In an important development within the federal energy and climate policy debate, Bill Gates and Senator Bingaman have spoken out in support of Secretary Chu’s push for major increases in clean energy R&D. Breakthrough Institute has the story:

After receiving no help from the White House to secure the $15 billion in annual energy R&D investment Obama promised during the campaign, Energy Secretary Steven Chu is speaking out for R&D — with the help of Sen. Jeff Bingaman and high tech billionaire Bill Gates.

The push by these three powerful figures comes in the wake of Republican Senator Scott Brown’s upset victory for Edward Kennedy’s seat and a series of high profile Democratic Senators, most recently Diane Feinstein, saying cap and trade can’t be passed this year.

Gates’s writings appear a week before the release of his “Annual Letter” as the head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a letter which in past years has generated national controversy and news. The 2010 Letter, Gates says, will be about innovation.

The message from all three men is that R&D has gotten short shrift for too long from those pushing cap and trade and other regulations to reduce carbon emissions. And it comes a few days after Chu leaked a public letter to OMB head Peter Orzag, who was seeking to cut the DOE’s budget even further.

Chu, Bingaman, and Gates all say that cap and trade climate legislation (Waxman-Markey in the House, Kerry-Boxer in the Senate) would invest far too little in R&D, just $1.5 billion annually as compared to the $5 billion currently invested, and the $15 billion Obama has called for.

Read the full coverage here.