Budget & Policy

After decades of working to raise awareness regarding climate change and incite action on the political and private sector fronts to address the threat, former Vice President Al Gore can say he is optimistic about mankind’s ability to win the battle. “We’re going to win this,” Gore said Thursday during an appearance at the Climate […]

At some point in the future, an economy-wide legislative approach will be necessary to reach the United States’ long-term climate goals, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Wednesday at the Going Green Conference hosted by the European Commission in Washington, D.C. “I think personally, eventually some administration will have to be working with Congress to find […]

The American Nuclear Society said Wednesday it had joined with three other organizations to urge the White House to retain the National Security Council’s director of nuclear energy policy position. In a May 3 letter to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, the organizations cited “deep concern” over reports that the job might be eliminated just […]

Ending fossil fuel leasing on federal lands and cutting off renewals of non-producing leases would help the U.S. get closer to its international climate goals, according to a new report from the Stockholm Environment Institute. Taking a “keep it in the ground” stance toward fossil fuel extraction on federal lands would “send national coal production […]

With primaries looming in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton strayed a bit from the campaign trail Tuesday, heading to Ohio, where she already notched a primary victory, to revisit controversial comments she made in March regarding coal jobs. During a campaign event at a brewery in the city of Athens, Clinton […]

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday denied five motions to reconsider its New Source Performance Standards. The rule, finalized last fall alongside the slightly more controversial Clean Power Plan, essentially mandates the use of carbon capture technology on any new-build coal-fired power plant. The rule’s critics argue that carbon capture and storage is not adequately […]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is headed into coal country this week with scheduled presidential campaign stops in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Ohio. While there, Clinton “will meet with voters, hear their stories, and discuss how she will fight to raise incomes and expand opportunities for them and their families as president,” according to […]

Environmental officials from 14 states late last week requested additional information and technical assistance from the Environmental Protection Agency related to the Clean Power Plan, regardless of a Supreme Court-ordered stay halting implementation of the rule. “We recognize that the EPA must respect the stay of the Clean Power Plan regulations in providing additional information […]

The Department of Energy has invested millions in Summit Power Group’s Texas Clean Energy Project, but the initiative’s chances seem to be fading, and DOE should be cautious about further dealings with the project, according to the DOE Inspector General’s Office. “Due to Summit’s inability to obtain the required commercial debt and equity project financing […]

With research and development efforts winding down in earnest at the American Centrifuge Plant near the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) made a plea on the Senate floor Tuesday to increase the fiscal 2017 budget for another big Pike County jobs project: an on-site waste-disposal facility. As part of the […]

Senators left Washington for a weeklong recess Friday without passing their fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill, but the chamber’s Republican leader has vowed to try again on May 9, despite no signs that the partisan strife which prevented a floor vote this week will abate. The bill was cruising toward a vote Wednesday […]

Experts, policy makers, and the international community had mixed reactions to a foreign policy speech given by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Wednesday that called for modernization of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal and a rebuilding of the U.S.-Russian relationship based on shared interests. In an address delivered in Washington, D.C., Trump called the […]

Senators left Washington for a weeklong recess Friday without passing their fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill, but the chamber’s Republican leader has vowed to try again on May 9, despite no signs that the partisan strife which prevented a floor vote this week will abate. The bill was cruising toward a vote Wednesday […]

The White House on Thursday announced the nomination of nuclear policy and technology consultant Gail Marcus to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Marcus would presumably replace DNFSB Vice Chairman Jessie Hill Roberson, who has been nominated to fill a vacancy on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Senate has yet to take action on Roberson’s […]

The House Armed Services Committee passed its version of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in the wee hours of Thursday morning by a 60-2 vote. The $610.5 billion defense spending bill would authorize $13.3 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and includes amendments tying funding restrictions to mandates for periodic […]

Senators left Washington for a weeklong recess Friday without passing their fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill, but the chamber’s Republican leader has vowed to try again on May 9, despite no signs that the partisan strife which prevented a floor vote this week will abate. The bill was cruising toward a vote Wednesday […]

The White House on Thursday announced the nomination of nuclear policy and technology consultant Gail Marcus to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Marcus would presumably replace DNFSB Vice Chairman Jessie Hill Roberson, who has been nominated to fill a vacancy on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Senate has yet to take action on Roberson’s […]

The Supreme Court stay of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan does not necessarily mean the schedule for state implementation of carbon emissions reductions plans will be significantly delayed when and if the rule survives legal challenge, the New York University School of Law Institute for Public Integrity said in a policy brief issued Wednesday. […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday failed to resolve a largely party-line dispute over an amendment to its fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill, leaving it (and hundreds of millions of dollars proposed for federal fossil energy research and development) in limbo for the moment. The $37.5 billion bill passed smoothly through the committee process, […]

The U.S. electric power industry’s use of steam coal for electricity production dropped 29 percent from a high of 1,045 million short tons (MMst) in 2007 to about 739 MMst in 2015, the Energy Information Administration said Thursday. Consumption dropped in the overwhelming majority of states. The only exceptions to the trend were Alaska and […]

A British Parliamentary committee on Wednesday supported an advisory panel’s recommendation for future carbon emissions reductions while offering some suggestions of its own, including targeting aviation emissions for cuts. The 2008 Climate Change Act requires the United Kingdom to by 2050 slash carbon emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels. Toward this, the government is […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday it has submitted a component of its Clean Power Plan for review by the White House Office of Management and Budget, asserting the move would not violate the Supreme Court freeze on the rule. Submitting proposed details of the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP) to the OMB “is […]

The House Armed Services Committee markup of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) extended into the evening Wednesday, with amendments under consideration that involved funding shifts that would boost spending on certain nuclear nonproliferation research and development and dismantlement activities. One amendment offered under the Strategic Forces Subcommittee mark would block $10 million worth […]

The Senate’s fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill was derailed on the floor Wednesday when a junior Republican senator’s controversial amendment to block a U.S. purchase of Iranian heavy water — part of the Obama administration’s role in a multilateral  nuclear nonproliferation deal with the Islamic republic — split the upper chamber along party lines and […]

Four Democratic Party U.S. senators on Tuesday called on their Republican colleagues to allow action to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. The matter is particularly important as the high court will almost certainly decide the fate of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, one lawmaker […]

The U.S. State Department has denied that providing funding to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would violate U.S. law now that the body has recognized Palestinian statehood. A group of 28 Republican senators, in an April 18 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, called for a halt to all U.S. financial support […]

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) made a plea on the Senate floor Tuesday to increase the fiscal 2017 budget for a waste-disposal facility under construction at the Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio. As part of a $37.5 billion 2017 energy and water spending bill that includes almost $31 billion for DOE overall and just over […]

The U.S. State Department said Monday it had responded to the demand from nearly 30 Republican senators to withhold all future funding for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and associated entities for recognizing Palestine as a state. The department, though, did not discuss details of the response. “[R]egarding the letter from 28 U.S. […]

No funds for atomic energy defense activities may be used for contracts with or assistance to Russia as long as the U.S. maintains a deferred maintenance backlog for aging defense nuclear facilities, according to the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) proposal released Monday by House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas). […]

The Environmental Protection Agency got one last chance last week to plead its case for the Clean Power Plan on paper. The agency has been in the midst of an intense legal battle over the regulation, which requires states to develop action plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals. An immense group of 156 […]