The Obama administration this week will catch its first glimpse of how House Republicans plan to address some of its top spending priorities for fiscal 2012.

The Appropriations subcommittee that directs spending at the Energy Department, Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation meets Thursday to debate the panel's spending plan for fiscal 2012.

The Energy and Water Development Subcommittee's proposed spending package remains largely under wraps for now, but it is certain to be significantly less than the agencies' combined requests of $36.5 billion.

"We're not going to have any more money to spend," Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), chairman of the subcommittee, said earlier this year (E&E Daily, March 14).

Earlier this month, House appropriators doled out $30.7 billion in preliminary allocations for the subcommittee, levels that would be $1 billion lower than the already-slim fiscal 2011 funding levels and a hefty $6 billion shy of the president's request for 2012.

And lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are looking to scale back federal spending levels, although Republicans have promised the toughest cuts.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over energy and water agencies, said Congress is working in a "new spending reality."

"It's clear that DOE and Congress will have to make some joint painful decisions and focus the limited resources that we have on the highest priorities," she said earlier this month at a hearing with Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

A large portion of the House subcommittee's allocated $30.7 billion will likely go toward funding the Energy Department, which requested $29.5 billion for 2012. The Army Corps of Engineers requested $4.6 billion, and the Bureau of Reclamation asked for about $1 billion.

DOE's requested $29.5 billion would be a 15 percent increase over current spending levels, which House Republicans and Senate Democrats agreed upon just weeks ago, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown. The requested levels are a 9 percent increase over fiscal 2010 enacted spending.

President Obama has listed investment in "clean energy" technologies among his top priorities, and his budget request reflects that. A DOE program that invests in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects would see a 44 percent increase in spending over 2010 levels in the president's request at $3.2 billion. But appropriators are not likely to be so generous. The 2011 budget compromise granted that same agency $1.8 billion.

Chu seemed resigned to a similar fate for 2012 during the Senate hearing earlier this month.

"Given the budget reality," he said, "we don't expect Congress to give us our proposed budget."

Army Corps

Appropriators are not likely to be as harsh with the Army Corps budget. For one, the White House request is already 14 percent lower than the 2010 enacted levels and 8 percent lower than current spending levels.

Typically, administrations propose shrinking the Army Corps budget, which later swells as members of Congress pile on additional projects for their home districts during the appropriations process. Although history will likely repeat itself, appropriators said that doing so this year would be more difficult given the aggressive calls for cost-cutting across Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers are also likely to note the agency's high-profile role in recent weeks in dealing with record-breaking floods in the Mississippi River system. Following that crisis, lawmakers are not likely to propose many drastic cuts to the agency.

Schedule: The markup is Thursday, June 2, at 10 a.m. in 2362-B Rayburn.