Budget & Policy

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 06/29/12 AT EPA  The Environmental Protection Agency closed the 90-day comment period for its New Source Performance Standards earlier this week. EPA proposed the rule in late March under a settlement agreement with a coalition of states and environmental groups that sued the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary […]

Senators this week asked whether the federal government should continue funding large-scale carbon capture and storage projects days after a pair of reports concluded that the technology may have the potential to induce significant seismic events.

The Senate this week voted down a resolution of disapproval shepherded by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) intended to nullify an Environment Protection Agency rule regulating mercury and other toxic air pollutants emitted from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

Complying with a U.S. District Court order, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed draft standards for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) late last week that would tighten the emissions requirements from 15 micrograms per cubic meter to between 12 and 13 micrograms per cubic meter.

The House’s Fiscal Year 2013 Interior-Environment appropriations bill emerged from subcommittee this week, taking aim at several Environmental Protection Agency regulations through deep spending cuts to the agency.

Carbon capture and storage likely will not benefit much from the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently-proposed performance standards for new fossil fuel-fired power plants despite a provision meant to incentivize use of the technology, CONSOL Energy Vice President Steve Winberg told House lawmakers this week.

The widespread deployment of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies at domestic coal-fired units and liquid fuels production plants could boost oil production by more than 3.5 million barrels per day for decades while leading to $200 billion in industry sales, according to a new study from the National Coal Council

The cost of managing liabilities from an accidental CO2 leak at a large-scale carbon capture and sequestration project is not expected to be financially substantial enough to be a dealbreaker for projects, a new report released by the Global CCS Institute this week argues.

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 06/22/12 IN CONGRESS The House Energy and Commerce Committee reported legislation this week that would shield utilities from Environmental Protection Agency penalties for breaking environmental regulations while operating under federal emergency orders.Under the Federal Power Act, the Department of Energy has the authority to demand that utilities keep units online to […]

Sens. Lamar Alexander and Mark Pryor announced plans this week to introduce legislation that would grant utilities six years to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently-finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, offering an alternative to GOP-led efforts to block the rule altogether and rekindling arguments about its compliance timeline and costs. 

A carbon sequestration option being tested by the Department of Energy could have the added benefit of simultaneously producing natural gas as a revenue source, but experts say that industry is unlikely to get on board with enhanced gas recovery until gas prices spike or government sets a price on carbon. 

The social costs of the pollution emitted from 18 of the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants far exceed the retail cost of the electricity produced onsite, according to an Environmental Integrity Project report released this week.

Sen. James Inhofe sharply criticized remarks made earlier this week by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson that coal’s decline as a power source in recent years has been purely economic and not due to the agency’s rulemakings limiting emissions. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is still deciding how to spend the windfall for most cleanup sites in the spending bill that passed Congress earlier this month, which included about $200 million more for EM than asked for in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request. After financial uncertainties last year caused furloughs, […]

Babcock & Wilcox –led Nuclear Production Partners and the National Nuclear Security Administration will convene at 9 a.m. Wednesday for a hearing on NP2’s protest of the agency’s Y-12/Pantex contract award. NP2 protested the award in November—its third protest of the contract—and the GAO is expected to decide the challenge by Feb. 28. The hearing […]

The markup of the “Nuclear Waste Administration Act” bill that currently resides in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has been delayed once again after the sponsors of the bill sent the proposed legislation to the Congressional Budget Office for additional scoring. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden had expressed a desire to mark the bill […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration yesterday released the detailed Fiscal Year 2013 Performance Evaluation Reports for its eight sites, shedding light on what its contractors did well—and not so well—during FY 2013 (links to the reports can be found on the NNSA’s web site). B&W Y-12, still working to repair its image after the July […]

Two new Republican lawmakers have joined the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) announced yesterday. Reps. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) have been added to the panel, joining subcommittee chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.), Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), and Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.). […]

Bryan Smith, the primary challenger to Rep. Mike Simpson’s (R-Idaho) 2014 reelection bid is lagging far behind in campaign fundraising efforts to Simpson, the new Chair of the House Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee. Bryan Smith, an Idaho Falls business owner, raised $111,924 in the final quarter of 2013, ending the year with $376,221 in […]

The Department of Energy is moving to split out its oversight and enforcement capabilities from the Office of Health, Safety and Security, Weapons Complex Monitor has learned. Details of the long-anticipated reorganization of HSS have emerged in Department briefings conducted over the last week, though the timing of when the planned changes will go into effect […]

Senior Department of Energy officials are scheduled to hold an all-hands meeting this afternoon to outline details of a planned reorganization of the Office of Health, Safety and Security, Weapons Complex Monitor has learned. The meeting is set to be followed by the release of a detailed statement from the Secretary of Energy. Weapons Complex Morning […]

Bruce Held, the acting head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, would be the Department of Energy’s new associate deputy secretary and coordinator of security under a new DOE reorganization of its safety and security functions, Weapons Complex Monitor has learned. DOE unveiled new details of its reorganization plans yesterday at an all-hands meeting. The reorganization […]

The nation’s nuclear forces will be the subject of a pair of Senate Armed Services Committee hearings in several weeks. Strategic Command chief Adm. Cecil Haney will appear before the full committee at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 27 alongside Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander, while the panel’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee will hear testimony on the […]

Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) will join the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, taking the seat vacated by former Senator and current Ambassador to China Max Baucus (D- Mont.). Markey has long been a vocal critic of nuclear power, an oversight area included in the EPW’s jurisdiction, and has pushed for legislation for faster removal […]

While Congress approved a reprogramming request for $59.2 million towards construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility late last year, those funds have yet to reach the project, NW&M Monitor has learned. The National Nuclear Security Administration originally submitted the reprogramming request to Congress in early August in order to avoid losses to the […]

In another step in talks on a potential path forward for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz met last week with contractor officials and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.). As DOE said it would take a look at plutonium disposition alternatives due to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s credibility is nearing an all-time low in Congress, Capitol Hill aides said late last week at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit. Cost overruns on major construction projects, backsliding on major programs, and security breaches have led lawmakers to create a 12-member panel examining the future of the NNSA, and aides said […]

Seventeen lawmakers—all but one from California—late last week urged President Obama to provide “strong and sustained” funding for the National Ignition Facility and inertial confinement fusion activities at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In a letter to President Obama Friday, the lawmakers, led by Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), noted recent advancements at […]

The nuclear triad will survive Pentagon spending cuts in President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said yesterday. Offering a preview of the President’s budget request to reporters at the Pentagon, Hagel outlined a series of spending cuts across the Department of Defense, but singled out the nuclear triad—consisting of nuclear-capable […]

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced yesterday that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) would take over as head of the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee. The chairmanship opened up after Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) sought to fill the top spot on the EPW’s Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure left open by the confirmation […]