ADVANCED ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES 



951 



able to do it with a Government program that has trouble telling 

 Congress what it is going to achieve in the year 1980, let alone 2000." 



Wolpe and Gore noted that billions of dollars in Federal subsidies 

 in the past and currentlv were being doled out to other forms of nuclear 

 and fossil energy, justifying further subsidies to solar energy. 



The newly-appointed Director of OTA, Dr. John H. Gibbons, 

 generally supported the President's plan, with some reservations: 



I would also like to support the notion of the establishment of a specific goal for 

 solar energy. * * * We are not convinced yet that the program that is outlined by the 

 administration will enable the goal to be attained in the time allowed. 



Blanchard listed fear by the administration and the Congress as 

 the greatest obstacle to placing more emphasis on solar energy: 



Fear that there may be some risk, fear that we will spend some money, fear that 

 we will waste some money, fear that we will step on some toes, fear that some people 

 will make money and fear that in the long run we will look foolish. 



For Ottinger, long the most outspoken exponent of solar energy, 

 his reaction was: 



While I would obviously like to have seen the Presidents message more detailed 

 and more aggressive, I am happy that it is a beginning. * * * The $5 or $6 billion in 

 the Energy Department's civilian budget seem increasingly to get lost in layer upon 

 layer of consultants. Real people out there are getting very little help at all. * * * My 

 displeasure with centralized solar systems is extreme — mainly because they are 

 predicated on retaining, at almost any astronomical cost, a commitment to big, 

 centralized energy systems and keeping solar at its best away from real people with 

 real needs to heat and light their homes. 



PULLING THE SOLAR PIECES TOGETHER 



Ottinger's solution to the layers of authoritv was not, as proposed by 

 the President, a "coordinating Council" for solar energy, but instead 

 he recommended : 



We ought to give the Assistant Secretary for Solar Energy the responsibility of 

 pulling the pieces together and be answerable for the program. 



After Charles W. Duncan, Jr. took office as Secretary of Energy on 

 August 24, 1979, Ottinger's advice was followed by the consolidation 

 of all Federal solar responsibilities into a single Assistant Secretary 

 for Conservation and Solar Enerev. The President's Domestic Policv 

 Review on Solar Energy identified wind energy as having the largest 

 potential of any of the solar electric technologies to provide significant 

 amounts of electricity by the end of the century. Through the leader- 

 ship of the Ottinger subcommittee, the House on December 4, 1979 

 passed by a vote of 383-23 "The Wind Energy Systems Research, 

 Development, and Demonstration Act of 1979 The bill authorized 

 $100 million to start an R. & D. program on wind energy utilization. 



