Senate Majority Whip Durbin seized the opportunity of a showdown with Energy Secretary Bodman today to criticize Bodman's motives for restructuring the FutureGen clean coal energy project. The Energy Department announced Wednesday it would spend the $1.3 billion allocated for a large-scale research and development incubator of clean coal technology, such as emissionless power plants and carbon capture. The new project would divide the money among several smaller commercial power plants. In testimony before the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, Bodman said the original project, to be constructed in Mattoon, Ill., had suffered from cost overruns. The original estimate in 2003 was $950 million, but it has since increased to $1.8 billion, with the federal government paying $1.3 billion.
"Seven states took this administration at its word," Durbin said, referring to the original states that submitted plans. The final two states were Texas and Durbin's home state, Illinois. Durbin wondered whether politics played a part in the decision, as the plug was not pulled until a site was chosen in Illinois instead of Texas. "You walked away from it ... you left these people hanging," Durbin said. He said Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich had sent a similar query. Bodman said he could not answer why the cost had ballooned so much but rejected Durbin's assertion that it was a matter of inflation.
FutureGen's chairman, Paul Thompson, said increasing labor and construction costs had played a part in the overruns but argued that the original plans had not changed. Furthermore, he said, Energy officials knew the new cost estimates in March 2007, when a cooperative agreement was signed. "It is difficult to understand why these costs were acceptable in March 2007, but in January 2008 they formed the primary basis for terminating the project," Thompson said.
In another point of contention, Bodman criticized the cost-sharing agreement that would make the government shoulder 74 percent of the costs. Durbin said President Bush initially said in 2003, before Bodman was Energy secretary, that the government would pay 80 percent. Thompson said the FutureGen alliance for the Mattoon site would not be submitting a proposal for the restructured plan and added that building a commercial power plant would only complement the current project, not replace it. Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he would look at retaining the funding for FutureGen for the next president, while Durbin vowed "we're not going to quit." Durbin expressed optimism that the next president would be more supportive of the program, especially Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
This article appeared in the Saturday, May 10, 2008 edition of National Journal Daily.
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