President Barack Obama is expected to release a fiscal year 2015 budget Tuesday that prioritizes funding for manufacturing, energy efficiency, job creation, and education.
Obama’s budget proposal will lay the groundwork for legislative debate and guiding policymakers on issues affecting federal funding, taxes, and revenue and spending.
In a weak economy, federal and state lawmakers are faced with making tough fiscal choices. Thus, the president’s plan for allocating federal funding, which accounted for an average of 34.7 percent of total state revenue in fiscal 2011, has a profound effect on state budgets and policies.
Even though the budget proposal requires congressional approval before becoming law, the issues likely to be highlighted have been at the cornerstone of Obama’s presidency. One such issue is the clean energy economy.
Pew has commended Obama’s progress on advancing his renewable energy goals. The president has issued an executive order stipulating that 20 percent of the electricity used by the federal government will be from renewable sources by 2020. And government agencies are taking note.
They have already begun to invest in clean energy, not only as a means of job creation, but as a matter of national security. The U.S. military, which incurs a $4 billion energy bill annually to operate its bases, has led the way in clean energy initiatives.
A recent Pew report, “Power Surge: Energy Security and the Department of Defense,” highlights actions by the Pentagon to secure technologies that conserve energy, enable on-site production of renewable resources, and save taxpayers millions of dollars.
Learn more at Pew’s project on national security, energy, and climate.
Many of the sectors likely to be included in the president’s budget proposal have been the focus of ongoing research by Pew, including: