FOSSIL R&D APPROPS IN HOUSE, SENATE SHOWCASE DIVERGENT VIEWS

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
6/28/13

Separate House and Senate Energy and Water appropriations bills advanced this week on Capitol Hill, showcasing a $30 million difference in FY 2014 funding for the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy R&D program, as well as diverging views about the program’s direction. But the discrepancy is only the tip of the $4 billion iceberg when comparing the two chambers’ FY 2014 Energy and Water bills.

The Appropriations Committees on both sides of the Capitol passed their own Energy and Water spending bills this week. The $34.7 billion Senate bill reported June 27 doesn’t stray far from the President’s April request to Congress in terms accelerating of renewable energy priorities and cutting funding to the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy R&D program. Meanwhile, the $30.4 billion measure that passed the House Appropriations Committee June 26 boosts the budget for FE research by 7 percent above the White House proposal and all but guts programs favored by Democrats like the Department of Energy’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, as well as Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Senate Maintains President’s 25% Cut to Coal R&D

The Senate Energy and Water bill, which cleared the Appropriations Committee on a 24-6 vote, provides $420.58 million for DOE’s Fossil Energy R&D program, in line with the White House’s request (see chart). Like the President’s plan, it slashes 25 percent from the coal R&D budget and maintains the Administration’s proposed focus on Carbon Capture research, at the expense of its Carbon Storage, Advanced Energy Systems and Cross-Cutting Research programs. The Senate plan also maintains the White House’s requested funding level for the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s Coal R&D program at $35.01 million for FY 2014.

The Senate report, however, makes no mention of the Administration’s proposal for the creation of a new $25 million line-item to oversee a prize for the first to develop a natural gas combined cycle plant with a CCS component. The report released alongside the Senate bill, though, emphasizes how knowledge from coal-based capture systems can often translate to gas plants. “The Committee is aware that some of the research and development work being conducted within the CCS and Power Systems programs for coal are also potentially applicable to natural gas. The Department is directed to use funds from this program for both coal and natural gas research and development as it determines to be merited,” according to the report.

House Plan Nixes $25M Prize

While the Senate plan remains ambiguous about the fate of the $25 million prize, the House version of the appropriations bill—which passed out of Committee yesterday on a party-line vote of 28-21—officially nixes plans for the new line-item. The bill does, though, boost funding for the FE R&D program overall compared to the Administration’s request. It calls for $450 million for FY 2014, a $30 million, or 7 percent, increase above the White House’s request but a $58 million reduction from the program’s current post-sequester budget, committee leaders said.

More details about that plan emerged this week after the House released its report of the bill, which indicated that appropriators were keen on restoring the program’s initial balance in favor of its Carbon Storage research above its Carbon Capture priorities, unlike the White House and Senate proposals. The House plan, though, does maintain the President’s proposed cuts to Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships. Instead, the FY 2014 bill provides an additional $7.5 million in new funding for enhanced oil recovery projects and R&D work and reinjects money back into FE’s Advanced Energy Systems and Cross-Cutting R&D offices.

In their report, House appropriators said DOE’s FE R&D program focuses too much on CCS. The way the program is currently structured, the report says, “underemphasizes two areas critical to our nation’s energy future: the efficient use of existing fossil energy resources and the full, safe, and responsible use of untapped domestic resources. The Committee recommendation increases funding in these areas to improve the efficiency of power generation and to bolster efforts that can help protect Americans from future high gasoline and diesel prices.” They said funding programs in that space could boost the speed of technological advances that could “help American industry compete in the booming global marketplace for fossil energy technologies.”

Choppy Waters Expected Ahead

The deep divides surrounding FE’s R&D program in the House and Senate bills will undoubtedly be a harbinger for what’s to come as appropriators look for final passage in their respective chambers and eventually reconciling both bills in a conference committee. In total, there is a more than $4 billion rift between the top-line funding levels in the House and Senate Energy-Water bills. That discrepancy comes not only from the differences in priorities but from disparities in the overall spending caps for each of the 12 appropriations bills. Senate Democrats reject the top-line discretionary funding level set by House Republicans of $967 billion for all 12 bills. The Senate, controlled by Democrats, is working under a discretionary funding ceiling of $1.058 trillion for Fiscal Year 2014, the level agreed to by the President and Congressional Republicans during 2011 debt ceiling negotiations. The White House has issued a blanket veto threat of all appropriations bills that adhere to the $967 billion funding limit. It will be up to House and Senate negotiators later to find some sort of compromise.