“The business-as-usual energy budget proposed by this administration won’t alleviate the economic strain of filling up at the pump. And what’s worse, it ignores the big threat our oil dependence poses now and in coming decades.”

Coming out of this Congress, the rhetoric in the Examiner op-ed this morning is hardly surprising. What’s interesting is the source: that’s Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, the Western Maryland Republican who ranks among the most conservative members of the House, lighting into the White House.

Bartlett, an engineer and scientist, is exercized that the Bush administration is not requesting funding next year for ARPA-E, the research agency he helped create last year to speed development of new energy technologies that would help ease U.S. dependence on oil. Congress authorized intial funding of $300 million.

“We need alternatives,” Bartlett writes. “Even those holding optimistic views of energy reserves admit supplies won’t keep up with demand. … I sat in disbelief when the president’s director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Marburger III, told the House Science and Technology Committee, ‘As just one example of … prioritization, the budget does not request funding for [ARPA-E].’ ”

Socially and fiscally conservative, Bartlett has been outspoken on the need to address U.S. dependence on declining world oil supplies. He is co-founder, with Democratic Rep. Tom Udall, of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus, a bipartisan group focused on weaning the United States from crude.