A key House panel will focus its efforts in the 113th Congress on finding a home for the country's nuclear waste, developing standards for coal ash and conducting oversight on U.S. EPA's efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing, its chairman said yesterday.

Illinois Rep. John Shimkus (R) indicated that his Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy will pick up largely where it left off in 2012, when he was also chairman.

"I love serving on this committee, as it has its roots in the commerce clause of the Constitution and was created back in 1795," Shimkus said in a statement after he was sworn in yesterday.

A top priority, Shimkus said, is finding a long-term solution to nuclear waste storage. The panel held several hearings on the issue -- and, specifically, the controversial planned Yucca Mountain, Nev., waste repository -- in the last Congress, and likely will again this session.

The Nuclear Energy Institute's president, Marvin Fertel, said at the end of last year that he anticipates legislation to be floated this year to address nuclear waste storage. Yucca Mountain will likely continue to be a sticking point, he said, as House Republicans have pushed for the Nevada repository, while there has been less focus on Yucca Mountain in the Senate (E&E Daily, Dec. 13, 2012).

Shimkus said his subcommittee will also focus on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, or fracking. Specifically, he said the panel will work to "ensure that [EPA] does not attempt to intervene in regulation of oil and gas industry exploration ... which states have been successfully regulating on their own for many years."

The Republican said his panel will continue its oversight of the Department of Homeland Security's Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, or CFATS, which are designed to secure chemical plants from terrorist attacks and thefts.

The program has been under fire since a leaked internal memo revealed widespread mismanagement a year ago. DHS has repeatedly testified that it has taken steps to fix the program, though House appropriators have remained skeptical and even threatened to cut funding last year (E&E Daily, Sept. 21, 2012).

Shimkus' panel passed legislation in 2011 that would extended the CFATS program for seven years. That bill, as well as others, stalled after the memo was leaked (E&E Daily, Jan. 27, 2012).

Coal ash

It's no surprise to industry leaders or the environmental community that Shimkus is also prioritizing legislation to pre-empt U.S. EPA coal ash regulations. Measures giving states wide enforcement powers for ash dumps passed in the House and garnered 27 co-sponsors in the Senate during the last Congress.

West Virginia Rep. David McKinley has been a leader on the issue for Republicans and said he will likely renew his push for a bill soon and explain it to the new set of incoming lawmakers. "That means we have to educate them again," he said in an interview. "Energy is going to be very high" on the list of priorities, he added.

The bill lost several Senate supporters during the elections, including Democrats Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and Jim Webb of Virginia, both of whom retired. However, coal industry leaders feel the bill is perhaps the only measure taking aim at EPA with a chance of passing in the Senate. New Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, for example, supported the bill in the House.

The question remains whether the GOP-led House will advance a bill introduced by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) last year, meant to attract more Democrats, or move forward with its own. "I want to see what their tweaks are," McKinley said.

He added that lawmakers were also pushing EPA on the issue, hoping the agency refrains from designating coal ash as hazardous in its forthcoming rulemaking. Recycling companies say that would hurt reuse efforts.

"There are all kinds of conversations taking place," McKinley said.

He said a leadership change at EPA -- Administrator Lisa Jackson has announced she is stepping down -- likely will not change the regulatory landscape.

"I don't want a repeat of what happened in Libya when we helped topple [Moammar] Gadhafi and then we wound up having al-Qaida." Asked to clarify, McKinley said, "I'm saying sometimes the known is better than unknown. Let's make sure that we have the right person [at EPA]. And let's see whether we want to go to the mat against them; maybe it's someone we can work with."

The environmental community wants lawmakers to leave EPA alone to finish its coal ash rulemaking, expected sometime this year. And they are skeptical that any bill would meet their standards.

"Maybe there would be the potential for a compromise, something that industry and the environmental community could live with," said Environmental Integrity Project attorney Lisa Widawsky-Hallowell in an interview. "We are so far from legislation that could come close to protecting human health and the environment."

Reporter Nick Juliano contributed.