Budget & Policy

Senate Energy & Water Development Appropriations Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) yesterday pitched holding regular congressional meetings with national laboratory directors, and expressed hope that more frequent communication between Congress and the Energy Department and its labs could help lab projects and programs finish on time and on schedule. “I would hope…that we could have […]

House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) on Tuesday said his chamber’s appropriators have included $283 million for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the fiscal 2016 spending bill nearing completion, $35 million more than the Obama administration’s request, but that the funding might not be enough to keep WIPP on track […]

Stakeholders across the country agreed the United States needs to reinvigorate confidence in its ability to dispose of nuclear waste, the Bipartisan Policy Center said in a policy brief released this morning. The brief offers a variety of stakeholder opinions the BPC heard during regional meetings meant to renew a national dialogue on nuclear waste […]

Members of the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories (CRENEL) approved last Friday the group’s draft final report that reviews the Department of Energy’s (DOE) national labs and makes recommendations for improvement. CRENEL, established last year, was tasked with determining the extent to which the national labs’ operations align with the DOE’s […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 10/23/2015 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is considering whether to block the confirmation of Victoria Baecher Wassmer to be under secretary of energy for management and performance, largely because of what on Tuesday he said were broken commitments by Energy Department leadership to commit adequate funding […]

Jeremy L. Dillon WC Monitor 10/23/2015 House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) has called for greater predictability in the funding and operation of the Department of Energy’s environmental management program. Simpson, a longtime advocate for the cleanup of DOE legacy defense nuclear sites, offered his thoughts earlier this month during […]

Alissa Tabirian and Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/23/2015 President Barack Obama yesterday vetoed the fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that authorized his $611.9 billion request for defense discretionary spending, including $5.1 billion for defense environmental cleanup. The NDAA also proposed boosting authorized cleanup funds for the Hanford Site in Washington state to $915.8 […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 John Kasich, governor of Ohio and Republican presidential candidate, late last week released an energy plan calling for, among other actions, the repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently finalized regulations on carbon emissions. The regulation targeted is the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon emissions from existing […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 Carbon capture and storage holds the potential to help the United States meet its environmental, economic and national security goals, but current policy does not adequately address the status and risks involved with the technology, according to a report released late last week by the Brookings Institution. “Fundamentally, current […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 Following a roundtable at the White House, President Barack Obama announced this week that a total of 81 companies have signed the administration’s American Business Act on Climate Pledge. In signing the pledge, these businesses are “voicing support for a strong Paris outcome … demonstrating an ongoing commitment to […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 An analysis of climate pledges made by more than 150 of the world’s countries has revealed that if they are met the increase of global energy-related emissions would slow to a “relative crawl” of around .5 percent per year by 2030, according to a report released this week by […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 The floodgates have opened. The Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for new and existing coal-fired power plants appeared in the Federal Register on Friday, opening the door for legal challenges to the rules. The final rules, developed under Sections 111(b) and 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, were […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 As the upcoming negotiations toward a post-Kyoto climate agreement near, Republican lawmakers continue to push the administration to bring the agreement before the Senate for consultation and potential ratification. However, the administration argues, if the agreement is not legally-binding there is no precedent for them to do so and […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 The Environmental Protection Agency’s inclusion of ancillary or co-benefits in impact analyses for its regulations artificially inflates the estimated benefits of agency rules, Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight charged at a hearing this week. “The EPA has […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 The Chief Executive Officers of 10 of the world’s oil and gas companies representing the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) late last week pledged to work toward the international goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2-degrees Celsius. “Our shared ambition is for a 2°C future. It is […]

GHG Monitor 10/23/2015 IN INDUSTRY Anthony Wilson has been named president of Southern Company subsidy Mississippi Power, the company announced this week. Wilson has been involved with Mississippi Power and fellow Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power since 1984. As of Jan. 1, 2016, Wilson will step in as CEO of Mississippi Power, relieving current Chairman […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 10/23/2015 President Barack Obama yesterday vetoed the fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that authorized his $611.9 billion request for defense discretionary spending, including $12.5 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The bill championed various NNSA upgrades, including funding for deferred maintenance to address aging laboratory infrastructure, a […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/23/2015 John Kotek, acting assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, this week avoided placing any specific time frame on DOE’s progress on establishing a defense-waste-only repository or its ability to get a pilot consolidated interim storage facility up and running. Kotek said during his nomination […]

Acting Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy John Kotek avoided yesterday placing any specific timeframe on the department’s progress on a defense-waste-only repository or its ability to get a pilot consolidated interim storage facility up and running. Kotek indicated during his nomination hearing in front of the Senate Energy and […]

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is considering whether to block the confirmation of Victoria Baecher Wassmer to be under secretary of energy for management and performance, largely because of what yesterday he said were broken commitments by Energy Department leadership to commit adequate funding for decontamination and decommissioning work at […]

President Obama’s threat to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that passed the House and Senate and is now on its way to the president’s desk could jeopardize the bill’s defense acquisition reform provisions, according to the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. If Obama vetoes an “overwhelmingly bipartisan” bill that […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will at 10 a.m. tomorrow hold a hearing to consider several nominations for nuclear officials. Among other nominees, the committee will consider Cherry Murray to be director of the Energy Department’s Office of Science, Victoria Wassmer to be under secretary of energy, and John Kotek to be assistant […]

Alissa Tabirian WC Monitor 10/16/2015 The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) have approved a memorandum of understanding that dictates the responsibilities of each entity in the transition of legacy environmental cleanup work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), according to a Defense Nuclear […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/16/2015 The place for fossil energy in the United States’ future energy mix was questioned during this week’s Democratic presidential debate, during which all but one candidate expressed a need to transition away from the carbon-heavy fuel source, though they differed on the preferred path to that end. To no […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 10/16/2015 The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) have approved a memorandum of understanding that dictates the responsibilities of each entity in the transition of legacy environmental cleanup work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), according to a Defense Nuclear […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/16/2015 A significant weakness of the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, the Clean Power Plan (CPP), may be found in an entirely different regulation, a former senior agency official said this week. The CPP was developed under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/16/2015 A group of 14 large corporations, including several involved in the carbon capture, utilization, and storage industry, this week issued a statement in support of a strong climate agreement at the upcoming global negotiations in Paris. “We support the aim of a more balanced and durable multilateral framework guiding […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/16/2015 Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s (R-W.Va.) Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act (ARENA) would not stop the Environmental Protection Agency from addressing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Oct. 8. The bill, which was introduced in May and is now in committee, contains […]

GHG Monitor 10/16/2015 IN INDUSTRY Former Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), in her new position as a senior policy adviser with lobbying firm Van Ness Feldman, has joined the lobbying team for the FutureGen Alliance, according to a recently discovered lobbying disclosure form submitted to the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/16/2015 A group of Democratic House lawmakers introduced on Tuesday a bill aimed at requiring the expeditious removal of spent nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools to dry cask storage. Reps. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), Bill Keating (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) submitted the “Dry Cask Storage Act” […]