HYDROGEN FUEL INCENTIVE ADVANCES ON CAPITOL HILL

Abstract

LOOKING BEYOND SHORT-TERM solutions to the nation's current energy crunch, lawmakers are pushing for more incentives to spur development oftreakthrough technologies that would move the oil-dependent U.S. toward a hydrogen-based economy. Suddenly, the whole nation is focused on gas prices and our addiction to oil, and Congress is in a panic trying to figure out how to respond, House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N. Y.) remarked at a committee meeting in late April. Our options in the immediate future are limited, but our options in the mid- and long-term are not. Unless we exercise those options, we are going to lurch from oil crisis to oil crisis, and each one is going to get worse. One strategy that has gained support on Capitol Hill in recent months is the establishment of a national prize competition to encourage the R&D necessary to overcome the technical barriers that currently stand in the way of hydrogen becoming ...