Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
4/17/2015
Funding for the Department of Energy’s fossil energy research activities would receive a small boost under the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill reported out of subcommittee this week. The bill would provide a total of $605 million, an increase of 8 percent from DOE’s FY 2016 budget request of approximately $560 million, which largely matched current funding levels. “I am particularly pleased that this bill makes much needed investments in fossil energy research and takes action to roll back the harmful, job-killing regulatory attacks that we have seen on the coal industry across the country but particularly in Appalachia,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said during this week’s subcommittee markup hearing.
Details on the funding levels in the House bill were not made available this week. DOE’s FY16 request included $117 million for carbon capture R&D, up $29 million from current funding levels; and $109 million for carbon storage, up $9 million from current levels. DOE’s FY16 request represents a significant shift from last year, when the Department had proposed deep funding cuts for CCS research efforts. The request also called for $51 million for Cross Cutting research, up slightly from current levels, while funding for supercritical CO2 research (STEP) would nearly doubled, to $19 million from $10 million in FY15. The DOE request included funding cuts to two programs— the DOE Advanced Energy Systems program would receive $39 million, down from a current funding level of $103 million; and the National Energy Technology Laboratory Coal R&D Program would be funded at $34 million, down from the FY15 enacted level of $50 million.
