The US Administration’s ‘Advanced Energy Initiative’: New programmes and more funding or old programmes and less funding?

The Bush administration’s announcement of an ‘Advanced Energy Initiative’ poses challenges for the international climate change agenda as well as the US domestic energy policy agenda. The proposal is politically significant because it has altered the terms of reference in the domestic discourse about US energy and climate policy. However, while it proposes proportionately large increases in the funding levels of some programmes, it also suggests only marginal changes in several current programmes and proposes reductions or even the elimination of others.