Key lawmakers and regulators this week will dig into unfolding details surrounding the nuclear emergency Japan declared in the wake of a massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami and how U.S. officials are safeguarding the domestic nuclear fleet.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and a proponent of nuclear power, said he will use a Wednesday hearing to question the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, as well as domestic operations.
"We will use that opportunity to explore what is known in the early aftermath of the damage to Japanese nuclear facilities, as well as to reiterate our unwavering commitment to the safety of U.S. nuclear sites," Upton said in reference to the hearing at which NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko will testify.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu is slated to join Jaczko at the joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power and the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy. The hearing was scheduled to review the Obama administration's fiscal 2012 budget request for the Department of Energy and NRC, but attention has turned to the unfolding events in Japan.
Chu also is scheduled to testify tomorrow before the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, where lawmakers also are likely to press him for details about the situation in Japan before turning to budget questions (see related story).
NRC said this weekend it sent two officials to Japan with expertise in boiling water nuclear reactors as part of a U.S. International Agency for International Development team. Yesterday NRC said no radiation at harmful levels would reach the United States from the damaged Japanese plants.
Japanese officials are scrambling to prevent a meltdown at different nuclear reactors in the areas of the country hardest hit by the earthquake and tsunami and have begun evacuating residents in the vicinity of certain plants.
Over the weekend, an explosion rocked the Unit 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant on the eastern coast of Japan, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said four workers were injured. The blast happened outside the primary containment vessel of the reactor, not inside, and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) confirmed that the integrity of the primary containment vessel remains intact, IAEA said Saturday, citing Japanese officials.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant is a boiling water reactor, and coolant or water is needed to carry heat away from the reactor's core even after the plant has been shut down because the fuel continues to emit heat.
After receiving approval from Japan's nuclear safety agency, TEPCO began injecting sea water mixed with boron into the primary containment vessel, IAEA said. Japan's nuclear safety agency has confirmed the presence of caesium-137 and iodine-131 in the vicinity of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 and an initial increase in levels of radioactivity around the plant, IAEA said.
TEPCO yesterday said readings showed radiation doses measured at the site were increasing again after a previous reading that showed levels to be subsiding. The company said it was struggling to cool water in the spent nuclear fuel pool.
TEPCO is trying to reduce the pressure within the reactor containment vessels in the Unit 2 reactor and has begun venting that structure. TEPCO is conducting similar venting at the Unit 3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant through a controlled release of vapor. After a high-pressure injection system at Unit 3 failed, IAEA said officials began injecting water first and then sea water, and authorities have warned the "accumulation of hydrogen is possible."
Problems for TEPCO have surfaced elsewhere. The company is trying to reduce pressure in the containment vessel of its Fukushima Daini nuclear plant's Units 1, 2 and 3 and is venting the reactor containment vessels there, which could include "partial discharge of air containing radioactive materials," TEPCO said.
And the company reported the lowest state of emergency at its Onagawa nuclear plant in northern Japan, where three reactor units are "under control" although radioactivity readings are exceeding allowed levels in the area surrounding the plant, IAEA said. Authorities there are investigating the source of radiation, the agency said, and Reuters reported yesterday the company was attributing the high readings to radiation leakage at another plant in the neighboring prefecture.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 16, at 9:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
Witnesses: Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko and additional witnesses TBA.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today will begin to mark up a bill that would strip U.S. EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources like power plants, oil refineries and manufacturing.
The measure (H.R. 910) from Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has moved speedily through the committee since it was formally introduced two weeks ago, receiving approval by voice vote last week in the Energy and Power Subcommittee (E&E Daily, March 10).
Lawmakers will give their opening statements this afternoon, after which Upton will call up his bill. The committee then will recess and reconvene tomorrow morning. The measure is expected to clear the full committee with ease.
No amendments were offered when the subcommittee marked up the bill -- a relatively quick process which took three hours -- but committee Democrats indicated last week that they would prepare amendments ahead of the full committee vote.
Republicans in both the House and Senate moved last week to link EPA's regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to the upswing in gasoline prices.
"These rules are about as out of touch with what the American people want as anything moving forward in Washington -- this is especially so, given what the rules would do to already-soaring gasoline prices," said Upton, following the subcommittee vote.
"What I call the Obama administration's cap-and-trade agenda is also playing a major role in pushing prices higher -- and not just for gasoline," said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on the floor Thursday. Inhofe has introduced a companion to Upton's bill in the Senate.
"This agenda hurts families, truckers and farmers -- basically, anyone who drives, uses diesel, or flips a light switch. In a word: everyone," Inhofe said.
But EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who appeared Friday on Capitol Hill to discuss her agency's fiscal 2012 budget request, told Energy and Commerce that the legislation would forgo fuel economy improvements that in turn would drive up the cost of energy. She noted that in addition to the bill's provisions on stationary sources of CO2, it would also prevent EPA from being involved in setting any future greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions rules after model year 2016.
"The bill that passed the committee would actually increase the amount of money that Americans have to pay for gasoline," she said. "All told, nullifying this part of the Clean Air Act would prevent hundreds of billions of barrels of oil savings at a time when prices are rising yet again. I can't for the life of me understand why you would vote to massively increase America's oil dependence."
Schedule: The markup will begin today at 3 p.m. in 2123 Rayburn and continue tomorrow at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Even as Congress moves toward expected approval this week of a new stopgap government funding bill, the political stars have yet to align for a long-term deal on the fiscal future of federal energy and environmental programs.
The three-week continuing resolution (CR) unveiled by House Republicans on Friday would slice $6 billion in federal spending, largely by pursuing Democratic-backed program cuts and eliminating earmarks. But even Senate Democrats' acceptance of a second stopgap CR in two weeks, which Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) billed yesterday as "a signal of good faith," appears unlikely to be a game-changer given how strongly both parties are dug in to their respective positions.
"Let's resolve the budget for the rest of the year," Durbin told CNN yesterday, invoking national alarm over high gas prices and their impact on the stalled economy as an impetus to "move on and move forward" past the impasse over the fiscal year that ends in October.
The dual failure last week of two competing long-term CRs in the Senate -- the sweeping package of cuts House Republicans passed on Feb. 19 and a Democratic plan that excised about $6 billion from the budget -- was aimed at sparking renewed attempts at compromise (E&ENews PM, March 9). Yet it only led to more discord, with Senate Democrats emphasizing the lack of consensus and House GOP leaders reveling in the fact that their CR won two more votes than the majority party's proposal.
Meanwhile, the planning challenges of operating under a second stopgap CR leaves the stakes as high as ever for U.S. EPA, the Energy Department, the Interior Department and other federal environmental agencies. The senior Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Interior and EPA funding, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia, offered his sympathies Friday to the federal workers who will have to manage hiring and spending under still more uncertainty.
The short-term budget process makes agencies' work "extremely difficult," Moran said in an interview. "If I were a program manager, I don't know how I would cope with the situation."
At EPA, whose budget the House's long-term CR would slash by $3 billion, concerns remain high over the presence in that bill of multiple riders restricting agency regulations. But Senate Democrats insisting on a "clean CR" without policy riders won an unexpected ally yesterday in Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), a former White House budget chief often mentioned as a potential top-tier presidential candidate for 2012.
Daniels told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he considered it "better practice for lawmakers "to try to concentrate on making ends meet, which Washington obviously has failed to do for a long time, and have other policy debates in other places."
"[T]o see them arguing over nickels and dimes like this," Daniels said of Congress and the Obama administration, "from the vantage point of people who are making big changes, to make ends meet and stay out ... it's almost comic."
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the House appropriations subpanel on EPA, told E&E Daily earlier this month that the "majority" of riders could be taken off the table should Democrats move their spending-cut targets closer to the GOP's level of $60 billion over seven months (E&ENews PM, March 2).
Should the new three-week CR pass easily this week, keeping the government funded until April 8, about one-sixth of that $60 billion already would be sliced from agencies' tillers for fiscal 2011. Even so, Democrats showed no signs of backing down from their insistence on preserving administration priorities such as scientific research and development.
And the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left Japan reeling prompted several Democrats to warn against the GOP CR's proposed funding cuts for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association weather monitoring.
"Congress must heed this cruel wakeup call and stop proposed cuts to essential NOAA prediction programs that would endanger lives," Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said in a Friday statement.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) drew a line in the sand Friday by saying this week's 21-day CR would be the last stopgap spending plan he endorses.
"You have the majority," Hoyer told House GOP leaders. "And with the majority, you have the responsibility to see if we can move this country forward."
But House Republicans were equally insistent that Democrats fulfill their governing responsibilities by coming to the table to discuss cuts beyond those that fell short in the Senate.
"Though there are visible divisions in the Democrat party, we hope that our friends on the other side of the aisle will work with the President and join us on a measure to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year that contains serious spending cuts and makes Washington begin to live within its means," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a statement.
In an interview Friday, Simpson said his conference's preference would be a long-term CR but acknowledged that "whether that will happen or not, who knows."
"We've put our marker out there and we need the Senate to pass something so we can go work with them," Simpson said.
Reporter Phil Taylor contributed.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu is headed back to Capitol Hill this week to defend his agency's hefty $29.5 billion spending request for fiscal 2012.
Chu will testify tomorrow before the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, where he will likely meet strong Republican resistance to his agency's proposed 12 percent increase over fiscal 2010 spending levels.
With the earthquake and tsunami disaster unfolding in Japan, lawmakers also likely will ask Chu for the latest information on the emergency at the country's nuclear plants. On Friday, President Obama said he had tasked Chu "to be in close contact with their personnel to provide any assistance that's necessary, but also to make sure that if, in fact, there have been breaches in the safety system on these nuclear plants, that they're dealt with right away."
The hearing comes as lawmakers are still embroiled in debate about spending levels for the current fiscal year. Discussions are ongoing, but Republicans and Democrats are currently at a stalemate over spending levels.
DOE was one of the few agencies that was awarded spending increases in the president's 2012 budget request, but Republican lawmakers anxious to trim federal spending will likely raise concerns about the request.
"We're not going to have any more money to spend," Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), chairman of the committee, told reporters last week in the Capitol.
The agency's request contains spending boosts for nuclear energy programs, renewable energy research and development and clean energy technology research. The increases would come at the expense of programs that research traditional energy sources and would accompany elimination of oil and gas industry tax incentives.
For example, energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would see a 44 percent increase over fiscal 2010 levels, while fossil energy programs would be cut 45 percent.
The fossil fuel cuts faced tough criticism from both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate last month, but House Republicans anxious to trim spending may endorse those cuts and recommend more to the clean energy programs.
Frelinghuysen said the limited funds awarded to DOE in 2012 by the House will likely be directed toward the agency's nuclear stockpile.
"I don't think they're going to give us any more money, and if we focus anywhere, it's going to be our responsibilities to ensure that we have a reliable nuclear stockpile -- that defense portion -- and the naval reactors," Frelinghuysen said. "Not that the department's general mandates aren't important, but unbeknownst to many members of Congress, we have some pretty major responsibilities for ensuring the reliability of that stockpile."
"I think there's been a desire of both members of the Senate and House to make further investments, and I think we're going to continue to do that," he added.
Frelinghuysen added that Republicans would be respectful of Chu but would not be likely to budge on big spending increases.
"He's extremely likeable and we'll treat him with respect, but there are a lot of things going on, a lot of issues that people have on their minds," Frelinghuysen said. "We'll cover the whole waterfront."
Other issues that may crop up during tomorrow's hearing include gas prices and the proposed Yucca Mountain closure, Frelinghuysen said. Any discussions of nuclear energy will likely also probe Japan's nuclear leak and the ramifications it could have on the U.S. nuclear sector.
During Senate hearings on the agency's budget request, Chu has faced tough questions from lawmakers about the agency's decision to focus research investment on new energy technologies, while oil and gasoline prices are skyrocketing thanks to political unrest in the Middle East.
He is also perennially berated by Republicans for cutting funding to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project. During a budget hearing in the subcommittee last year, Frelinghuysen told Chu he did not think he had the legal authority to shut down the nuclear waste repository (E&E Daily, March 25, 2010).
Chu knows his agency's request faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled House.
"We'll take it a day at a time," he said last month of the proposal's chances of progressing on Capitol Hill (E&ENews PM, Feb. 14).
Schedule: The hearing is tomorrow at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn.
Witness: Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
The House Natural Resources and Energy and Commerce committees this week will explore opportunities for domestic energy production and address concerns with rising gasoline prices.
The two Resources hearings -- Wednesday's will focus on Gulf of Mexico permitting and Thursday's will explore domestic energy reserves -- are expected to highlight Republican concerns that the Obama administration is blocking access to public minerals and the jobs that they support while hyping statistics that indicate domestic energy production is up.
A third hearing Thursday before E&C's Energy and Power Subcommittee will focus on oil supplies, gasoline prices and jobs in the Gulf. The panel's chairman, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), last week said U.S. EPA plans to regulate greenhouse gases would lead to higher prices at the gas pump, a charge Democratic members of the House, including those who favor curbing EPA powers, dismissed (E&ENews PM, March 11).
Each of the hearings will shed particular focus on White House policies Republicans warn will prolong dependence on foreign fuels and raise the cost of American energy.
"It should be a goal to become less dependent on worldwide energy fluctuation," said Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) in a segment last week on C-SPAN's Washington Journal. "We can do that because we have a tremendous amount of reserves here in the continental United States."
But the Obama administration has shut the door on domestic energy production by canceling leases in the Rocky Mountain West, "slow-walking" drilling permits in the Gulf and imposing burdensome regulations that have stifled developments of oil, gas, coal and unconventional energy sources, Hastings said.
"We have a tremendous amount of resources here in our country, frankly, that we aren't utilizing," he said.
Republican lawmakers last week highlighted updated estimates from the Congressional Research Service that indicate the United States' recoverable resources of oil, natural gas and coal are larger than those of Saudi Arabia, China and Canada combined.
The November 2010 report indicated that the United States contains 19.1 billion barrels of proven reserves of oil and 244.7 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves of natural gas. Undiscovered but technically recoverable oil in the United States is estimated at 145.5 billion barrels, with 1,162.7 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered but technically recoverable natural gas, according to the report.
The United States also contains an estimated 488 billion tons of coal, more than half of which is technically recoverable, CRS found.
The report will likely be a "new staple talking point" among Republican lawmakers, said a Senate GOP aide. An expert from CRS is scheduled to testify at Hastings' Thursday hearing, said committee spokesman Spencer Pederson.
Western Republican members of the Resources Committee are likely to also target Obama administration policies such as the Bureau of Land Management's "wild lands" policy, which would offer protections of roadless lands but also prevent the sale of some new oil and gas leases.
Hastings last week made specific reference to the administration's decision in early 2009 to halt 77 oil and gas leases sold in Utah in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said fell too close to national parks and other sensitive lands and lacked coordination with other Interior agencies.
Other Republican members of the panel say BLM is moving too slowly issuing leases that have come under protest from environmental groups in the West.
Hastings said he sees a long-term energy fix in the estimated 800 billion to 1.4 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil from shale reserves in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
"You can see that those reserves are plentiful. And that's only in the Intermountain West," Hastings said. "It seems to me that the best antidote, long term, for these fluctuations in gas prices, is for us to utilize the resources that we have in this country."
Democratic leaders on the committee have balked at Republican claims that industry needs more access to public lands to boost production and satisfy more domestic demand.
Late Friday, Senate Democrats released a statement that U.S. oil production, including that on federal lands and waters, has been increasing since 2008, with its largest single-year increase in decades in 2009.
"The industry needs to ease the consumers," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member on Resource's public lands subcommittee. Grijalva cited BLM statistics that oil and gas companies have leased more than 40 million public acres but are producing on 11 million of them.
"Before we say there needs to be a rush to open up more, I think the investigation has to be why that two-thirds is not being utilized" he said. "I say it is speculative. I say they are holding onto land so somebody else can't get to it."
BLM Director Bob Abbey last week reiterated the administration's position that there is not enough mineral resource under Interior management to make a dent in global oil prices.
"We could take steps now to lease new lands, but it would be years before those lands could ever be developed," Abbey said following a budget hearing before Hastings' committee. "In the meantime, we understand the role that we play. But our actions have very little role on the worldwide price of oil."
Wednesday's Resources hearing will explore development of the nation's 1.8-billion-acre outer continental shelf, with a particular focus on the Obama administration's oversight of drilling nearly a year after BP PLC spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.
Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement late last month issued the first deepwater drilling permit since the spill and late Friday issued a second permit for a well that was suspended under a now lifted moratorium.
Salazar has promised to issue a "handful" more permits in the near future now that operators have begun demonstrating the ability to prevent and contain possible oil spills.
Permitting will be the dominant theme of the hearing, but equal attention should be given to the amount of federal waters the Obama administration has made available to drilling, said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research.
"When the president says we only have 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, he's right," Kish said. "But that's only our proven reserves."
While BOEMRE has leased some 40 million acres for offshore drilling, federal waters include about 1.76 billion acres altogether, Kish said. The administration said it will not consider drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and some parts of the eastern Gulf of Mexico in its next five-year plan but will consider holding additional leases off the coast of Alaska.
Schedule: The first Resources hearing is Wednesday, March 16, at 10 a.m. in 1324 Longworth.
Witnesses: Scott Angelle, secretary, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources; Elizabeth Ames Jones, chairman, Railroad Commission of Texas; Charlotte A. Randolph, president, Lafourche Parish Government, Louisiana; Chett Chiasson, executive director, Greater Lafourche Port Commission, Louisiana; Samuel Giberga, general counsel, Hornbeck Offshore Services; Christopher K. Jones, Keogh, Cox & Wilson, Ltd.; Keith Overton, chairman, Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.
Schedule: The second Resources hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 10 a.m. in 1324 Longworth.
Witnesses: Expert from Congressional Research Service; others TBA.
Schedule: The Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 9 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Witnesses: TBA.
While House Republican leaders have sought to reign in executive branch power as a way of bringing fiscal responsibility to Washington, a Senate subcommittee tomorrow will examine a bipartisan measure seeking to accomplish that goal by granting the president additional authority.
A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subpanel will consider the "Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2011," which seeks to give the president a line-item veto.
It is a bill that Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the subcommittee overseeing federal financial management that will hold the hearing, reintroduced this year with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Both men were co-sponsors of the bill during the 111th Congress and are longtime supporters of the line-item veto.
Ever since the Supreme Court struck down a law granting the president line-item veto power in 1998, proponents of the "budget scalpel" mechanism have been seeking a constitutional way to allow the chief executive to cut earmarks and other wasteful provisions that get attached to spending bills.
President Obama called on Congress to pass legislation that would grant him a line-item veto last year.
Carper and McCain's proposal would allow the president to single out earmarks and other nonentitlement spending and send them back to Congress for expedited votes on whether to rescind funding. Both the House and Senate would have to approve a rescission request. The bill would sunset at the end of 2015 to give Congress the chance to review its effectiveness before renewing it.
In trying to build momentum for the effort this year, Carper starts with strong support in his subcommittee. Ranking member Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is one of 33 Senate co-sponsors of the bill.
"This expedited rescissions proposal would empower the president to exercise greater fiscal restraint and bring much-needed accountability to the appropriations process," Carper said last week in a statement. "While this bill alone certainly wouldn't be enough to solve all of our nation's fiscal problems, it would be a valuable addition to our toolbox as we work to reduce our budget deficits."
Schedule: The hearing is tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. in 324 Dirksen.
Witness: Maya MacGuineas, president, the Committee for a Responsible Budget; Virginia McMurtry, specialist in American national government, Congressional Research Service; Todd Tatelman, legislative attorney, American law division, Congressional Research Service; and Thomas Schatz, president, Citizens Against Government Waste.
House appropriators Thursday will review the Obama administration's proposal to significantly boost funding for offshore drilling oversight and complete a restructuring of the Interior Department's former Minerals Management Service.
The administration's fiscal 2012 request seeks to implement sweeping reforms that establish new safety regulations -- including well integrity standards, worst-case spill estimates and mandatory spill response and containment plans -- as well as the creation of three new agencies designed to "de-conflict" the agency's environmental oversight from revenue collection.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement seeks $358.4 million, a net increase of $133 million over current funding levels. Lease rentals, cost-recovery fees and increased inspections would be expected to offset about $225 million of the request.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Interior's budget, last week said he believes the increase in inspections fees -- which would raise $65 million, up from $10 million currently -- are "businesslike" and will not unduly burden companies that have generated several billion dollars in revenues from Gulf of Mexico drilling (E&E Daily, March 10).
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs the counterpart House subcommittee, has said he agrees industry should pay a greater portion of its oversight costs but has not indicated whether he supports the specific fees Interior has proposed.
The agency request follows recommendations from the president's Oil Spill Commission that industry fees should "provide adequate leasing capabilities and regulatory oversight for the increasingly complex energy-related activities being undertaken on the OCS."
The report also argued that industry "should do significantly more and provide the funds necessary for regulation [which] would no longer be funded by taxpayers, but instead by the industry that is being permitted to have access to publicly owned resources."
The increased funding is critical for Interior to hire new inspectors, invest in new technologies, implement a "risk-based" inspection program and expand offshore transportation resources, Interior officials said.
BOEMRE needs additional support from Congress if it hopes to resume a permitting rate similar to before BP PLC's oil spill last year in the Gulf, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said.
"So much of it depends on this budget," Salazar told reporters after defending the White House's fiscal 2012 request before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this month (E&ENews PM, March 2). "If we don't get the horsepower to be able to process permits under what is now a greater degree of scrutiny, we may never return to a pre-Macondo rate of permitting."
BOEMRE late last month issued the first deepwater drilling permit since the spill, and late Friday issued a second deepwater permit for a well that was suspended under a now-lifted moratorium.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 1 p.m. in B-308 Rayburn.
Witness: Michael Bromwich, director of BOEMRE.
The Energy Department's science chief will shoulder a heavy load this week as he visits House appropriators to defend an Obama administration request for 2012 science funding that is more than 9 percent above 2010 levels.
Steven Koonin, the Energy Department's undersecretary for science, will appear Wednesday before the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee to make his case for the Office of Science's fiscal 2012 request.
At $5.4 billion, that amounts to 9.1 percent more than the office received in 2010 -- a tough sell for Republican lawmakers looking for places to reduce discretionary spending.
Tomorrow, Energy Secretary Steven Chu is scheduled to address the same subcommittee to defend the overall DOE budget, which features a 12 percent spending boost over 2010 levels, held in check largely by cuts to fossil energy research (see related story).
Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) recently said he did not believe the DOE budget request reflected many "tough decisions," saying, "I think we are making a lot tougher decisions in the [continuing resolution]" (Greenwire, Feb. 28). That stopgap spending measure would fund the government through the rest of fiscal 2011.
The Office of Science's 2012 budget request includes boosts of more than 20 percent for several programs, including those for advanced scientific computing, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research and work force development for teachers and scientists -- an area slated to grow by 72 percent. Nuclear physics work would see a 15.9 percent boost under the proposal and the science program direction would increase 14.5 percent compared with 2010. The biggest drop would be science laboratory infrastructure, which would see a 12.4 percent decrease.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 16, at 10 a.m. in 2362-B Rayburn.
Witness: Steven Koonin, undersecretary for science, Department of Energy.
The need to upgrade aging transmission systems while integrating an increasing number of renewable energy sources could be an issue of concern at a House Water and Power Subcommittee hearing tomorrow.
Leaders from four Northwest and Southern power administrations are slated to defend their budgets before the House Natural Resources subpanel. The hearing will focus on the priorities and financial needs of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the Western Area Power Administration, the Southwestern Power Administration and the Southeastern Power Administration.
The four power marketing administrations are independent companies within the Department of Energy that market wholesale electricity mainly from federal hydropower projects for the West, Southeast, Southwest and Northwest.
The president's fiscal 2012 budget requested $86 million for the power marketing administrations, a decrease from the $150 million distributed in 2010. The funding is slated for grid modernization projects, investment in smart-grid technologies and a new "energy innovation hub" to focus on grid technologies.
The administration is proposing an overall spending request of $29.5 billion for DOE in fiscal 2012, a 12 percent increase from the 2010 enacted level.
Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) has been vocal about his support for hydropower as a cheap means of producing power while simultaneously opposing regulations that increase costs for consumers to meet environmental goals. McClintock has also been critical of power loss from hydroelectric facilities being replaced by higher-cost energy from natural gas, coal, wind and solar power.
Those concerns may resonate at this week's hearing as the power administrators discuss goals of upgrading older transmission to incorporate an increasing amount of renewable energy onto the power grid.
BPA, a federal agency funded through revenues from hydropower sales and transmission charges, is seeking to upgrade scattered, aging transmission lines to accommodate a growing number of wind farms, said BPA spokesman Michael Milstein.
BPA runs 75 percent of the transmission grid in the Northwest, and some of the lines are getting older and need to be upgraded or replaced -- and in some places expanded to accommodate more wind power, Milstein said. Many of the transmission lines were built as early as the 1930s in conjunction with the federal dams, he added.
BPA has had discussions on the proposed "I-5 Corridor Reinforcement Project" since 2009, a 500-kilovolt transmission line and associated substations reaching a span of 70 miles to accommodate burgeoning electricity demand in southwest Washington and northwest Oregon. The project has sparked testy opposition from residents who say it is redundant and would transport energy outside the region while leaving the burden of cost behind.
But BPA is also focusing on energy efficiency, research on smart-grid technology and ways to conserve power instead of building new power plants. It also has been managing electricity issues that arise in the Pacific Northwest when there are surges of wind and water, creating circumstances that can affect endangered species of fish.
Schedule: The hearing is tomorrow at 10 a.m. in 1324 Longworth House Office Building.
Witnesses: TBA.
House appropriators are expected to scrutinize President Obama's proposed 2012 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as they take a broader look at the Commerce Department budget Thursday, and the administration's plans to increase the agency's budget and boost climate programs are likely to generate discussion.
Amid the cost-cutting consensus on Capitol Hill, the White House wants to grow NOAA's budget and reorganize the agency's climate change portfolio from top to bottom.
President Obama's fiscal 2012 budget request seeks $5.498 billion for NOAA, a slight cutback from last year's $5.554 billion request but a 16 percent increase from the $4.740 billion the agency received in fiscal 2010 (Greenwire, Feb. 14).
Appropriators will go over the budget at a meeting of the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee.
House Republicans have sought to cut NOAA's budget via stopgap spending measures aimed at carrying the federal government through the end of the fiscal year.
At the top of the administration's request for NOAA is a new climate service, intended to provide "user-friendly" information to help federal, state and local governments as well as businesses adapt to climate change. The 2012 spending plan would put part of the portfolios of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and the National Weather Service into a new Climate Service office, with funding for the service set at $345 million, though those two offices would continue to operate.
"For decades, NOAA and its partners have been providing climate information that is essential to many aspects of policy, planning and decision-making," the White House said in its budget documents. "The consolidation of NOAA's climate activities within [the climate service] will enable NOAA to more effectively provide climate services on regional to national to global scales."
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 2 p.m. in H-309 of the U.S. Capitol.
Witnesses: TBA.
The Fish and Wildlife Service's acting Director Rowan Gould will again be on the hot seat Wednesday, defending a proposed $47.9 million increase over the service's current budget at a time when legislators are sharpening their scalpels for cuts.
Gould and his deputies likely will face questions about their requested hefty increase for land acquisition when they appear before Rep. Mike Simpson's (R-Idaho) House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee. As part of President Obama's sweeping "Great Outdoors" initiative, the administration is asking for $140 million for FWS to acquire new land for conservation -- an increase of more than one-third over its 2010 budget.
Two weeks ago, Republicans on a House Natural Resources subcommittee put Gould's feet to the fire, calling his service's proposed budget out of touch with the country's fiscal reality. They took particular issue with FWS's plans to acquire land through conservation easements, in which landowners maintain ownership of a property but make a voluntary legal commitment to preserve the land from certain types of development. GOP members called such easements an example of big government intrusion (E&E Daily, March 3).
The service's $1.7 billion budget proposal also holds funding upticks for endangered species protections and climate change initiatives, which could come up for debate.
Republicans also are likely to press for details on how the service spent the $280 million in stimulus funds it received. The service reported that 4,020 jobs were saved or created with those dollars, and Gould has said the investments in maintenance and new visitors centers made with those funds will have extra pay-off by giving future generations access to and appreciation for the outdoors. But GOP lawmakers have been skeptical that taxpayers got enough bang for their buck.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 16, at 1 p.m. in Rayburn B-308.
Witness: Dan Ashe, deputy director, Fish and Wildlife Service; Rowan Gould, acting director, Fish and Wildlife Service; and Chris Nolin, budget officer, Fish and Wildlife Service.
The House Appropriations Committee will convene Thursday to review the proposed fiscal 2012 budget and missions for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Last month the Obama administration released a $1.1 billion budget request for USGS, a $6.1 million increase over the 2010 enacted level.
During a budget hearing held last week, Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) said USGS had assigned itself "an incredibly daunting job" with its new budget, citing climate change programs many subcommittee members said were duplicative of other agency projects (E&E Daily, March 10).
During Thursday's hearing the committee is expected to carefully critique what the agency has identified as its spending priorities.
The largest portion of the budget, $48 million, would go toward the agency's Landsat missions, which USGS Director Marcia McNutt said provide essential data for land-use and climate change research.
Lamborn criticized the budget proposal for deviating too much from what he said were the agency's "core responsibilities."
"I'm wondering where the geology is at the United States Geological Survey," said Lamborn during the hearing. "It's been completely swallowed up by all the new missions and reorganization at USGS."
McNutt defended Landsat, saying the program was "vital to the nation's agricultural, water management, disaster response and scientific communities."
Other requests the committee is expected to discuss include funding for ecosystem restoration and the WaterSMART initiative.
The 2012 budget allocates $10.9 million for USGS involvement with WaterSMART. The agency hopes its work with the program will provide baseline data needed to secure sustainable water supplies. Lawmakers have criticized the initiative, saying they are unsure the work is being conducted efficiently (E&E Daily, March 7).
In order to boost funding for some projects, McNutt said the agency had to make cuts in other areas, such as natural hazard monitoring, a key function of USGS. Such budget evaluations have raised the ire of some lawmakers.
To avoid cutting funds from vital agency projects, McNutt has previously stated she plans to fold financial reductions into USGS administrative costs.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 9:30 a.m. in B-308 Rayburn.
Witness: USGS Director Marcia McNutt.
House lawmakers who are allied with the agriculture industry in opposition to U.S. EPA's sweeping plan to clean up Chesapeake Bay will examine the strategy and its national implications during a hearing Wednesday.
Criticism of the plan ran hot from Reps. Tim Holden (D-Pa.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) during a hearing last week before the full House Agriculture Committee, in which EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson defended the agency's effort (E&ENews PM, March 10).
That tone likely will continue during Wednesday's hearing before the panel's Conservation, Energy and Forestry Subcommittee.
EPA imposed a "pollution diet" on the 64,000-square-mile bay watershed at the end of last year that sets goals for how much phosphorus, nitrogen and sediment -- found in the runoff of farms and urban areas -- can be allowed to flow into the bay (Greenwire, Jan. 3).
The subpanel will also examine the plan's "implications on national watersheds," a nod to suspicions among many Republican and Democratic EPA critics that the cleanup plans for the Chesapeake watershed -- which spans the District of Columbia and the states of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia -- would be exported to the sprawling Mississippi River watershed, which covers 41 percent of the continental United States, including the Corn Belt.
Holden, the subcommittee's ranking member, blasted EPA last week for moving forward with the cleanup, launched by President Obama's May 2009 executive order, before lawmakers had a chance to implement $500 million in conservation and pollution controls authorized in the last farm bill.
"Agriculture wanted to be part of the solution to the bay problem," Holden told Jackson during last week's hearing. "The ink is not dry on the farm bill. USDA had not had time at all to implement any of these programs. And we get hit with this executive order. I think you understand the frustration that Mr. Goodlatte, myself and the producers feel."
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 16, at 10 a.m. in 1300 Longworth.
Witnesses: TBA.
House appropriators Thursday will weigh the U.S. futures commission's request to increase its budget to fund more than 300 new staffers and implement last year's financial reform act.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has requested $308 million for fiscal 2012, a $139 million increase over the fiscal 2011 continuing resolution. That money is "necessary funding" to hire 238 full-time employees to implement the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and 78 staffers for work not related to financial reform, the futures commission chairman wrote in a letter included with the request.
"The challenge before the agency is significant, but manageable, provided we are sufficiently resourced," Chairman Gary Gensler wrote on Feb. 14.
On Thursday, Gensler will defend his commission's request in front of the House Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee.
The futures commission is considering rules to regulate 30 topic areas set out in Dodd-Frank. The rules would bring restrictions to the previously unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market and would set limits on excessive speculation in energy and other commodities. The latter has been at least partly blamed for the $4-a-gallon gas prices in the summer of 2008.
In Title VII of Dodd-Frank, the futures commission is required to set regulations on over-the-counter derivatives, commonly known as swaps. Dodd-Frank calls for these agreements, which are based on expected futures prices, to be traded on exchanges and guaranteed by clearinghouses to reduce settlement risks.
CFTC estimates that the swaps market could be as big as $300 trillion in the United States alone and that regulation would require approximately 300 entities to register as swap dealers.
The rules would affect crude oil contracts, which are commonly traded as swaps, and some of the largest integrated oil and gas companies, which are major swap dealers. CFTC's proposal has utilities worried that the Dodd-Frank rules won't exempt commercial end-user hedgers from margin requirements, or deposits to cover risks (E&E Daily, Feb. 11).
Those concerns came up at recent congressional hearings before the budget was released, along with concerns about CFTC being able to put together the resources needed to implement financial reform in time to meet the statute's deadlines.
"Staff will be required to oversee swap dealers, the clearing of swaps and the trading of swaps on exchanges. ... These new responsibilities are in addition to the agency's existing mission of policing the futures marketplace," Gensler wrote in defense of the requested increase.
The new staffing would bring the commission up to 983 staff-years. The commission says in its budget request that it will need to grow to 1,143 by the end of fiscal 2013 "to perform its mission and to fulfill its regulatory responsibilities."
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) on Thursday also urged the commission to do more under Dodd-Frank to end excessive speculation in a letter he circulated to colleagues in Congress.
He asked the commission to impose an increase in the margin levels for speculative oil futures contracts, citing the turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East that has led to an increase in speculative betting on future oil price increases. Legitimate hedgers, meanwhile, have reduced their holdings of oil futures by more than 20 percent.
Speculators continue to buy $100 worth of oil futures with just $6 down, Nelson wrote.
"I believe the commission already has an extremely effective tool at its disposal it could use to discourage excessive energy speculation and bring down gas prices -- the authority to impose higher margin requirements for oil futures contracts," Nelson wrote. "The current system -- in which ordinary investors put down 50 percent to buy stock, while speculators have to post only six percent to buy a futures contract in oil and other commodities -- clearly is skewed."
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 10 a.m. in 2362A Rayburn.
Witness: Gary Gensler, chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are scheduled to examine the impact of Clean Air Act rules on job creation Thursday, one day after U.S. EPA must release a plan to limit toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants for the first time.
A federal court has given EPA until Wednesday to propose a replacement for the George W. Bush-era Clean Air Mercury Rule, a cap-and-trade program that would have required power plants to cut their mercury pollution by about 70 percent but would not have limited about 180 other kinds of toxic pollution. That plan was rejected in 2008, and now the Obama administration is preparing to issue a rule that could require utilities to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new pollution controls.
Though the rule likely will be decried by Republicans and industry groups, who have raised concerns that the regulations put in place by the Obama administration will lead to a rise in electricity prices, Democrats have a jobs argument up their sleeves.
According to a study released last month by researchers at the University of Massachusetts, it will take about 1.46 million years of new labor over the next five years to comply with the toxics limits and another proposed rule for power plants -- the equivalent of creating 290,000 full-time jobs over that time period. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has repeatedly cited the study during appearances on Capitol Hill, saying it strengthens the case for rules that are already justified by the lives saved and medical costs avoided.
The new jobs would come from upgrading and maintaining the pollution controls that would allow power plants to meet the new standards. In part because of strong environmental laws, the U.S. environmental technology sector leads the world with about $300 billion in revenue and exports goods and services to other countries, Jackson said last month.
"We should not forfeit that lead," she said. "We should not miss out on extraordinary opportunities to supply the world with environmental technologies that are made in the USA" (Greenwire, Feb. 8).
That argument has gotten a warm welcome from Senate Democrats such as Tom Carper of Delaware, who chairs the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who leads the subpanel on "green jobs." Their subcommittees jointly will hold Thursday's hearing.
"These are American jobs in manufacturing, installing and operating modern pollution control technology and producing clean energy -- jobs that come at a crucial time as our nation's economy continues to recover and grow," Carper said in a statement.
The witnesses at the hearing will represent labor groups, utilities and the makers of control equipment. Among them is Paul Allen, chief environmental officer at Constellation Energy Group Inc., who has recently said the power sector will be able to handle EPA's new standards.
Senators also will hear from David Montgomery of Charles River Associates, the consulting firm that produced the economic analysis used by the University of Massachusetts researchers to come up with their employment numbers. Montgomery criticized the job gains estimate in recent testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, saying the researchers did not consider whether jobs would be lost in the rest of the economy due to the 35 to 40 percent increase in wholesale energy costs that his firm predicted.
The jobs study also projected that it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to install the new equipment, and utilities will likely pass much of those costs to their ratepayers, said Margo Thorning, senior vice president at the American Council for Capital Formation, in a recent interview.
"What happens to industrial consumers who face electricity price increases?" Thorning asked. "Will they be able to expand their business, or will they decide that electricity prices are just too high, and move elsewhere? When you throw a pebble into the pond, the ripples extend very far."
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) will try to make the point at the hearing that air and climate regulations cost jobs and raise gas prices, spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said Friday.
Barrasso has introduced a bill to stop federal agencies from limiting greenhouse gases under existing laws and has been one of the most vocal critics of air pollution rules in the new Congress. During a previous hearing on EPA's budget, he said the Obama administration is mistaken when it says the Clean Air Act will save millions of lives and create millions of jobs.
"It may be a regulator's dream, but it is a small business owner's nightmare," Barrasso said.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 10 a.m. in 406 Dirksen.
Witnesses: Barbara Somson, legislative director, United Auto Workers; Richard Homrighausen, mayor, city of Dover; Paul Allen, senior vice president for corporate affairs, chief environmental officer, Constellation Energy; David Montgomery, vice president, Charles River Associates; and James Yann, managing director, Alstom Power.
Having spent the past few weeks sparring with Republican critics in the House, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will get a bit of a breather this week while visiting appropriators in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where lawmakers have been reluctant so far to make major cuts to the agency's budget.
Republicans in the House have said they want EPA's spending to go back to 2008 levels, which would entail a 30 percent cut from the agency's $10.2 billion budget for fiscal 2010. But if the Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee have a complaint about EPA's requested budget of $9 billion, it is that the agency would lose too much money.
During previous hearings, Senate Democrats have taken EPA to task for its request, mainly focusing on a proposed $950 million cut to a pair of revolving funds that provide money for state and local agencies to upgrade their water infrastructure.
Though the appropriations process for fiscal 2012 is just getting started, the debate over EPA has been playing out already, as the House and Senate try to hash out a spending deal for the rest of the current year.
"I agree -- we've got to fix the nation's budget challenges, but no American would try to balance their household budget by skimping on their kids' safety, and just the same, Congress should not be putting austerity ahead of public health," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said during Jackson's recent appearance before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (E&E Daily, March 3).
EPA would get $9.9 billion under the spending package that was proposed by Senate Democrats earlier this month to keep the federal government running until fiscal 2011 ends in September. It was the first spending bill put forward by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who took the gavel of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee this year when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) left to lead the Energy and Water panel.
The Democratic proposal, along with a competing bill from House Republicans, fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance last week.
They are $2 billion apart on EPA funding, forming one of many fronts in the ongoing budget battle. While the Republicans argue that no agency should be spared from funding cuts, Democrats say that EPA isn't the cause of the deficit and isn't the place to save money.
So far, the administration has tried to position itself somewhere in the middle.
"The president's proposed budget does make cuts, but it makes them with a thoughtfulness that is intended to ensure that we preserve the fundamental core programs that ensure clean air and clean water for Americans," Jackson testified at the previous Senate hearing, when asked how the president's proposal compares to the Republican spending bill.
Republicans also made EPA a major target of the $6 billion in cuts contained in the three-week spending bill that was unveiled by House Republicans on Friday to keep the government running while negotiations proceed. It would take away $232 million from a variety of EPA programs, most notably the agency's tribal assistance grant program, which would lose $172 million in funding.
President Obama called for a long-term compromise on Capitol Hill on Friday, saying it is "irresponsible" to run the government on two- and three-week-long spending bills.
"Both sides are going to have to sit down and compromise on prudent cuts somewhere between what the Republicans were seeking that's now been rejected and what the Democrats had agreed to that has also been rejected," Obama said. "It shouldn't be that complicated."
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 16, at 2 p.m. in 124 Dirksen.
Witnesses: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Chief Financial Officer Barbara Bennett.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a full committee hearing Wednesday on the report to the president from the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
The committee is expected to critique the commission's strategies for prevention and cleanup of future oil spills.
The commission has criticized the oil industry for a lack of planning and equipment for spill containment. Fred Bartlit, the chief counsel for the commission, said he was troubled to find that BP PLC had experienced problems with Halliburton Co.'s work in the years leading up to last April's spill (E&ENews PM, Feb. 17).
Discussions about lifting the $75 million liability cap on economic damages from oil spills could be resisted by Republican lawmakers who fear such an allowance would adversely affect the finances of small oil producers in the Gulf.
The commission is likely to request legislative assistance in implementing its recommendations, which include industry oversight and coastal cleanup.
Commission members have shown an interest in implementing a "hybrid system" that would integrate local, state and federal regulations as well as industrywide best practices (E&ENews PM, Feb. 11). William Reilly, co-chairman of the commission, took those recommendations a step further when earlier this month he announced plans to work toward agreements with Mexico and Cuba on preventing and cleaning oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico (Greenwire, March 9).
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 16, at 10 a.m. in 406 Dirksen.
Witnesses: Bob Graham and William Reilly, co-chairmen of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
Don't expect Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to be full of praise when they shine their oversight spotlight Thursday on the Department of Energy's spending of stimulus funds.
The hearing comes as several DOE American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded projects continue to be the subject of harsh criticism on Capitol Hill. GOP leaders believe those concerns justify the deep cuts they want to make to the agency's budget even as the White House has pushed for major new energy investments.
Republicans have been particularly concerned with DOE's loan guarantee program. The effort, which backs investments for renewable energy projects that might otherwise not get private funding, got billions in additional dollars through the stimulus program. But Republicans believe that poor management of the program has led to waste.
DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman added fuel to that fire earlier this month when he slammed the loan guarantee program for poor record keeping in a report to Secretary Steven Chu.
"In our opinion, the readily available record supporting the due diligence process was not sufficiently organized and maintained," Friedman wrote. "Further, the many separate, inconsistent and ineffective maintenance and archiving practices we observed during our review of thousands of documents on separate servers, individual computers and retrieved from contractor files, demonstrated the importance of adopting a structured and disciplined approach to records management."
Another recent DOE IG investigation studied the use of stimulus funds for infrastructure upgrades in DOE's Office of Science. That effort resulted in the agency canceling a $2.6 million project after Friedman's office determined it was not immediately necessary.
Republicans have asked Friedman to testify at Thursday's hearing along with Franklin Rusco, director of natural resources and environment at the Government Accountability Office, which has also been keeping tabs on agency stimulus spending.
A trio of DOE officials will also be questioned by the panel including Chief Financial Officer Steve Isakowitz, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Ines Triay and CEO for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Steve Chalk.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 1:30 p.m. in 2322 Rayburn.
Witnesses: DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman; DOE Chief Financial Officer Steve Isakowitz; Franklin Rusco, director of natural resources and environment at the Government Accountability Office; DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Ines Triay; and DOE CEO for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Steve Chalk.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week will hear how foreign governments entice clean energy companies to set up overseas with carefully tailored packages of tax breaks and other incentives.
Thursday's hearing on global investment trends in clean energy technologies will bring a panel of venture capitalists and others close to the highly sought startups that the administration and lawmakers alike frequently describe as the engines of economic growth.
Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is a strong proponent of federal assistance to help young energy companies cross over the so-called financing "valley of death" that makes it difficult for promising ideas to find the funding they need to get off the ground.
He has said reforming the Energy Department's loan guarantee program and addressing clean tech financing are among his priorities for "early attention in this Congress."
Committee aide Michael Carr said the hearing would be geared to establishing how global competitors address those issues.
"The objective here is to get that record established: What are the investment flows, what's been happening lately in the investment environment in clean tech, both here and overseas, and what are some of the considerations that a company takes into account when they decide" where to set up facilities, Carr said.
Carr said that while the hearing is not specifically tied to a particular bill, debate will likely return to the Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA), or "green bank," that Bingaman proposed in the last Congress and which was included in that session's House-passed climate bill (ClimateWire, July 1, 2010).
"CEDA is our big attempt to try to deal with that issue in the U.S., so I would expect most folks to try to talk about that in some fashion," Carr said.
Given the strong bipartisan support that the proposal attracted in the previous Congress, Carr said he was unsure of the extent to which it would face opposition in the new committee.
He said in the last session once the workings of the proposed agency were fleshed out, "for the most part, people were pretty much won over." But with five new Republican members and three new Democrats on the panel, that support-building will have to start anew.
A staffer for ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the session would likely frame the views of senators who favor extensive government intervention against those who see federal involvement as tying up projects and permitting, especially in energy development. Murkowski generally "leans more" to the latter view, the staffer said.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 17, at 9:30 a.m. in 366 Dirksen.
Witnesses: Ethan Zindler, head of policy analysis, Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Will Coleman, partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures; Neil Auerbach, managing partner, Hudson Clean Energy Partners (invited); and Kelly Sims Gallagher, associate professor of energy and environmental policy, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (invited).
How will the clean energy standard and transmission cost allocation discussions affect smart-grid development? During today's OnPoint, Bob Shapard, the new chairman of the GridWise Alliance, discusses the challenges posed to modernizing the grid as Congress debates transmission cost allocation and renewables mandates. Today's OnPoint will air at 10 a.m. EDT.
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Markup of EPA bill
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Hearing on DOE budget
Hearing on budgets for four Power Administrations
Markup of EPA bill, continued
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Hearing on line-item veto bill
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Hearing on DOE and NRC budgets
Hearing on offshore permitting in the Gulf of Mexico
Hearing on DOE science budget
Hearing on Chesapeake Bay cleanup
Hearing on Fish and Wildlife Service budget
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Hearing on presidential commission's oil spill report
Hearing on EPA budget
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Hearing on American energy
Hearing on USGS budget
Hearing on gasoline prices and domestic energy resources
Hearing on Commodity Futures Trading Commission budget
Hearing on BOEMRE budget
Hearing on DOE stimulus spending
Hearing on NOAA budget
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Hearing on global investment trends in clean energy technologies
Hearing on the Clean Air Act and jobs
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Hearing on the Clean Air Act and the Texas economy
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