Todd Jacobson and Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
6/27/2014
House lawmakers are expected to take up the Energy and Water Appropriations Act after taking a break for the Independence Day recess, though the prospects for completing the bill have been thrown into turmoil with the Senate version of the bill stalled. The bill, which funds the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and other Department programs, will be considered under a modified open rule, meaning an unlimited amount of amendments will be allowed to be offered by lawmakers. The House Appropriations Committee cleared the bill last week, and the House Rules Committee established the parameters for debating the bill this week, though the bill isn’t likely to be taken up by the full House until the week of July 7, when lawmakers return from a brief one-week recess for Independence Day.
The House bill would provide significant funding boosts above the Department of Energy’s FY 2015 budget request for fossil energy programs. The measure would provide a total of $593 million for DOE’s fossil energy R&D programs, a 25 percent increase from the Department’s request and a 4 percent increase from current funding levels. Coal research would receive $397 million, 31 percent above the request, and slightly higher than 2014 enacted levels. Carbon capture would be funded at $90 million, a 17 percent increase from the request, but a 2 percent decrease from 2014 enacted levels. Carbon storage also took a hit from 2014 levels decreasing 9 percent at a funding level of $100 million, 25 percent above the request.
Funding for the National Energy Technology Laboratory in the House bill stayed even with 2014 levels at $50 million, a 47 percent increase from the request. For advanced energy systems, the House bill would provide $107 million, more than double the requested $51 million and an 8 percent hike from the 2014 level. The House bill also includes no funding for a DOE-proposed natural gas CCS project.
For Senate, Path Forward Murky
Once the bill is completed, it’s unclear when—or how—lawmakers might conference with their Senate counterparts. Senate action on their version of the spending bill stalled earlier this month over concerns about a controversial amendment planned by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dealing with the regulation of carbon emissions, and with the markup of the bill postponed, Congressional aides say there is no guarantee that the bill will ever see action at the committee level. “So far I don’t see a path forward,” one Congressional aide told GHG Monitor. What’s more likely is that the bill will be folded into an omnibus appropriations package or treated as part of a Continuing Resolution that would fund the government at least until after the mid-term elections in November.
