US House spending bill would cut DOE renewables, boost nuclear
Washington (Platts)--25Apr2012/448 pm EDT/2048 GMT
The US House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday passed on to the
full chamber a Department of Energy spending bill that would cut $345
million from the agency's fiscal 2013 budget, providing it with $26.1
billion, and would shift emphasis from renewable energy and energy
efficiency to fossil fuels and nuclear power.
"While the decisions involved were difficult ... I am proud that this
committee will be the tip of the spear in helping to restore
sustainability to the agency budgets within this bill," said
Representative Hal Rogers, the committee chairman and a Kentucky
Republican.
The committee passed the energy and water appropriations bill in a voice
vote. The bill must still be taken up by the full House. No votes in the
full chamber are planned, but few in Washington believe Congress will
pass any annual appropriations bills before the presidential election in
November.
In his budget request to Congress in February, Obama moved to cut
about $88 million from spending on nuclear power research and
development, a 10% cut, and about $105 million from the fossil energy
R&D, primarily from coal-related research.
But the House Appropriations committee aims to make up for those
declines by refusing the Obama request and funding nuclear power at 2012
levels, instead providing flat funding for DOE's Office of Nuclear
Energy at $765 million.
Republicans on the committee also said the bill would help bring down
gasoline prices in the long run and that they have devoted $1.1 billion
in their proposal for the effort.
Among other things, this includes $25 million for a new shale oil
research program, $34 million for other fossil energy research aimed at
increasing domestic oil supplies, $500 million for applied advanced
biofuels research and $195 million for electric vehicle research. While
these total about $36 million above what Congress gave DOE in 2012, they
are about $92 million less than what Obama requested.
DOE'S EERE WOULD SEE 17% CUT
DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which funds
applied research and development of wind, solar, energy efficiency and
other energy technologies, has long been a target of congressional
Republicans and this funding proposal illustrated that.
The committee bill would cut EERE funding for fiscal 2013 by about 17%
from fiscal 2012 levels to $1.5 billion. Obama had requested an almost
30% increase to $2.3 billion for 2013.
While senior Democrats on the committee praised funding for nuclear and
fossil fuel, they also said that EERE should get more funding.
"I appreciate the chairman's decision to include appropriate funding for
fossil and nuclear energy. However, I am disappointed the renewable
energy programs in this bill are drastically reduced," said
Representative Peter Visclosky, the senior Democrat on the
appropriations subcommittee that oversees DOE's budget.
"In providing critical research and development for those sectors that
currently provide the bulk of our electricity generation, we cannot
sacrifice the future," he said. "Renewable energy can achieve cost
competitiveness, but a continued and sustained research and development
program is necessary and appropriate in order to do so."
BILL ALLOTS $25 MIL FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN
Republicans and Democrats on the committee did agree that the Obama
administration's decision to terminate the long-planned Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste repository in Nevada was misguided and "counter to the
law." The committee bill attempts to fix that by providing DOE with $25
million to work on a solution to storing commercial nuclear waste, but
only if it is directed at Yucca Mountain. Also, the bill would bar DOE
from spending any funds to eliminate the option of Yucca Mountain as a
waste site.
Those measures could face opposition in the Senate, however, where
Senator Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and majority leader, has vowed the
Yucca Mountain repository will never be built.
In fact, an appropriations bill passed by the Senate Appropriations
Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on Tuesday provided no funds
for Yucca Mountain. It did, however, include a provision that would
create a DOE pilot program for siting and developing an interim
consolidated storage site for commercial spent nuclear waste.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is set to take up its own version of
the energy and water development appropriations bill on Thursday. That
bill would provide DOE with $27.1 billion in 2013, an increase of $1.38
billion above fiscal 2012. That is $1 billion above the $26.1 billion
provided by the House committee.
--Derek Sands,
derek_sands@platts.com
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