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Bush Blames Cuts at Energy Lab on Mix-Up
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060222/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush;_ylt=Am.A0n8cKv6SHuRPBGzRpRyyFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMT A5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

GOLDEN, Colo. -
President Bush, on a three-state trip to promote his energy policy, said Tuesday that a budgeting mix-up was the reason 32 workers at one of the nation's premier renewable energy labs were laid off and then reinstated just before his visit................................

Eben Burnham-Snyder, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said this year's energy efficiency and renewable energy portion of the budget is slightly smaller than that in the last year of the previous administration. When inflation is factored in, it amounts to a decrease of more than $130 million, he said.

"This is a series of photo-ops entirely driven by polls that tell the president that he isn't doing enough on energy," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. "The president is talking a good game, but his budget doesn't back it up."

Before holding a panel discussion with lab, business and other officials, Bush toured a "mini brewery" where the lab makes ethanol — a replacement for gasoline — from the stalks and other nonfood parts of corn, said George Douglas, media relations manager at the lab.

Ethanol already is made from corn. In the late 1980s and 1990s, research was done to see if it was worthwhile to remove sugar, used in making ethanol, from the non-kernel parts of the corn, which farmers typically plow under.

Bush Blames Cuts at Energy Lab on Mix-Up