Will Sequester Scuttle DoD’s Energy Efficiency Efforts?

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http://breakingdefense.com/2013/06/07/will-sequester-scuttle-dods-energy-efficiency-efforts/



Will Sequester Scuttle DoD’s Energy Efficiency Efforts?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on June 07, 2013 at 1:09 PM

WASHINGTON: The Defense Department is the largest single consumer of energy in the United States. It consumes 1 percent of America’s massive demand, burning billions of gallons of fuel a year. Indeed, as Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in a recent speech, DoD is “the largest single consumer of fossil fuels on the face of the earth.” And just getting that fuel to forward operating bases in Afghanistan means troops risks their lives daily in fuel convoys. So making the armed forces more energy-efficient is important for tactical, ecological, and budgetary reasons.

The problem is that it costs money now to save money later. Congressional Republicans have been particularly skeptical of Mabus’s ambitions for a “Great Green Fleet” of ships and jets (our favorite is the “Green Hornet,” as the biofuel version of the F-18 is known) that run on biofuels. Add to that skepticism the fact that the mandatory cuts known as sequestration are cramping DoD energy investments across the board. As our colleagues at BreakingEnergy reported this morning:

The Defense Department had previously considered large outlays for energy as a necessary evil. “Our view was, when we were at war, we would bear those costs,” (Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategy Daniel) Chiu said. “But we’ve realized that that’s not a sustainable approach from a budgeting or a planning perspective.”….

“All of this is happening against a backdrop of shrinking budgets,” Chiu said. “This has made this an extremely difficult job, because this is not a matter of adding new requirements, this is a matter of prioritizing new requirements. This is a very tough fight.”