By Congressman Joe Pitts

In early May, when the Department of Energy (DoE) released its budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, Secretary Steven Chu included in the announcement a virtual elimination of funding for fuel cell vehicle research at the DoE.  In his comments, Chu said the technology for fuel cell vehicles is too far off, which is why his department will eliminate $100 million in funding for hydrogen vehicle research and scale back the hydrogen program to focus on applications aside from transportation.

This dealt an unnecessary blow to innovation at a time when our nation is trying to move away from fuels that pollute our atmosphere and make our national security less beholden to the whims of foreign despots.

Hydrogen has made great strides in recent years.  We should be supporting any and all technologies that could lead to greater energy security and a cleaner environment, including hydrogen.  The scientists and engineers I have spoken to acknowledge there will be no silver bullet that will solve our energy problems.  Different technologies will provide solutions to different energy needs, especially as regional differences across the country create unique demands and rely on varied resources.

This is why we should be encouraging all of the technologies of the future to become the technologies of today.  Unfortunately, Secretary Chu has decided to choose electric cars over hydrogen fuel cell cars in an unnecessary and unwise zero sum game for federal research dollars.  His notion that fuel cell technology is 10 or even 20 years away is belied by the fact that GM’s Equinox is in use today by individuals participating in a pilot program, and a couple hundred people are driving Honda’s FCX Clarity around Southern California as part of a pilot program.    

This is not to say hydrogen fuel cell technology is without its challenges.  We will need a refueling infrastructure to support fuel cell vehicles, and car companies will need to sort through various engineering challenges to make these cars marketable to a mass audience used to the benefits of gas powered vehicles.  But, electric vehicles face similar challenges and both technologies need to be encouraged.

With this in mind, I tried to offer an amendment during the recent markup of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454)—the Democrats’ cap and trade bill—in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  My amendment would have helped create an incentive for our American automakers to bring hydrogen fuel cell vehicles online.  Unfortunately, because the entire thousand-page bill was considered over just four days, there was not enough time for consideration of the hundreds of amendments Republicans attempted to offer to make a bad bill better.  My hydrogen amendment was one of those blocked because Chairman Waxman had set an arbitrary deadline of finishing consideration of the bill before the Memorial Day weekend.

The amendment would have changed the bill to designate hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as having a fuel economy of 200 miles per gallon, for the purposes of corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards.  This would provide a serious incentive for auto companies to speed up production of fuel cell vehicles, especially in light of President Obama’s recent announcement of new higher CAFE standards.

Not only do hydrogen fuel cell vehicles emit no carbon, they are highly efficient when compared to internal combustion engines.  Internal combustion power is about 18 percent efficient, because it loses a great deal of energy to heat, as opposed to 60 percent or higher efficiency for fuel cell vehicles.

Foreign car companies are already embracing fuel cell technology.  Mercedes plans to have consumer fuel cell vehicles available in the 2012-2013 timeframe and have made a deal with the German government to help create the necessary infrastructure by then.

Honda and Toyota are on a similar time schedule with Toyota, announcing just recently that they will have fuel cell consumer cars by 2014.  Honda, as noted above, already has the Clarity in limited use here in the United States.

I believe we should be protecting our environment by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation.  Encouraging the growth of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is one of the ways we can do this.  The cap and trade bill moving through Congress instead uses punishment and taxation.  Because I believe this is an important issue, and because I was unable to offer the amendment during markup of the bill, I will be introducing stand-alone legislation that would make this change in CAFE standards.

There is no single answer to our energy problem, and government agencies like the Department of Energy are mistaken if they decide to fund research in one technology at the expense of another.  Let’s provide the researches with the funding they need and let the science and engineering reveal the best technology moving forward, not government bureaucrats influenced by corporate lobbyists.

Congressman Joe Pitts represents the 16^th Congressional District of Pennsylvania.

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