Budget & Policy

A challenge brought against the Environmental Protection Agency concerning four Class VI injection well permits issued to FutureGen Industrial Alliance in August 2014 has been dismissed by a panel of judges of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The permits in question would have allowed the FutureGen Alliance to construct and operate four wells to […]

Carbon dioxide emissions in China may have already peaked, according to a report by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. The report casts a shadow on the country’s intended nationally determined contribution to the Paris climate agreement, committing the country to peak emissions by 2030. “China’s international commitment to peak emissions […]

While the topic has been largely absent from Republican debates, climate change again got some air time Sunday evening during the Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who holds commanding lead in Michigan according to recent polls, touted her record working on climate issues during her time with the state […]

The actions of the United Kingdom’s Conservative government are not in line with the commitments the nation made in the recently adopted Paris Agreement, the Labour party’s shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change, Lisa Nandy, wrote Monday in an editorial in the New Statesman. “In recent months, in spite of the success […]

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) corrective actions in response to Inspector General (IG) audit findings over the years have often been “incomplete, ineffective, or untimely,” the IG said in a report released last week. It said that corrective actions identified in 88 percent of 48 IG reports closed in fiscal 2011-2014 had not been completed […]

Recent energy policy announcements by the U.K. government, including the scrapping of a £1 million carbon capture and storage commercialization competition, have struck a blow to energy sector investor confidence, according to a March 1 report of Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee. “We found that the Government’s actions have clearly had an impact on […]

Nuclear arms life-extension program (LEP) schedule and scope changes drove the largest increase in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) budget estimates from fiscal 2015 to 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a report released Friday. In its fiscal 2016 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, the NNSA’s weapons activities budget estimate over 25 years of […]

A story in the Feb. 26 edition of RadWaste Monitor mischaracterized the preferred alternative for the planned Niagara Falls Storage Site Interim Waste Containment Structure Operable Unit. That option, alternative 4, will involve excavation, partial treatment, and off-site disposal of the entire contents of the Interim Waste Containment Structure. The edition, in a separate article, […]

House Republicans want to revisit the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste program, first with the request that congressional auditors determine what resources are available to complete the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license review for the repository planned at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), […]

The U.S. Air Force is taking steps to strengthen nuclear deterrence education and experience for the younger generation of airmen, according to Gen. Robin Rand, who leads the service’s Global Strike Command. Speaking Wednesday at a House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing on the Pentagon’s nuclear forces budget request for fiscal 2017, Rand said […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) corrective action program does not properly address the root causes of problems at the facility to prevent recurrence and fails to close corrective action records at the appropriate time, resolving some before completion and leaving others open long after, according to a Feb. 25 Department of Energy Inspector General […]

If it wasn’t already clear where the battle lines in the fight over the Department of Energy’s proposed fiscal 2017 budget would be drawn, three consecutive days of hearings this week left little doubt. For the most part, the response to the requested budget was exactly what was expected: The left side of the aisle […]

The Oregon Senate on Wednesday passed legislation requiring the elimination of coal-fired power generation from the state energy mix. The bill specifically states that “on or before January 1, 2030, an electric company shall eliminate coal-fired resources from its allocation of electricity.” Currently, only one coal-fired power plant is operating in Oregon. That facility is […]

The Supreme Court-ordered stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants should result in the delay of all deadlines under the rule, according to a white paper released Wednesday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ”We believe the proper interpretation of the Court’s order is that […]

Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination, pledged during a campaign stop in Louisville, Ky., to “bring back the coal industry back.” “Obama has decimated the coal industry, decimated it, and we’re going to bring the coal industry back folks, we’re going to bring it back,” Trump said. Trump did not, however, say […]

The saga of the bipartisan Senate Energy Policy Modernization Act currently held up on the upper-chamber floor due to debate regarding the Flint, Mich., water crisis, continues, though lawmakers have expressed hope that the bill will come to a vote next week. “If we can get a deal on addressing Flint’s water crisis … and […]

Meeting the United States’ pledge under the Paris Agreement won’t be easy, but that’s the point, Richard Duke, deputy director for climate policy at the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change, said Wednesday during the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (APRA-E) summit. “We have intentionally set ambitious and achievable goals. By definition, there are […]

The Environmental Protection Agency has been working tirelessly to address the threat of climate change in any way it can. However, only so much can be done independent of congressional action, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said Wednesday at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy summit. “If you really want to get serious there’s a lot more […]

Scientists are scrambling to understand the practical differences between a world in which global average temperate rise is limited to 2 degrees Celsius and one in which the temperature is held at a 1.5-degree increase. As it turns out, the question is much more complex than it may seem, according to an editorial published Tuesday […]

The faulty valuation of fossil energy assets is an often-ignored threat to the stability of the global economy and the environment, former Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday during the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) summit. “We certainly have a problem with up to $22 trillion worth of stranded carbon assets for sure, […]

Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) confidence in the future of the Energy Policy Modernization Act she co-sponsored with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) seemed somewhat diminished Tuesday morning as she spoke at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) summit. The bipartisan bill was sent to the Senate floor in late January and was nearly brought […]

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) held nothing back Tuesday morning in condemning the Interior Department’s recently announced moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands. “You’re destroying my state’s economy, and I’m not exaggerating,” Lummis told Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at a House Natural Resources Committee budget hearing for the department. The Interior Department announced in mid-January […]

Investing in early stage innovative technology will likely fall to the government for the foreseeable future, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said Tuesday at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Energy Innovation Summit. “I don’t think you’re going to see a big transition in terms of funding in the earlier stages of the innovation chain […]

Julio Friedmann, who has served in various roles in the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy since August 2013, officially left his post Tuesday to head back to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he served as chief energy technologist until his appointment to DOE. Since March 2015, Friedmann served as principal deputy assistant secretary […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) corrective action program does not properly address the root causes of problems at the facility to prevent recurrence and fails to close corrective action records at the appropriate time, resolving some before completion and leaving others open long after, according to a Feb. 25 Department of Energy Inspector General […]

In a Tuesday hearing of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, panel Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) vented his frustrations at Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz over the White House’s proposal to change a long-established strategy for disposing of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium. The White House is obliged under an arms control pact with Russia finalized […]

House Republicans want to revisit the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste program, first with the request that congressional auditors determine what resources are available to complete the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license review for the repository planned at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), […]

India, the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will double its coal tax, from 200 rupees per metric ton ($2.93 USD) to 400 rupees per ton ($5.86), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced Monday in his budget 2016 speech to the nation’s parliament. The name of the tax will also be changed from the “Clean Energy […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has retracted a draft Clean Air Rule proposed in January to incorporate public comment before issuing a new version of the rule sometime this spring. Following the proposal of the rule, the state agency began gathering public feedback and subsequently decided to go back to the drawing board, according […]

Claims that the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is unprecedented are wildly exaggerated, according to legal experts with the New York University School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity. “There is ample precedent under the [Clean Air Act] both for the issuance of regulations that rely on beyond-the-fenceline pollution reduction techniques, such as emission […]