President Obama today tweaked several of his administration's core energy and environmental initiatives in a fiscal 2013 budget plan that has more to do with his 2012 re-election effort than with the actual spending authorities that agencies will see next year.

Few policymakers in Washington expect the budget that was released this morning -- which includes new cuts for U.S. EPA and modest increases at the Department of Energy -- to gain any sort of traction in a split Congress during an election year. But what the president's fiscal 2013 request does do is set the debate at a time when the White House is looking to draw sharp contrasts with his critics on Capitol Hill and in the Republican presidential primary.

Some of the biggest debates in the coming months are likely to revolve around the hundreds of millions in new stimulus spending and a plan for ending the Bush-era tax cuts that Obama included in the $3.8 trillion budget he sent to Congress.

"The budget we're releasing today is a reflection of shared responsibility," Obama said this morning during an event at Northern Virginia Community College. "We can cut back on the things we don't need, but we also have to make sure people are paying their fair share for the things we do need."

The White House noted today that the fiscal 2013 budget was designed within new spending caps agreed to by the White House and Congress during last year's debt deal. And while next year's budget includes a hefty deficit of $901 billion -- down from $1.3 trillion in 2012 -- Obama explained that it also includes a pathway to $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.

"I'm proposing some difficult cuts that, frankly, I wouldn't normally make if it weren't absolutely necessary," Obama said. But "we can't cut back on those things that are important for us to grow."

One of those necessary investments is clean-energy jobs, Obama said.

The president's budget would increase Department of Energy spending by 3.2 percent over the level appropriated for fiscal 2012, bringing it to a total of $27.2 billion (see related story). That increase would partly include new funding for research and development in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Obama plans to pay for those new investments in part by ending 12 tax incentives for oil, gas and coal companies to raise some $41 billion over 10 years.

"We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by ending the subsidies for oil companies, and doubling down on clean energy that generates jobs and strengthens our security," Obama said.

The plan earned a quick and scathing response from the American Petroleum Institute.

"The president's 2013 budget plan returns to the well of bad ideas and backtracks on his State of the Union [address] commitment," said API President Jack Gerard. "Increasing our taxes would push oil and natural gas investment overseas and diminish job-creation and economic activity here at home. ... Frankly, the administration should be trying to replicate the success America's oil and natural gas industry has had in creating jobs and growing the economy primarily through development on private and state lands."

But Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) lauded the new spending plan.

"This budget highlights the choice facing Congress about our clean energy future," he said in a statement. "The President's vision is to support the groundbreaking research that will ensure that America leads in making the clean energy technologies of tomorrow a reality, giving consumers new cost-saving energy choices and keeping our energy-related manufacturing base strong."

The president's proposal would include $8.3 billion for U.S. EPA, down $105 million from enacted levels in fiscal 2012 (see related story). Much of the savings would come through reducing Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds and Superfund Remedial activities.

But some EPA programs would also see modest increases. For example, the White House added $93 million to the budget to implement new air quality management and water pollution control programs.

The Department of the Interior's budget would stay essentially flat at $11.4 billion in fiscal 2013 (see related story). Less than two years after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the president noted in his budget that his 2013 proposal invests $386 million to strengthen oversight of offshore oil and gas operations "so that energy development can proceed in a safe and sustainable manner."