Jerry Brown: “it would appear that what this bill before us does is to focus entirely on hydrogen, and the gentleman from…”

“it would appear that what this bill before us does is to focus entirely on hydrogen, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the chairman of the committee, has indicated that legislation authorizing these other programs would be brought forward later. This is in part the problem that I have with the bill, although my own interest in hydrogen is such that I would overlook the fact that it does not contain the others except that this bill also forces a reduction in all of these others, which I do object to. Mr. Chairman, in the last energy authorization bill that was passed, which was in 1992, we carefully laid out the authorizing levels for all of the major programs. We increased solar, for example. We increased some of the other categories of research. We cut some of the older ones, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] has indicated he wants to do. Coal research is cut back, for example, and fossil research in general. In other words, in that authorization bill in 1992, Mr. Chairman, we did prioritize and gave general policy directions. This bill does not. It gives a general policy direction for hydrogen and then it says in a blanket fashion ``cut $250 million off of everything else.'' That is not prioritizing.”