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Energy Dept. looking at budget boost

A photographer documents a stack of the President's Fiscal Year 2014 Budget proposal as it is delivered to the Senate Budget Committee and distributed to staff, in Washington DC on April 10, 2013. UPI/Molly Riley
A photographer documents a stack of the President's Fiscal Year 2014 Budget proposal as it is delivered to the Senate Budget Committee and distributed to staff, in Washington DC on April 10, 2013. UPI/Molly Riley | License Photo

WASHINGTON, April 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy would receive an 8 percent boost in funding over 2012 levels in the Obama administration's 2014 budget proposal.

The $28.4 billion for 2014 would "position the United States to compete as a world leader in clean energy and advance manufacturing, enhance our energy security, respond to the threat of climate change, and modernize the nuclear weapons stockpile and infrastructure," the White House said in its proposed budget released Wednesday.

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Included in the proposal is more than $5 billion for the Office of Science for key basic research, the White House said.

Funding for the Energy Department's clean energy technologies would be increased 40 percent over the 2012 enacted levels, including $615 million to increase the use and decrease the cost of clean power from solar, wind, geothermal and water energy, the administration said.

Under the proposed budget, $4 billion could be saved annually by eliminating unwarranted and unnecessary subsidies to the oil, gas and coal industries and increasing utilization of existing facilities and infrastructure, it said.

"No area holds more promise than our investments in American energy," President Obama said in his budget message.

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The budget would advance his "all-of-the-above" energy strategy, the president said, of "investing in clean energy research and development; promoting energy efficiency in our cars, homes and businesses; encouraging responsible domestic energy production; and launching new efforts to combat the threat of climate change."

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