With a hydrogen-powered BMW as a backdrop, two U.S. lawmakers Monday outlined how the state could get the bounty Congress is poised to throw at developing hydrogen as a fuel.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said the money will lead to cutting-edge research and, over time, private investment and what he described as "some of the best jobs of the 21st century" in the state.

Advances in alternative fuels could wean the nation from foreign oil and help it escape rising gas prices.

That's if researchers can resolve thorny issues in the production, storage and distribution of hydrogen. Splitting water molecules to produce hydrogen, for instance, requires large amounts of energy, and most hydrogen produced today comes from the same fossil fuels it would replace, according to Clemson chemical engineering professor Mark Thies.

Graham said beneficiaries of the federal dollars would include the International Center for Automotive Research, the automotive research park that Clemson University is developing in Greenville, as well as the University of South Carolina and SRS in Aiken.

All have existing or planned hydrogen research or hydrogen-related research.

Those facilities put South Carolina in a good position to receive a large chunk of the money, he said.

"Some of this money is going to be directed to South Carolina because I'm in a good spot to do that in the Senate," Graham said Monday during an appearance with U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis of Greenville to talk about the research money.

Graham said he helped put the $3.8 billion over five years into the Senate version of a federal energy bill working its way through Congress.

A version that passed the House didn't include the funding, but Graham said he and Inglis are hoping it will be part of the compromise bill that emerges from a conference committee. Both houses will vote on the compromise bill.

Inglis said he's trying to form a hydrogen caucus in the House similar to the one Graham helped organize in the Senate last year.

"We've got to have an Apollo-like commitment to hydrogen and getting to a new fuel," Inglis said, referring to the space program that put the first man on the moon in 1969.

Graham didn't put a specific figure on what South Carolina could expect to get out of the proposed tripling in federal funding for hydrogen and fuel cell research.

"I want South Carolina to become the Detroit for hydrogen," Graham said.

Congress and the Bush administration are looking to hydrogen as a possible means of reducing the nation's dependence on Mideast oil.

The U.S. Energy Department has already stepped up its funding of hydrogen research, and Clemson and USC have been the beneficiaries.

But Graham says more needs to be done.

"You're paying $2 a gallon for gasoline right now," he said. "Wouldn't it be nice if your kids or your grandkids could have an energy source that was good for the environment ... and you're not dependent on Mideast oil?"

David Bodde, an energy policy and technology expert at Clemson University, said South Carolina can aspire to play a key role in the so-called "hydrogen economy."

The state's competitive advantages, he said, include ICAR, which will focus on automotive "systems integration," a category that might include figuring out how to fit a hydrogen fuel system with other automotive systems.

ICAR is now under construction along Interstate 85 and Laurens Road in Greenville. BMW, which is building a research center at ICAR, has developed a hydrogen-powered car prototype. Clemson is poised to break ground on a new graduate school of automotive engineering.

Other South Carolina advantages, Bodde said, are the Savannah River Site, a former nuclear bomb plant turned national laboratory, with capabilities in handling and storing hydrogen. Hydrogen scientists from SRS have been assigned to a new hydrogen research center in Aiken.

In Columbia, USC boasts a nationally recognized program in fuel cell research.

Those resources "enable us to be a player," said Bodde, a former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Energy Department who is now director of innovation and public policy for ICAR.

"And the lovely thing about this is the train has not left the station yet. It has in the information technology revolution, it has in genetics, and in a whole bunch of things, but it hasn't in this."

Developing hydrogen-powered automobiles could also go a long way in solving the problems of carbon-dioxide emissions and global warming, said Bodde, who also has a doctorate from Harvard Business School.