USDA REE Energy Research, Education, and Extension Strategic Plan

Dear Friends,

Securing America’s energy future is among the most important topics in today’s current events. The USDA Research, Education, and Economics (REE) mission-area strives to create public benefit through both internal activities and partnerships with other USDA agencies, other federal agencies, university partners, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. To this end, REE has developed an Energy Research, Education and Extension Plan. September 2007 a workshop was conducted here in DC with representatives of the four REE agencies and our university partners. From this workshop, a draft Plan was developed and has been circulated to all the REE agencies and the university partners for input. In addition, we have received and incorporated this input into the Plan.

We now have a second generation draft Plan and we are ready for comments on this draft Plan. The Plan can be viewed at the REE web site.

You can send your comments via email to: REEEnergy@usda.gov.

The goal of the REE Energy Strategic Plan is to provide a transparent view of REE ’s proposed activities in Energy Research, Education, and Extension. This Plan is intended to facilitate interagency, university and private sector coordination and cooperation as we pursue reliable and sustainable sources of agriculture-based energy and biobased products, promote the health of rural communities and provide responsible stewardship for our natural resources now and for generations to come. The Plan is ambitious, but has identified realistic goals that can be achieved over the next five years. It builds upon the significant achievements and the expertise that the REE agencies and university partners have brought to the renewable energy arena. The Plan focuses on areas where the REE mission agencies and universities have unique capacities and resources that will complement those of other agencies within and external to USDA . We look forward to receiving your assistance and making this a better Plan. Please respond by June 5, 2008.

Sincerely,

Gale Buchanan

Access draft Plan here (doc | 195 KB)