Budget & Policy

Green Scissors, a coalition of the nongovernmental organizations Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the R Street Institute, again Tuesday called for the rejection of legislation extending and expanding the 45Q carbon sequestration tax credit. In a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), […]

Parties in the case against the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan are up against an unusual challenge, even numbers of judges. The lawsuit was heard by a 10-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and could go on to an eight-judge Supreme Court, meaning it could draw tie judgments […]

Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius may require investing hundreds of trillions of dollars in negative carbon technologies, a bill that will fall to today’s youth to pay, Columbia University climate scientist James Hansen said in a report Monday. “The scenarios assume that young people are going to somehow figure out how to […]

The world cannot flip a switch and be entirely climate friendly overnight, President Barack Obama said Monday evening during the White House’s South by South Lawn event. Speaking with actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, the president explained that climate change must be addressed realistically. “I say all that not because […]

President Barack Obama on Monday evening will host actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe for a discussion of climate change during his “South by South Lawn” event. The talk will begin at 7 p.m. and will be followed by an airing of DiCaprio’s climate documentary “Before the Flood.” DiCaprio is a […]

With Congress out of session until after the Nov. 8 election, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) is taking a Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on the road this week, hosting a field hearing in Logan, W.Va., on the local impacts of the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate regulations. “Local officials and West Virginians will testify […]

A headline in the Sept. 28 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing misspelled the name of Mark Whitney, principal deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. The ExchangeMonitor regrets the error.

Three Democratic U.S. senators who have pushed the Energy Department to reform its whistleblower policies will introduce a bill that would expand and tighten whistleblower protection for agency and contractor personnel. Sponsored by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and titled “Department of Energy Whistleblower Accountability Act,” the bill would […]

Under the continuing resolution President Barack Obama signed Thursday after weeks of congressional bickering totally unrelated to nuclear programs, the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear-cleanup office is now funded at a slightly higher level than the White House requested for fiscal 2017. With the season’s only must-pass bill out of the way, Congress now adjourns until […]

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed a stopgap budget bill that freezes federal spending at fiscal 2016 levels and leaves the Energy Department with an annualized budget of $29.5 billion through Dec. 9. Under the continuing resolution for fiscal 2017, which Congress approved Wednesday after weeks of partisan bickering unrelated to nuclear programs, DOE’s program […]

Congress should create a new agency, separate from the Department of Energy, to manage American nuclear waste, the Bipartisan Policy Center recommended in a report released Tuesday. “The failures of the past decades are widely acknowledged and have been extensively documented,” former U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), co-chair of the think tank’s Nuclear Waste Council, […]

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed a stopgap budget bill that freezes federal spending at fiscal 2016 levels and leaves the Energy Department with an annualized budget of $29.5 billion through Dec. 9, which suggests that some of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) sites and major infrastructure projects may be left with less than […]

Lawmakers this week introduced new legislation in the House and Senate that would prevent the president from conducting a first-use nuclear strike without first obtaining a declaration of war by Congress. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on Tuesday submitted the legislation, called the “Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of […]

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, in their first of three debates, agreed Monday that the greatest threat facing the world is the proliferation of nuclear weapons but sparred over Trump’s prior comments about the nuclear capabilities of U.S. allies. “The single greatest problem the world has is nuclear armament, nuclear […]

The nation’s current energy policy does not support carbon capture and storage technology, according to lawmakers presenting Thursday at a Washington, D.C., technology showcase hosted by the Coal Utilization Research Council. “The president has been obsessed with using less coal and discouraging the whole research into carbon capture. It’s not a good thing. Fortunately, there […]

Even if all of the national pledges included in the Paris Agreement on climate change were reached, the world could hit 2 degrees of global warming by 2050, a group of climate scientists said in a report Thursday. “Global GHG emissions are not projected to decrease fast enough, even if all the pledges are fully […]

The Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is not providing sufficient funding to states for coastal climate resiliency programs, officials from 25 state coastal zone management programs told the Government Accountability Office. “Officials from all 25 state programs that GAO interviewed said funding provided by NOAA has been critical for planning projects […]

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) does not buy Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s claims that he is the savior of the coal industry. “For Donald Trump to say that coal’s coming back, that’s a bunch of B.S.,” Manchin said Thursday at a technology showcase hosted by the Coal Utilization Research Council. Furthermore, Manchin said, “for people […]

As the dust settled after Tuesday’s oral arguments in the massive legal challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, the inevitable analyses launched early Wednesday morning. At two events, litigants in the case and legal experts weighed in on the proceedings. The case against the Clean Power Plan, carbon emissions standards for existing […]

The United States will need to take additional actions to meet its nationally determined contribution to the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Authors Jeffery Greenblatt and Max Wei, both of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, considered the U.S. policies included in the U.S. […]

After a protracted and highly partisan spending debate that came within two days of forcing a government shutdown, Congress on Wednesday passed a temporary budget to fund federal agencies at 2016 levels for the next two months. The Senate approved the so-called continuing resolution Wednesday afternoon, after Democrats in that chamber backed off their insistence that the measure include emergency […]

A 10-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for seven hours Tuesday grilled attorneys on both sides of the massive legal challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. The oral arguments were scheduled for just over three-and-a-half hours, but lengthy, and at times intense, questioning from […]

Partisan politics on Tuesday again prevented progress on the short-term spending bill Congress must pass by midnight Friday keep the federal government, and its various defense and civilian nuclear programs, open through Dec. 9. The Senate could not muster the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture, or curtail debate, on the legislative language for the […]

Congress should create a new agency, separate from the Department of Energy, to manage American nuclear waste, the Bipartisan Policy Center recommended in a report released Tuesday. “The failures of the past decades are widely acknowledged and have been extensively documented,” former U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), co-chair of the think tank’s Nuclear Waste Council, […]

Debating each other head-to-head for the first time Monday night, presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump served up more of their respective usual on issues of climate and energy. Clinton, the Democratic nominee, took an early jab at Republican candidate Trump while answering a question related to job creation. Her energy plan, Clinton said, would […]

Carbon pricing mechanisms in 41 countries are not producing the carbon reductions needed to address climate change, according to a report Monday from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The report analyzes the carbon pricing mechanisms of 34 OECD member countries and seven OECD partner economies. “[T]here is a major gap between current carbon […]

Dubbed the “hottest ticket in town” by the energy and environment community, oral arguments in the court case against the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, kick off at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case pits […]

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, in their first of three debates, agreed Monday that the greatest threat facing the world is the proliferation of nuclear weapons but sparred over Trump’s prior comments about the nuclear capabilities of U.S. allies. “The single greatest problem the world has is nuclear armament, nuclear […]

Another key vote is scheduled today in the Senate, this time to end debate on the legislative language for the short-term spending bill that will keep the Energy Department and the rest of the federal government funded at fiscal 2016-equivalent levels until Dec. 9. The next federal budget year begins Saturday, but the appropriations process […]

Three Democratic U.S. senators who have pushed the Energy Department to reform its whistleblower policies will introduce a bill that would expand and tighten whistleblower protection for agency and contractor personnel. Sponsored by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and titled “Department of Energy Whistleblower Accountability Act,” the bill would permit […]