A House Appropriations subcommittee this week will vote on President Obama's fiscal 2013 budget request for energy and water programs, addressing some of the president's top spending priorities.

The Energy and Water Development subpanel, which oversees spending at the Energy Department, Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation, will meet Wednesday to mark up its spending bill.

Obama is requesting a largely symbolic spending increase for DOE's overall budget, a 3.2 percent boost to $27.2 billion that largely benefits clean energy and efficiency programs within the department, as well as security and the ongoing development of small modular reactors. The spending bump is balanced with cuts from fossil fuel programs, among other areas (E&E Daily, March 26).

The funding request plays into the president's goal of doubling the country's share of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 and putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

But House Republicans have slammed the administration focus on renewable energy and pushed for an increased focus on spending cuts and addressing high gas prices. The United States, they say, needs sustainable jobs and not jobs that rely on "government largesse" (E&E Daily, March 19).

Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) has said his top priority for DOE's budget would be to ensure its responsibilities related to nuclear weapons capabilities are maintained.

He has also taken aim at DOE officials during past hearings for doing too little to address high gas prices and indicated he may boost the DOE Fossil Office's budget above Obama's request to provide more money to research ways to bring prices down (E&E Daily, March 28).

Frelinghuysen, a longtime backer of nuclear power, and ranking Democrat Pete Visclosky of Indiana have both said they want to see more money for DOE's Office of Science. The president's plan slashes funding for nuclear physics, high-energy physics and fusion energy programs by $20.5 million, $14.3 million and $2.7 million, respectively (E&E Daily, March 21).

Army Corps

The Obama administration has proposed $4.7 billion for the Army Corps in fiscal 2013, $271 million, or 5.4 percent, below this year's spending level.

Frelinghuysen and fellow Republicans are expected to target spending on environmental priorities, such as ecosystem restoration projects, while calling for more investment in infrastructure, such as inland waterways.

"There is some concern that you are sort of migrating to areas that have an environmental perspective," Frelinghuysen said of the Obama 2013 budget request in a hearing earlier this year. "There is some concern that you have left your historical base where there are some acute infrastructure needs" (E&E Daily, March 29).

Another expected area of focus will be planning and spending on port development and expansion in advance of the planned 2014 completion of the widening of the Panama Canal, a project anticipated to usher in a wave of mega-freighter traffic from Asia to the East Coast.

Senators on both sides of the aisle raised concerns in a hearing last month that the Army Corps is unprepared to make the strategic investments needed to ensure the United States can handle the new traffic (E&E Daily, March 29).

Schedule: The markup is Wednesday, April 19, at 9:30 a.m. in 2362-B Rayburn.