As the rich and powerful gathered in New York to discuss sweeping approaches to climate change under the aegis of former President Bill Clinton, the Bush administration unveiled its priorities for working with Asian countries on voluntary efforts and for spending $3 billion on technologies that could cut emissions of heat-trapping gases.

James L. Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the Asia-Pacific partnership between the United States and Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea would share technology advances.

An example of their plans, Mr. Connaughton said, was a $58 million deal by which the Caterpillar company provided a Chinese mining operation with generators that could burn methane gas that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere. Methane’s warming potential in the atmosphere is more than 20 times that of carbon dioxide. Shortly before Mr. Connaughton testified, Stephen Eule, director of the Climate Change Technology program at the Energy Department, gave the energy subcommittee of the House Committee on Science an overview of the administration’s technology priorities.

But the committee chairman, Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York, chided Mr. Eule about the long time horizon envisioned for some technologies, saying that the administration’s plan “is silent on the deployment of technologies already out or near the end of the pipeline” of research efforts. “What are we doing about deploying these technologies next year” Mr. Boehlert added, “not 15 years from now?”

In response, Mr. Eule referred to the department’s energy-efficiency efforts and its aid to builders of less energy-intensive homes. In addition, he cited a part of the Energy Policy Act providing $1.5 billion for developers of six new nuclear plants if they face costly regulatory delays.
(By FELICITY BARRINGER, NYT , 21/09/2006)