Last Sunday the Independent reported rumours from senior Washington sources that President Bush was preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming following increasing pressure on the White House from Republican governors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, the mayors of more than 300 cities, business leaders and Congress (as well as from Al Gore’s global feting).

Officials disclosed to Time that the Administration is formulating a huge energy initiative designed to “change the whole nature of the discussion” and challenge the g.o.p. [Republicans], Democrats, the oil and electricity industries, and environmentalists. An adviser said : “Only Nixon could go to China, [recalling how the former president amazed the world after years of refusing to deal with its Communist regime] and only Bush and Cheney–two oilmen–can bring all these parties kicking and screaming to the table.” Rumoured that the announcement was to steal the limelight form Gore’s speech on Monday the votle-face did not materialise. The White House has not denied that a change of policy was on its way, causing drawing public attacks from climate change deniers and potentially opening a rift in the electorally crucial Christian right, already smarting from the 2002 administration admission of anthropogenic climate change - much of whom, along with some of the secular far right, hold as a matter of ideology that climate change is a demonic communist plot to destroy property rights.

Sources say that the most likely moment is the President’s State of the Union address in January.

Other sources however denied the claims completely, whilst still other congressional sources were quoted as saying the administration’s plans were working to a time table of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels at 450 parts per
million by the year 2106!

Whilst hoping to be surprised by a Damscene conversion in January it looks like the hype was for the Wednesday release of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) Strategic Plan, which details measures to accelerate the development and reduce the cost of new and advanced technologies that avoid, reduce, or capture and store greenhouse gas emissions.

“This Plan was inspired by the President’s vision to harness America’s strengths in innovation and technology to transform energy production and use in ways that significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the long term,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said. “This Strategic Plan is unprecedented in its scope and scale and breaks new ground with its visionary 100-year planning horizon, global perspective, multilateral research collaborations, and public private partnerships.”

The Washington Post reported the disappointingly downbeat reality:

“It’s good as far as it goes, but it needs to go a lot further,” House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) said in an interview after the hearing. “It’s good to look ahead, but people expect something immediate, as well as futuristic.”

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who has scheduled a hearing today on climate change research, said the administration failed to spell out how future research will be funded.

“They address the need for research but give a very convoluted answer as to how that’s going to occur,” Davis said in an interview. “What we’re asking is, is this sufficient? You’ve got to have some teeth and focus.”

In the document, the administration said it spends $3 billion a year on the research.

But Ken Caldeira, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, said the country would have to spend “hundreds of billions of dollars a year” to move away from a carbon-dependent economy. He added that the government would have to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, either through a tax or cap-and-trade system, to create incentives to develop and implement cleaner technologies.

“Most energy technologies that do not emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will cost more than those that do emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,” Caldeira said. “A major energy R&D program only makes sense in the context of a price on carbon emissions.”

Rafe Pomerance, who chairs the bipartisan Climate Policy Center, praised the administration for emphasizing the need for exploratory research to produce innovative responses to global warming.

Some outside scientists, such as William Fulkerson, a senior fellow at the University of Tennessee’s Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, said the plan could provide a blueprint for encouraging the development of technologies that would cut emissions. “It makes it clear this is a long-term issue and it is not solved by any one technology or strategy,” Fulkerson said.

Margo Thorning, chief economist at the American Council for Capital Formation, said the plan is “a substantial, credible effort” to address global warming.

“The technology-based approach is the only way to go, and the administration’s emphasis on that is the right one,” said Thorning, whose think tank accepts money from Exxon Mobil Corp.

John Coequyt, an energy policy specialist for the advocacy group Greenpeace, said that the plan’s biggest flaw is shown by the 2010 start of its initial goals.

“The big picture from the Bush administration is always the same: This is a long-term problem that will be solved by another administration,” Coequyt said. “It’s time to start talking about what are the things we can do tomorrow.”

[”White House Outlines Global Warming Fight
Technology and Voluntary Cutbacks Urged” - Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 21, 2006]

for what it’s worth the DoE report is availbel here

http://www.climatetechnology.gov/stratplan/final/index.htm