Kaptur Named as Ranking Member of House E&W Panel
Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/23/2015
Senate Republicans officially named Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) this week to serve as chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration work. Alexander had been expected to assume the top spot on the panel since Republicans took control of the Senate in November. He served as the ranking member of the subcommittee for the last four years alongside former chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who will now serve as the panel’s ranking member.
Alexander has been a longtime support of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex, especially the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, as well as nuclear energy. He pushed—along with Feinstein—for more Congressional oversight of major nuclear weapons projects, like the Uranium Processing Facility being built at Y-12. “If we’re going to power our 21st-century economy, we need to pursue policies that don’t pick winners and losers in the marketplace, and that instead enable innovation in our free enterprise system,” Alexander said in a statement. “That means unleashing nuclear power and other sources of the cheap, clean, reliable energy we need. It also means using our taxpayer dollars wisely: by supporting government-sponsored research that leads to innovation and jobs, and by controlling the costs of big construction projects in Tennessee and across the country.”
The level of support that Alexander can direct toward DOE and NNSA missions will likely be limited, though. For as much as Alexander, and other Republicans, may want to accelerate funding for the weapons complex, there is a limited pool of money and sequestration looming in 2016. Notably, Republicans have been critical of the two-year slip to the schedule for the new Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine and the delays to the completion of a new long-range standoff cruise missile warhead, but it’s unclear if they’ll be able to find the money to restore funding for those programs. “There is certainly a limited pool of money,” a Congressional aide told NS&D Monitor when Republicans took control of the Senate in November. “There is no money tree. It’s a matter of setting priorities.”
Kaptur to Serve as Ranking Member of House E&W Approps
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) will remain the ranking member of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, but the panel will have two new Democratic faces. Reps. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) will join the subcommittee, House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said in a statement this week. Honda and Roybal-Allard replace Reps. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.) and Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). Pastor did not run for reelection last year, while Fattah shifted his attention to other subcommittees. The fourth and final member of the subcommittee is Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), the panel’s former top Democrat and the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The panel will again be chaired by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).
