Budget & Policy

Economists generally regard carbon pricing as the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but putting such a mechanism into place is a complex process, a new Brookings Institution paper says. “When it comes to developing an actual policy, a host of devilish details arise. Any carbon levy legislation would have to address a number […]

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) has named 31 members of the House Armed Services Committee to serve as conferees on the House-Senate conference committee that will work to reconcile the two chambers’ versions of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Conferees include Representatives Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), Randy Forbes (R-Va.), Joe Wilson […]

Two former employees of Department of Energy contractors will join three Democratic senators on Thursday in Washington, D.C., to unveil a new government report on whistleblower retaliation at DOE nuclear cleanup sites, the lawmakers said late Friday in a joint press release. The lawmakers and erstwhile DOE site workers — identified in the release as […]

Department of Energy (DOE) representatives briefed House Armed Services Committee staffers Thursday on a study of comparative pensions and cost-of-living increases given to retired workers from DOE facilities, according to the Savannah River Site Retirees Association (SRSRA). The SRSRA said in an issue summary statement ahead of the meeting that this briefing follows two years of […]

Bipartisan legislation introduced this week would require the federal government to compensate 13 communities around the nation that are left with spent nuclear reactor fuel in storage in the absence of a permanent solution. The funds would be at the amount set per kilogram in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which limited annual impact […]

The House of Representatives on Friday morning adopted by voice vote a motion to go to conference on the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), legislation the House passed in May and the Senate a month later. The House and Senate will next name their conferees to the committee, which will then develop a […]

Marc Selinger Defense Daily The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) said July 7 that the United States needs to be prepared to counter an increasing “diversity” of threats to its national security. The United States has been battling terrorist groups in multiple foreign countries for 15 years, but that threat “has not […]

The platform committee of the Democratic National Party arrives in Orlando, Fla., on Friday for its final meeting, a two-day event during which the panel will finalize the party’s 2016 platform ahead of the convention at the end of the month. This election’s Democratic platform is unique as the platform committee was not selected solely […]

Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator for Air and Radiation Janet McCabe was once again in the hot seat again Wednesday in front of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce – and things got heated indeed. The hearing, held by the Energy and Power Subcommittee to review the impact on the energy […]

United States contributions to the United Nations Green Climate Fund are a no-go in the House’s version of the fiscal 2017 funding bill for the State Department, which passed out of the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs subcommittee Wednesday. Under the draft State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, “None of the funds […]

Under current leases, the United States could be harvesting fossil fuels from federal land for 25-39 more years, well beyond the depletion of the global carbon budget to keep worldwide temperature rise limited to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the […]

Southern Co. subsidiary Mississippi Power said Tuesday it won’t back down from a civil lawsuit filed in early June by Treetop Midstream Services alleging that the company misrepresented the construction timeline for its Kemper County Energy Facility. “Mississippi Power plans to vigorously defend these allegations and will respond to the complaint,” Mississippi Power spokesman Jeff […]

Department of Energy (DOE) representatives are scheduled to brief House Armed Services Committee staffers Thursday on a study of comparative pensions and cost-of-living increases given to retired workers from DOE facilities, according to the Savannah River Site Retirees Association (SRSRA). The SRSRA said in an issue summary statement that this briefing follows two years of efforts […]

The projected price tag for Southern Co.’s Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project in Mississippi now sits at $6.75 billion after a new budget overage of $9.8 million, the company reported Friday in a monthly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The project was initially billed at $2.4 billion. The price […]

U.S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in May spent $96,246 on activities for licensing of the suspended Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, the agency said in a June 21 submission to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and other lawmakers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s finalized fee plan for the current budget year features a nearly 12 percent reduction in the annual fee for spent fuel storage and reactor decommissioning licensees. The final rule was published June 24 in the Federal Register, and announced Monday in an NRC press release. The agency collects 90 percent of its […]

The conditions for further reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy do not currently exist, according to the former policy director of the Obama administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. Brad Roberts, now the director of the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said Tuesday at the […]

GHG Daily Monitor will not be published Monday in observance of the Independence Day holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Tuesday, July 5.

The goal of the Paris climate change agreement, to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit that temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, is a gallant pursuit, but it’s just words until nations come up with a real plan to reach it, according to a research perspective […]

While the cancellation of the United Kingdom’s £1 billion carbon capture and storage commercialization competition in November was disappointing, there are still lessons to be learned from the two projects that remained in the running at the time, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Carbon Capture & Storage Association. The report found that […]

The leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico in a joint announcement Wednesday committed to powering their nations with 50 percent “clean power,” including carbon capture and storage, by 2025. Presidents Barack Obama, and Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, met in Ottawa for the North America Leaders’ […]

In a somewhat surprising turn Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to the fiscal 2017 funding bill for the Department of State striking language from the draft version that would prohibit the department from making contributions to the Green Climate Fund and instead setting aside $500 million for the fund. “While some of […]

Climate change is real, a group of 31 scientific organizations felt the need to remind the members of Congress Tuesday in a letter. “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. This conclusion is […]

The amount of energy produced by coal will decrease in the future, even if the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is not implemented, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2016 Annual Energy Outlook. “Coal use declines in the reference case, and even in the no-CPP case, although coal retains a larger market share […]

The conditions for further reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy do not currently exist, according to the former policy director of the President Barack Obama administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. Brad Roberts, now the director of the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said Tuesday […]

Increasing global energy investment by only 7 percent could reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by more than 50 percent by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) on Energy and Air Pollution, released Monday. Particulate pollution under the Clean Air Scenario outlined in the report would be reduced […]

Climate research is extremely valuable to understanding the issues facing the world, but it does not always carry over meaningfully to the policy world, according to an editorial published Monday in Nature. The editorial considers the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which seek, in part, to inform policymakers on the whole of […]

Contrasting a call by environmental group Green Scissors to keep an extension to the 45Q carbon storage tax credit off the 2016 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act, nongovernmental groups Third Way, the Clean Air Task Force, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and the Great Plains Institute on Thursday called for its inclusion. “While […]

Congressional Republicans want answers about how the current Supreme Court stay of the Clean Power Plan will affect the rule’s deadlines, and they want them now. A total of 112 lawmakers on Thursday wrote a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy demanding information on how the deadlines in the rule will be shifted […]

The members of the massive group suing the Environmental Protection Agency for its Clean Power Plan include some of the largest emitters in the nation, according to a report issued Friday by the Center for American Progress. The organization tallied the top 100 carbon emitters and then compared them to the list of petitioners suing […]