White House said, including electricity, biofuels, fuel cells and produced natural gas. 
  
 The president’s proposal to add $200 million a year to the research budget of the Energy Department’s office of renewable energy would represent about a 10 percent increase in the office’s overall spending, or 25 percent of its spending on transportation research, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. 
  
 But David Friedman, the group’s deputy director for clean vehicles, said the plan could have the unintended effect of increasing pressure on the administration to open new public lands and waters to stepped-up drilling to ensure the revenues for the program. 
  
 He noted that Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, had proposed a similar mechanism for financing alternative energy research, but had explicitly tied it to new drilling, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 
  
 The president has vowed to make addressing climate change a priority in his second term, but he has provided only scant details on how he intends to act. The White House gave a hint of the breadth of his ambition in its annual Economic Report of the President, issued on Friday. 
  
 “Policies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases include market-based policies; encouraging energy efficiency; direct regulation; encouraging fuel switching to reduced-emissions fuels; and supporting the development and widespread adoption of zero-emissions energy sources such as wind and solar,” the report says. “And, as the country reduces emissions along this path, it also needs to prepare for the climate change that is occurring and will continue to occur. Together these policies pave the way toward a sustainable energy future.” 
  
 Also on Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency released its annual survey of the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks sold in the United States. The agency found that the 2012 domestic fleet was the cleanest and most fuel-efficient ever, with an overall average of 23.8 miles per gallon. Under regulations issued last year, that number is expected to double by 2025. 
  
 Argonne National Laboratory, which has done groundbreaking research in vehicle battery technology that has helped jump-start the electric car industry in the United States, received a significant amount of Mr. Obama’s stimulus money. But it is now facing reductions under the mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration. The laboratory’s director, Eric D. Isaacs, who led the president on his tour, warned this week that the spending cuts would have a devastating impact on scientific innovation now and far into the future. 
  
 In an article in The Atlantic written with the directors of two other Energy Department labs, Dr. Isaacs said that the cuts would force all new programs and research initiatives to be canceled, probably for at least two years. 
  
 “This sudden halt on new starts will freeze American science in place while the rest of the world races forward, and it will knock a generation of young scientists off their stride, ultimately costing billions of dollars in missed future opportunities,” Dr. Isaacs wrote. |||||
A: 
President Obama wants to get the country off of fossil fuels—using the oil companies' own money. President Obama will today unveil a plan to pump $2 billion into alternative energy research over the next decade, diverting the money from federal oil and gas leases, the New York Times reports. Obama first mentioned the idea in his State of the Union address, and while some Republicans have said they could support it, many in the House are likely to paint it as a tax on energy producers. The White House's contention is that the money will come from increased drilling revenue on public land over the next decade. Obama sees this as a modest alternative to more sweeping climate change action that would require new revenues, which he has essentially given up on, and will depict it as part of his "all of the above" energy strategy. He'll announce the plan at the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago, a major innovator in vehicle technology, reports USA Today. The focus is expected to be on green cars.