President Obama proposed on Friday a $2 billion trust fund created from offshore drilling royalties that will fund research into alternative fuel sources and vehicles, according to Reuters. Mr. Obama made the proposal after a visit to Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, which researches possible ways to create more advanced and less expensive batteries for electric cars.

Obama originally mentioned this trust fund in his State of the Union address last month, in which he urged Congress to pass climate change legislation. While the President has yet to introduce comprehensive bills to a Congress with large amounts of GOP opposition, he hopes lawmakers will compromise on smaller proposals that draw money from current sources of revenue instead of creating new ones that lead to deficit spending.

"The only way to break this cycle of spiking gas prices for good is to shift our car and trucks entirely off oil," he said Friday. ""This is not a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. This is just a smart idea."

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Obama's proposal is similar to one made by Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski, who is the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee. But unlike Obama's plan, Murkowski's requires additional offshore drilling. A Murkowski spokesman told Reuters that new drilling is required because the royalties for current drilling sites have already been accounted for in the budget.

"The inevitable result is either deficit spending or the goring of someone's proverbial ox, such as the Land and Water Conservation Fund," said Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon.

White House officials said the president's plan would not add to the deficit because they expect leasing revenues to grow in coming years for several reasons, including changes the administration plans to make to leasing policy.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the administration is willing to work with Congress on the research fund plan.

"If there are different ideas people want to offer up, we'll certainly have a conversation with them about that," he said.

Obama's last attempt at climate change legislation was a 2010 cap-and-trade bill that would have put a ceiling on greenhouse gas emission levels, but was rejected in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

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