A Senate panel today approved funding for the Navy's portion of a controversial interagency program to invest $510 million in an effort to spur commercial-scale production of biofuels.

Last year the Navy and Agriculture and Energy departments agreed to each invest $170 million in the project under a little-known law aimed at scaling up industries of national security importance (Greenwire, Aug. 16, 2011). But the program, especially the Navy's portion of it, has come under attack from Republicans who say it is not the military's job to invest in energy projects, especially at a time when defense budgets are strapped.

"You are the Secretary of the Navy, not the Secretary of Energy," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wrote in a letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus last week (E&E Daily, July 30). "I strongly encourage you to marshal the time and resources of your team to avert serious threats to the core mission and capabilities of the Department of the Navy, instead of spending defense dollars to advocate your view of our national energy priorities."

McCain penned an amendment to the fiscal 2013 defense policy bill that would block funds for the Navy portion of the program. Supporters of the biofuels effort led by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) have vowed a floor fight against that provision, as well as one that would prevent the military from buying operational quantities of biofuels until they are cost-competitive with petroleum-based fuels.

The defense spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee today fully funded the $70 million the Navy requested for the program in fiscal 2013. The House-passed version of the bill did not include the funding for the program, although the concern appears to have been about accounting more than ideology. In a report with the bill, the House Appropriations Committee noted that the funds were excluded because the program has $70 million in unspent funds from fiscal 2012.