Passing a comprehensive climate and energy bill is crucial to ensuring that the United States doesn't continue to lag behind China in the renewable energy race, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said today.

"The leadership in China has made it very clear that they see incredible opportunity for them," Chu said. "The United States should sit up and take notice because we do have the best innovation to guide the investment and the thinking. That's why it's so important we get comprehensive energy and climate legislation."

His comments, made in a conference call with reporters this afternoon, come on the heels of news that China has surpassed the United States as the biggest investor in renewable energy for the first time in at least five years, according to Bloomberg's industry analyst group New Energy Finance.

Still, Chu insisted that regardless of the climate bill's progress, his agency would continue to push for clean energy investments. "The idea is that, regardless of what happens, we are going to go forward using small businesses as one of the key cornerstones to getting our economy going again."

Chu and Karen Mills of the Small Business Administration joined the call today with the heads of two small businesses in the renewable energy sector to announce a DOE report highlighting the clean energy investments that small businesses have been able to make because of the stimulus package.

Harrison Dillon, president and chief technology officer of Solazyme, a biofuels startup based in California, highlighted the fact that his company's initiatives were not dependent on any climate bill incentives. "We built our economic model to show that we can make these fuels economically without a carbon tax," Dillon said. "We felt that was important to show investors that our technology can stand alone without that." He went on to say, though, that "some carbon pricing would accelerate a lot of things," including the investment by large stakeholders in the utilities industry.

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