The GOP Aims to Slash Clean Energy Spending in Half to Expand the Defense Budget

ARPA-E is the clean-powered cousing to the military's enormously successful DARPA; the program helps fund cutting-edge technologies that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. And the GOP wants to slash it in half to pay for more F-15s. That's a little reductive, but it's the gist of what new Republican legislation hopes to accomplish.

According to the Hill, a new bill would gut $911 million from the Department of Energy's clean energy coffers and redirect the funds to the ever-so-slightly slimmed defense budget (which has shrunk a little from the sequester cuts).

Right now, the entire DOE has about $30 billion in funding. Last year, it spent $1.9 billion on renewable energy. Soon, it will barely do $1 billion. As of 2012, the Department of Defense's operating budget was $553 billion. An additional $900 million will buy the DOD, like, half a tank—but it could bank roll a ton of much-needed energy research.

And here's the kicker: the GOP is claiming the cuts actually protect our energy interests. The DOE is the agency primarily responsible for overseeing and regulating the country's nuclear aresenal, and the GOP claims it needs to cut renewable funding to preserve those programs—a false choice if there ever was one.

Rodney Frelinghuysen, the subcommittee drafting the bill, unloaded this talking-point filled statement defending the clean energy cuts: "In a challenging fiscal environment, we have to prioritize funding, and the Subcommittee chose to address the readiness and safety of the nation’s nuclear stockpile …"

Though it's terribly short-sighted, it's a wholly unsurprising move. The GOP has kept a steady drumbeat against green energy programs, and ever since the Solyndra bankruptcy, it has redoubled its efforts. In fact, 'drain funding for clean energy and pump more into the military' might as well get a spot on the Republican crest right now—both are among the most reliable policy objectives the party has going.

It's entirely backwards. In a warming world, where shifting from fossil fuel dependence is a top priority, technologies bankrolled today will play a crucial role in keeping the lights on tomorrow. And ARPA-E loans can score huge winners—it helped bankroll Tesla—and can encourage precisely the kind of clean energy innovation we need to see. Even if it does end up a couple failures—which are entirely accounted for in its loan portfolio—like Solyndra along the way.

Even the military itself has been a vocal proponent of ramping up more investment in clean tech—the Navy's funding huge biofuel operations and the army is increasingly reaping the benefits of more nimble solar power in war zones. Preserving robust investment in cleantech ventures like today would mean major returns down the road.

The military knows this. The American public knows this—polls consistently show they want more investment in clean energy. Only Republican dogma continually places renewable tech on the chopping block at the expense of everyone else's clean-powered future.