[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2017
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho, Chairman
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
KEN CALVERT, California PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
KAY GRANGER, Texas
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Donna Shahbaz, Angie Giancarlo, Loraine Heckenberg,
Perry Yates, and Matthew Anderson
Staff Assistants
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PART 6
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission.........
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Applied Energy Funding................
49
Office of Science.....................
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Environmental Management..............
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
20-729 WASHINGTON: 2017
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
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HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey NITA M. LOWEY, New York
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
KAY GRANGER, Texas PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
KEN CALVERT, California SAM FARR, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BARBARA LEE, California
TOM GRAVES, Georgia MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
KEVIN YODER, Kansas BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas STEVE ISRAEL, New York
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska TIM RYAN, Ohio
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
DAVID G. VALADAO, California MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland DEREK KILMER, Washington
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia
DAVID W. JOLLY, Florida
DAVID YOUNG, Iowa
EVAN H. JENKINS, West Virginia
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
William E. Smith, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2017
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Wednesday, February 10, 2016.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY--NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
WITNESSES
STEPHEN BURNS, CHAIRMAN, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
KRISTINE SVINICKI, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
WILLIAM OSTENDORFF, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
JEFF BARAN, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Simpson. The hearing will come to order. I would like
to thank all the subcommittees again for their hard work on the
fiscal year 2016 omnibus bill. I look forward to working with
you during this busy year ahead. We just had an organizational
meeting and things are moving relatively rapidly since the
President's budget came out yesterday.
We are trying to get all our hearings in and try to move
things up and go through regular order, and get individual
bills done, which would be novel. We have not passed all of the
individual appropriation bills and conference reports since
1994. It would be nice to actually get things done on time.
There are a lot of things in this world that I am uncertain
about, but I am 85 percent sure of when October 1 comes. You
would think we could get it done, but it is going to be a
difficult year, and a more rapid year because we are obviously
gone in August, and we have a couple of weeks where we are
going to be out because of the party conventions in July.
I appreciate you all being willing to come first thing. I
do not know if this is the first hearing in any of the
subcommittees or not, but it is one of the first.
Although we just received the President's budget yesterday,
we begin our oversight hearings today. The Appropriations
Committee wants to move all 12 bills under regular order within
the caps that are currently set in law, and finish our work on
time.
We will need to maintain an aggressive schedule in order to
conduct the thorough oversight that is needed to ensure that
the fiscal year 2017 energy and water appropriations bill
provides responsible funding to the programs within its
jurisdictions.
Today's hearing is on the budget of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. We have before us Stephen Burns, the chairman of
the Commission, and his fellow commissioners, Kristine
Svinicki, Bill Ostendorff, and Jeff Baran.
Thank you all for being here today, and I would like to
congratulate you on your leadership and the progress that has
been made in recent months on the right-sizing of the NRC. I
think you have done tremendous work.
I admit that initially I questioned the NRC's commitment to
right-sizing. I was very troubled by the letter the NRC sent to
us during last year's budget process.
While I am confident that had the NRC received a lower
appropriation, you, the commissioners, would not have actually
voted to adopt reductions that could risk safety and health
before a more thorough review of lower priority activities was
conducted, it was still disappointing to see a letter that
suggested that you would.
That having been said, since then, the NRC has taken
important first steps toward right-sizing. I congratulate you,
and I look forward to further discussions on continuing these
promising efforts.
The Commission plays an important role in ensuring that our
nation can count on the clean and reliable energy that our
nuclear power plants provide. The NRC must continue to assure
the protection of public health and safety and provide a timely
and predictable licensing process for the nuclear industry.
In addition, we must move forward on long term waste
storage and the Commission must be prepared to advance new and
innovative nuclear technologies.
I look forward to your thoughts on all of these issues. I
would also ask the witnesses to please ensure for the hearing
record that questions for the record and any supporting
information requested by the subcommittee are delivered in
final form to us no later than 4 weeks from the time you
receive them. Members who have additional questions for the
record will have until the close of business tomorrow to
provide them to the subcommittee office.
With that, I would like to welcome our ranking member, Ms.
Kaptur, to our first hearing of the new budget season, and
yield her any time she may use for an opening statement.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much, and good
morning, Chairman Burns, and Commissioners Svinicki,
Ostendorff, and Baran. Very happy to have you here today to
talk about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and thank you for
the work that you do.
Nuclear energy is a critical component of our nation's
energy mix, and as a source of electricity which does not
contribute to climate change, it will be particularly important
as we strive to meet the targets of the clean power plan and to
deliver on the commitments made to reduce our carbon emissions
at COP21 in Paris.
As part of meeting these targets, we currently rely on an
aging fleet of nuclear power generation facilities with an
average age of 35 years. Many have already outlived their
initial 40 year licenses while others are quickly approaching
it.
At the forefront of my mind with regards to aging nuclear
plants is First Energy's Davis-Besse plant in my own district,
which in December of last year received a 20 year extension of
its license. These plants provide good, stable and high paying
jobs in addition to reliable and cost effective electricity, so
in regards to this, I am happy to see Davis-Besse's license
extended.
However, the bulk of our nuclear fleet is passing through
this relicensing process, and I look forward to hearing about
the steps you are taking at the NRC to ensure that communities
in areas surrounding these plants are safe, especially as one
in three Americans' lives lie within 50 miles of a nuclear
power plant.
Last year at this hearing, there was a great deal of
discussion on the right-sizing and re-baselining of the NRC's
budget. I understand the report detailing that effort is
scheduled to be completed in the next couple of months, and I
hope you will be able to comment on the progress that you have
made to that end as well, and the impact of your findings on
the NRC's budget.
Finally, I would like to close by noting that yet another
year has passed and we do not seem to be any closer to
resolving how and even more controversially where to dispose of
our nuclear waste.
The current approach of maintaining high level radioactive
waste on-site at dozens of plants distributed throughout our
country is far from ideal, and in the absence of a real forward
motion at Yucca Mountain or another site, our Nation has no
long term solution to this pressing problem. In fact, I was
asked by someone in the press yesterday about this very issue.
In addition to $10 billion we have already spent on Yucca,
the Department of Energy estimates that we have $27 billion of
liabilities deriving from our failure to meet our legal
obligation to dispose of this waste.
Interim storage may serve as a step in the right direction,
but we truly require a permanent strategy. The government must
live up to its responsibilities to our nation and provide for
the eventual safe disposal of commercially spent fuel that is
currently stored at these sites.
I look forward to your thoughts on how we can meet this
obligation, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Chairman Burns, you are going to
give the opening statement, and others will have a few minutes
if you wish to comment on the opening statement. Is that
correct?
Mr. Burns. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. The floor is yours.
Mr. Burns. Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Chairman,
Ranking Member Kaptur, and distinguished members of the
subcommittee. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before
you today to discuss the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's fiscal
year 2017 budget request.
As you know, the NRC is an independent agency established
to license and regulate the civilian use of radioactive
materials in the United States. The resources we are requesting
in fiscal 2017 will allow the NRC to continue to uphold our
important safety and security mission.
Our proposed budget is $970.2 million, which includes 3,462
full time equivalent staff, and for the Office of Inspector
General, an additional $12.1 million. Over our base budget,
this represents a decrease of about $20 million and 90 FTE from
the fiscal year 2016 enacted budget.
For further context, our request is $74 million and 280 FTE
less than our fiscal 2014 enacted budget, and the fiscal 2017
budget request reflects our continued focus on our important
mission while it also achieves resource savings and improves
our efficiency. As we continue to work through the Project Aim
initiative, we anticipate additional savings.
We are required to recover 90 percent of our budget through
fees, so accordingly, $861.2 million of this fiscal 2017 budget
request would be recovered from NRC licensees, resulting in a
net appropriation of $121.1 million.
Let me highlight some of the work we plan to achieve. The
NRC will continue licensing and oversight activities for 100
operating nuclear power reactors, and 31 research and test
reactors.
The NRC expects to continue reviewing three new reactor
combined license applications. Additionally, we will continue
inspections of four new reactor units under construction, and
continue our vendor inspection program.
We expect to review one small modular reactor design
certification and to review three applications for medical
isotope facilities.
The budget request provides funding for licensing reviews
and oversight activities at reactors undergoing
decommissioning, as well as continued oversight over nuclear
waste and spent fuel storage facilities. We expect to review
one application for a consolidated spent fuel storage facility.
We will continue to license and oversee the safe and secure
use of radioactive materials, and in fiscal 2017, the NRC will
complete approximately 2,000 materials actions, licensing
actions, and about 900 routine health and safety inspections.
Of note, our 2017 request includes $5 million in non-fee
billable activities to develop regulatory infrastructure and
related activities to effectively review advanced nuclear
reactor applications and technologies.
As we continue to work through Project Aim, we are
confident the agency is on the right track. The savings have
already been identified through a comprehensive evaluation that
involved staff and stakeholder input, and are reflected in part
in our fiscal year 2017 request.
Still, we remain mindful of the importance of a highly
skilled technical staff in carrying out our safety and security
mission. While our size may change to reflect efficiency gains,
the need for the service we provide the American people remains
unchanged.
I want to highlight one other area we are focusing on
improvement. We are cognizant of the committee's concerns
regarding early commissioner involvement in rulemaking, and
have approved a new approach to do so, and will provide
requested information to the committee later, actually,
beginning of next month, as provided in the committee report on
the fiscal year 2016 appropriation.
On behalf of the Commission, I thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you, and I know you share our
dedication to our vital mission, and I would be pleased to
answer your questions. Thanks very much.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Simpson. Others? Ms. Svinicki.
Ms. Svinicki. Thank you, Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member
Kaptur, and distinguished members of the subcommittee for the
opportunity to appear before you today at this hearing on the
NRC's fiscal 2017 budget request and associated matters.
The Commission's chairman, Stephen Burns, has outlined an
overview of our agency's budget request, as well as a
description of some of the key challenges and opportunities
before the agency in this year, fiscal 2016.
As described in the materials provided to your subcommittee
concurrent with the budget request, the NRC has continued over
the past year its comprehensive initiative to right-size the
agency, streamline agency processes to use resources more
wisely, improve timeliness in regulatory decision making, and
promote a more unified agency purpose through agency-wide
priority setting.
When I appeared before your subcommittee at this time last
year, I testified that I looked forward to reflecting progress
on these initiatives in our future budget submittals to you. I
believe our fiscal year 2017 budget request coupled with the
further efficiencies that we have identified and continue to
identify under these Project Aim initiatives demonstrates this
progress.
The NRC will continue to push forward on each of these
fronts in the coming year while continuing to keep our critical
mission of public health and safety and security always in the
forefront.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear and look forward to
your questions. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Ostendorff.
Mr. Ostendorff. Good morning, Chairman Simpson, Ranking
Member Kaptur, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I
appreciate the chance to be before you today with my
colleagues.
I am in complete alignment with Chairman Burns' testimony
this morning. Regarding Project Aim, I want to thank the
subcommittee and the full committee for their support of the
NRC's structuring our Aim reductions thoughtfully and in a
disciplined manner.
I am personally pleased with the thoroughness of our
staff's work in this area. I am confident when all is said and
done, we will be in a better place.
Regarding NRC's work on advanced reactors, I want to
highlight a couple of topics here. NRC submitted a report to
Congress in 2012 talking about how we license advanced reactor
technologies and our strategy. I believe we are preparing in a
thoughtful way for advanced reactor technology license
applications. Interest in the subject continues in the United
States and overseas.
In September of this last year, the NRC co-hosted a
workshop with our colleagues at the Department of Energy to
discuss the development of these new reactors, and we had a
chance to engage our stakeholders on the new technologies.
Our budget request includes $5 million in non-fee billable
resources to continue this work, and to ensure the NRC is in
the best possible position to license any such advanced reactor
license application that may be submitted to us for our review.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I look
forward to your questions.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Baran.
Mr. Baran. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Simpson, Ranking
Member Kaptur, and members of the subcommittee, thanks for the
opportunity to appear today. It is a pleasure to be here with
my colleagues to discuss NRC's fiscal year 2017 budget request
and the work of the Commission.
You have already heard a lot about Project Aim, and no
doubt, you will hear quite a bit more before the end of the
hearing. I want to briefly share just a few thoughts about this
important initiative.
I have been very impressed by the willingness of the NRC
staff to take a hard questioning look at what work the agency
is doing and how we are doing that work. The staff has
identified numerous ways to achieve the substantial savings
that are reflected in the fiscal year 2017 budget request.
As my colleagues have noted, the Commission is currently
reviewing a long list of additional potential efficiencies.
This effort is about more efficiently focusing on the right
safety priorities, not about relaxing regulatory oversight of
licensee performance and safety. That means identifying further
savings while remaining focused on our core mission of
protecting public health and safety.
As Chairman Burns noted, there has also been congressional
interest in ensuring that non-routine NRC rulemakings are
approved by the Commission early in the process before
significant resources are expended. I agree with that
objective.
The Commission looked at this issue and decided that the
staff should send a brief streamlined rulemaking plan to the
Commission to get approval for each non-delegated rulemaking.
We just need to make sure that rulemaking plans stay lean and
do not themselves require significant staff resources to
prepare so we can achieve our shared goal of increased
accountability and efficiency.
There are, of course, a number of other important efforts
underway at NRC, from implementation of post-Fukushima safety
enhancements, to a decommissioning reactor rulemaking, to
preparations for the first small modular reactor design
application expected later this year.
We are happy to discuss these and any other issues of
interest. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Again, thank you all for being
here. I think it is important that all of you be here before
the committee because I want the committee to get a chance to
know you and you to know the committee. I appreciate all of you
taking the time out of what I know is a busy schedule to come
here.
Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much for yielding
to me in this round. Chairman Burns, I wanted to ask you if you
could report to the American people on the year of 2015, and
the safety of nuclear power production at the 100 commercial
reactors, and the 31 test and research reactors across our
country.
How would you compare what happened in 2015 to prior years
if you were to give a weather report to the public in terms
they can understand? How did 2015 compare to prior years?
Mr. Burns. I think there was continued good performance
overall within the industry. We had a couple of plants go into
what we call Column 4, which required enhanced oversight on our
part, the Arkansas Nuclear One and the Pilgram plant both
operated by Entergy. We are providing an additional oversight
on that.
Again, apart from the operating fleet, I would note that we
continue to inspect the construction of the four units in
Georgia and South Carolina, and also reached a decision with
respect to the operating license for Watts Barr Unit 2 in
Tennessee. It has begun pre-operational testing and commercial
operation is expected this spring.
The other part of it, which does not sometimes get as much
attention, is our engagement with the Agreement States. As you
may know, 37 of the states have an agreement under the Atomic
Energy Act, where they carry out the regulation of radioactive
materials under rules compatible with the national standards.
I think this is a good example of a very good Federal-state
partnership, and we continue to engage them. We support them
with training and communicate well with that.
As Commissioner Ostendorff elaborated on, we have two
issues, one looking forward is the question about--as you will
see in the budget proposal--additional areas for engagement on
potential advanced reactor design. We expect a new small
modular design.
The other issue in terms of again giving electricity
markets cheap natural gas and all that, the question about
continued operation of some nuclear units in those markets. We
have indications of what I will call early shutdowns in the
sense of before the end of the licensed life.
We are prepared to deal with that. We have initiated a
rulemaking to make our processes for that a little more
efficient and effective. That will take a few years. We are
able to engage in that and have been.
That is sort of like a 50,000 foot level, if that answers
your question.
Ms. Kaptur. In 10 words or less, for 2015, what do you say
to the American people about the safe performance of our
nuclear plants?
Mr. Burns. I think there was continued good performance of
the nuclear plants in the county overall, and continued work on
the enhancements that we identified in cooperation with
industry after the Fukushima accident, so improving safety.
Ms. Kaptur. I think it is really important to assure the
American people of that safety in words that they can
understand. I wanted to just ask a second question very
briefly. We had testimony from some of our labs last year about
the difficulty of recruiting people in very high-level skills.
I would like to ask you in terms of qualified nuclear
engineers, who are citizens of the United States as well as
qualified technicians, nuclear technicians in the electrical
field, for example, plumbing, pipe fitting, all the skills that
are necessary. Do you have any specific focus on that
recruitment issue and education issues? So we are able to
recruit U.S. citizens for these positions? How does NRC
position itself for that? That will be my final question on
this round.
Mr. Burns. The NRC has, as the Committee will know, has
included within our appropriates for a number of years about
$15 million grants program which we have been administering. I
can provide the number of institution across the country for
the record, but that provides some funding in terms of training
programs and similar things. Not only at the engineering level,
but I think there are some trade schools. Basically, you know,
community colleges and other places where you can get the
trades involved.
I know in some of my visits, most recently, to the South
Texas plant and the Palo Verde Plant in Arizona that it is
interesting. You can see partnerships between the utility and
local community colleges in terms of developing trades and a
workforce that is, in effect, local that may contribute as
employees of those plants in future years. So, again, our role
in some respects is a small one, but I think we are trying to
do the effect with what we have.
Ms. Kaptur. I would urge you on in those efforts and thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. If the gentlelady would yield for just a
second before I turn it over to Mr. Frelinghuysen. You did not
ask for the $15 million in this budget request?
Mr. Burns. That is correct. Again, this is the President's
budget and in terms the approach the Administration has taken
toward that. What I will say is it has been now, I think about
8 or 9 years, where it is routinely, and we have embraced that
and carried it out, I think, in an effective manner.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate that. The reason we gave it to
the NRC is because we used to do it within the Department of
Energy and the Department of Energy did not take it very
seriously, and so we gave it to the NRC which I think you have
done a good job with. Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Let me thank you all for taking on the
commissioner assignments. I note that Miss Svinicki is a native
of Michigan, but she spent some time in Idaho, so you probably
know quite a lot about the Chairman which you probably should
keep to yourself. But Mr. Ostendorff and Mr. Baran worked up
here on the Hill. I think it is good, you know, to have you on
the other side of the table, since, obviously, you have
prepared members of Congress in your respective positions for
such testimony. Yes, you want to get an Idaho comment in?
Mr. Simpson. No. I was just going to see if you would yield
for just a second. I did want to say because it is kind of
unusual that we have all of the commissioners here. When
someone asks a question, if others would like to comment on it
also, feel free to do so.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. I just assume you would not comment on
your career, but let me say I know you commanded a submarine as
well, so you have another part of our nuclear obligation that
comes before this committee.
A lot of anxiety, obviously, out there, and I am within
shouting distance of Chuck Schumer, so I will not get into
that. About the relative safety of our nuclear facilities,
there was a report. I have read it or at least seen a summation
about cyberattacks. Could you comment about that report? It
seemed to be pretty disturbing. I think it is, in general, open
sources here. That there is a degree of vulnerability. You have
had double the amount of incidents that other Federal
facilities have been subject to, and what are you doing about
it?
Mr. Burns. You are correct. Mr. Frelinghuysen, that there
are actually two reports that came out, actually fairly close.
One a Chatham House report out of the UK, and then a Homeland
Security within about a week. The Chatham House was a general
perspective on cyber. Not particularly in the U.S. In fact, no
one who prepared that report talked to anybody at the NRC about
it. It is not clear who they talked to, an unnamed source.
The basic ideas or the issues you want to get at which is,
you know, keeping the reactor controls systems, critical safety
systems separate from the internet. Those are things that are
required. Those are the things that are being done here. The
principles they were enunciating I think were good. Homeland
Security, about a week or two later, actually gave the nuclear
industry a pretty good score in terms of where it was.
Part of that, I think, comes from the fact that we had
established a set of regulations several years ago which the
industry is implementing that addresses the cyber security type
issues. They have gone through the first phase. We are doing
inspections and follow up inspections this year. There is
another phase it will do, but overall, I think this industry is
in pretty good stead. It requires vigilance.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Are there a number of contracts? The IG
laid out some evidence that, perhaps, maybe some of these
contracts might be scrapped.
Mr. Burns. Actually. I apologize, I may be referring to
different points. Our inspector general issued a report with
respect to our internal, NRC internal, issues, and there are
some issues we need to address in terms of some of our
contracts and the like. But overall, we have not experienced a
significant attack. We need to be, you know, vigilant on this
as every industry.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Let me just make a few comments and then
I will stop.
Mr. Burns. Ok.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. The report does not fault your staff at
the National Security Operations Center, the SOC. They are
meeting the requirements of the $262 million contract, which I
guess expires next May of 2017. This is a quote, ``The problems
are in the contract itself,'' said the report, ``which found
that the terms require staff to do a little more than manage a
few anti-virus, anti-malware, and anti-spam systems.'' Is that
true? We can upgrade to something a little more proactive?
Mr. Burns. My understanding, and I would be pleased to
provide more details for the record, is that we are addressing
the IG's findings in the contracting process and taking the
corrective actions there. So I think we agree with the findings
that the IG had. We need to be better.
Mr. Frelinghuysen. Ok. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. We are pleased to have with us today the
ranking member of the full committee, Miss Lowey of New York. I
know you have a very busy schedule, so we would be happy to
recognize you next.
Ms. Lowey. You are very gracious Mr. Chairman. I want to,
first of all, thank you for bringing us together for this very
important hearing. As you can imagine, I have been concerned
about Indian Point. I do not think it is any surprise. It is in
Buchanan, New York. It houses one decommissioned, two
operational nuclear power reactors owned by Entergy. Earlier
this week Entergy notified the NRC and state authorities that
radioactive tritium contaminated water leaked into the ground
water at Indian Point.
Entergy found, ``alarming levels of radioactivity at three
monitoring wells.'' Just this morning Entergy has reported that
tritium levels have gone up in the ground water beneath Indian
Point. This is the third time since 2005, that we know of, that
tritium has leaked into ground water at Indian Point. Though
contamination has not spread to the Hudson River, and does not
seem to pose an immediate threat to public health, it is clear
that this incident requires a full and thorough investigation.
Based on the many problems at Indian Point and what seems to be
poor oversight on the part of the NRC it seems the NRC is not
adequately prioritizing public health and safety.
There are three NRC resident inspectors who work fulltime
at Indian Point. They are following Entergy's groundwater
monitoring program and should have been on top of an inadequate
pump system in place in recent years. While your agency is
sending another inspector to the site this week, and has begun
an investigation, I am deeply concerned that the NRC is turning
a blind eye to glaring problems at a critical time when
Entergy's relicensing process is underway.
So a few questions, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. When were
these resident inspectors made aware of the groundwater leak at
Indian Point? What actions has the NRC taken to address this
tritium leak? Will the NRC be fully investigating the leak, as
I urged you to do in a letter earlier this week? Could you
elaborate for us what that investigation will entail and when
findings should be expected?
Mr. Burns. Certainly. I believe our resident inspectors and
our regional office were informed of the leak or the spill
Friday evening when Entergy identified it. It was at an amount
that was actually below the threshold reporting limits, but
Entergy reported it to us.
Ms. Lowey. Could I just ask a quick follow up? Before you
said when Entergy reported it, so there are three resident
inspectors that are there.
Mr. Burns. Right.
Ms. Lowey. There is no way of them knowing or identifying
the leak until Entergy reported it, is that correct? I just
want to make sure I am understanding the sequence and the
process.
Mr. Burns. I would expect, and I can certainly confer with
our regional staff, but I would not necessarily expect the
resident to be present when the spill or the leak occurred or
something like that. I mean, our inspectors do go through the
plant. They observe certain evaluations, but they would not
necessarily have seen that right away.
Ms. Lowey. I mean, I am going to let you continue with the
approval of our Chair, but there are three resident inspectors,
so I just wonder what they are looking for as they are walking
around there fulltime?
Mr. Burns. They are looking for any number of things. They
have a particular protocol, I believe, that we set that an
inspector goes out and looks at. They may observe particular
plant operations. They may observe this phase of equipment and
things like that. They go through the plant at the various
times to do that.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok.
Mr. Burns. Ok?
Ms. Lowey. But it would not be incumbent upon them to
identify a leak? They have to wait until someone tells them, is
that correct?
Mr. Burns. Unless they had observed it directly themselves.
After all, the operator is responsible for the operations
within the license requirements, and is ultimately responsible
for the safety of the plant. If indicated, we will have
inspectors, both we have the resident inspectors who make
observations during their normal rounds in terms of what the
plant is doing as well as send, as you indicated here, we have
sent a specialist out there to help with the evaluation of what
happened and the significance of it.
Ms. Kaptur. Now, as I understand it, Entergy said to you,
the NRC, that the radwaste sump pump has been out of service
since October 2014. Will the NRC inspectors at Indian Point and
other nuclear power plants begin doing annual or semi-annual
reviews of all systems at these facilities? I am just puzzled
about that.
Mr. Burns. Well, I would expect, again, as part of our
evaluation of this particular incident to understand how that
contributed to the tritium spill or the tritium leak. I would
expect that to happen. We will inspect during outages various
pieces of equipment and in particular sometimes operation of
equipment and those types of things during our inspection
program.
Ms. Kaptur. Mr. Chairman, lastly, it is since 2007 that
Entergy has been seeking to extend its licenses for Indian
Point's two reactors, Units 2 and 3, for another 20 years. Both
of these reactors have eclipsed their original licensing
periods. So despite the expiration of their licenses, Indian
Point can continue to operate until a final decision is made by
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Do you have any updates when
the commission will make a final decision, and will the recent
tritium leak impact the final decision?
Mr. Burns. I believe that a supplemental environmental
review is due later this year. I can provide you for the record
what the timing is. I do not happen to know it off hand. I know
there is a supplemental review. The question on the tritium
leak. The tritium leak is part of the ongoing oversight process
for the plant. I would expect actions related to the
performance of Entergy to be taken account of through our
normal oversight and evaluative process for that. They would
not await the license renewal process.
Ms. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time.
Thank you.
Mr. Burns. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Calvert.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First and foremost,
thank you for being here today. Thanks for your service to our
country. After the fall of the Soviet Union some of the nuclear
materials in some regions are still unaccounted for. There have
been, as you know, multiple attempts recently by criminal
networks with suspected Russian ties that have sought to sell
radioactive material to extremists throughout portions of
Eastern Europe. These repeated attempts to acquire nuclear
materials signal, what appears to be, a potential nuclear black
market that has emerged in several former Soviet states.
Investigations have revealed that smugglers are explicitly
targeting buyers who are enemies of the West, and those buyers'
intentions are to target the West, in particular Americans.
Considering the recent breakdown in relations between the West
and Russia, cooperation and information sharing on matters have
become more complicated.
Some individuals within Russian organized crime cling to a
Soviet-era hatred of the West. Islamic extremists groups like
ISIS, obviously, share that same hatred. Both organizations
have made clear their intent and willingness to use nuclear
weapons. This development represents the feared scenario in
which organized crime and terrorist organizations, like ISIS,
establish a mutual partnership. What procedures and equipment
are in place to ensure that if an extremist is able to purchase
nuclear materials, that they would be prevented from being
smuggled into the United States? Considering that we have lost
track of nuclear materials here in the U.S., what is being done
to ensure bad actors could not acquire the domestic material?
Mr. Burns. I think the response to your question actually
crosses over a number of agencies. We may actually have less to
do with it than some of the others. What we do is we keep in
touch with the Department of Energy, the Customs Agency, and
others that might have a role in that. I know, again, this is
not something that the NRC operates or licenses.
Mr. Calvert. If the gentleman would yield. That even
bothers me more because if you have a number of agencies that
are looking at this is there anything being lost in
communication between those agencies?
Mr. Burns. I do not think so. I think we have good
cooperation and good communications among the agencies. On our
end, what we can do, as the NRC, is we can do our best with
respect to licensable radioactive material in the United States
in terms of protecting sources, assuring that licenses are
issued only to those who should have licenses. There are
security aspects to that in terms of the category and quantity
of radioactive or nuclear material. So that is where I think
our responsibility lies.
In the interagency, and I know Commissioner Ostendorff is
experiencing that, there is, I think, good communication,
cooperation because we are concerned with that.
Mr. Calvert. Commissioner.
Mr. Ostendorff. Thank you for the question, Congressman
Calvert. I would just add two things here. The NRC, we have
responsibilities under Federal law to rule on export license
applications, and we work very closely with the State
Department and the Department of Energy and the National
Security Council staff on those matters. The Chairman mentioned
the interagency, we ultimately meet, typically every 6 months,
in the Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information, TS/SCI,
briefing in our SCIF, in NRC headquarters, to receive updates
on threat assessments for nuclear materials, smuggling, al-
Qaeda, ISIS, ISIL, other jihadist groups, and I think each of
the commissioners spends quite a bit of time on a regular basis
getting periodic updates in between these 6-month briefings.
With respect to the National Security Administration, I used to
be an official there, 2007, 2009, they had the bulk of the
programs. For instance, there is a container security
initiative to use portal monitors to screen containers coming
into the United States' various ports to detect nuclear
materials, and I think NSA does a very good job at keeping us
informed of anything they find of a concern in those areas.
Mr. Calvert. Well, I just wanted to bring that up. I cannot
think of anything more important than keeping nuclear material
out of the hands of those who would harm us. One quick question
on decommissioning, there is a nuclear facility in California
near my congressional district, San Onofre. On the issue of
decommissioning nuclear facilities, why does it take so long? I
have been told by Edison it is going to take 10 years before
they would be able to decommission that site. Any comments on
that?
Mr. Burns. There are different approaches to it. They are
actually going at an approach called DECON, which goes toward a
more immediate, although, as you indicated, maybe a decade-long
process versus what we call SAFSTOR, which is basically set and
do it some years later, even 10 years later. But part of it is
that it allows the reduction of some residual radioactivity. It
allows them to do it in a methodical way. I do not know that
there is a magic date or timing they can do it, but it is a big
deconstruction project. I know, having gone out to the one in
Illinois, near Gurnee, Illinois, northwest of Chicago, the Zion
plant, which they are undergoing, and one of the things they
told me, they are actually at a point it is not radioactive
material that is the concern, it is actually other heavy metals
and other types of hazardous materials that you have got to be
careful about as well. It is not just the radiation, for
example, if they use lead paint when the plant was built in
1970 for signage and things like that. So from our standpoint,
it is a safe approach that they can do; I recognize it may take
some time.
Mr. Calvert. Ten years seems like a lot of time, but thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so
much for being here. The March 2011 accident at Japan's
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station was caused by a tsunami
that was triggered by a powerful offshore earthquake. After the
disaster, NRC required U.S. nuclear power plants to re-evaluate
their seismic risk. NRC is requiring the nuclear power plant
seismic evaluations, as I understand it, to be submitted to the
agency by the end of 2019. Based on the initial seismic screens
completed in 2015, how many U.S. nuclear plants may be subject
to greater earthquake forces than they were designed to
withstand, and in the interim, is NRC requiring nuclear plants
to make any major modifications to reduce seismic risk before
the plant evaluations are completed in 2019?
Mr. Burns. I would have to supply for the record that there
are a number of them, I believe it is true, I do not know, it
is a half-dozen or more, we will provide that for the record,
that had a higher seismic evaluation conducted. What we have
done, and for example, in California, the Diablo Canyon, I
think its revised seismic evaluation is due in 2017, and
Columbia Station in Washington in 2019. What we do expect is
that they are capable of meeting their current design basis,
and if they have identified areas which there may be
vulnerability, that they may be taking additional measures, but
for the most part, the plants themselves, in terms of their
design, are extraordinarily robust, so we are satisfied, given
what we know at this time, that the plants can operate safely
pending the final outcomes on the re-evaluations.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Ok, and if the evaluations show that
some modifications need to happen, what is the timeline or how
long would you expect those things to take?
Mr. Burns. On a plant-specific basis, and again, it would
be in terms of assessing the significance of what it is, what
the nature of the outcome is or what the equipment that might
be affected, but we would establish a timeline, and again, if
during that time, we would either have interim measures that
would assure safety, and that could be a variety of things, I
think.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Ok. The decommissioning work that the
NRC oversees, as has been stated, is critical to ensuring the
safety of workers and those who live in neighboring
communities, and in the county of Los Angeles, NRC lists two
sites that are being decommissioned; first, Magnesium Alloy
Products of Compton, which used thorium, and second, Isotope
Specialties of Burbank, which fabricated radioactive sealed
sources and packaged low-level radioactive waste for disposal.
After these licenses expired, authorities found radioactive
contamination at both sites. What is NRC's responsibility for
ensuring that the safety of the public and the environment at
these formerly licensed facilities, and also can you provide an
update on the remediation efforts, and who is responsible for
the cost of cleaning up the Compton and Burbank sites?
Mr. Burns. I would be pleased to provide. I am not familiar
with those two particular sites. There are a number of
instances in which licenses that may have been terminated, for
example, and I do not know if that is the case with these,
under the Atomic Energy Commission, where we have gone back and
said that there additional remediation needs to be done, but I
would be pleased to provide you some information that is
responsive on that.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. I would just appreciate it, and just in
a more general question, what is NRC doing to ensure that
licensed facilities that are closed in the future are held
accountable for newly identified contamination post-closure?
Mr. Burns. Primarily what we do in terms of close-out
inspections, what I would expect us to do is have a thorough
assessment of the site, understanding what the historic
operations are, that sometimes the challenge with some of these
sites is that they may have had historic operations, sometimes
that went in before there was licensing either under the AEC or
NRC, so making sure you have good site characterization, that
you have good oversight of the activities done to decommission,
and that, I think, going forward, those are the things for
those areas that are under our jurisdiction that I think can
help the most.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Ok.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Burns,
Commissioners, thank you all for being before us today. I
represent the 3rd District of Tennessee, that is an east
Tennessee district. Nuclear energy is important to my district,
from the TVA Sequoia and Watts Bar facilities in the south to
the famous X-10 nuclear reactor in Oak Ridge, which is the
oldest reactor in the world. In my view, nuclear provides clean
electricity, creates American jobs, and stimulates the Unites
States economy. Chairman Burns, I am very interested in the
development of small modular reactors, and this subcommittee
has made funding for them a priority. As we anticipate an SMR
application in the next year or so, what is the NRC's plan to
address the funding, technical, and licensing issues of SMRs to
support the commercialization?
Mr. Burns. We expect to receive a design certification
application from NuScale, which is located in Oregon, at the
end of this year, and for, I think, about the last two years or
so, I know it was going on before I came back to the NRC in
late 2014, our staff has engaged with NuScale to make sure that
I think on both sides we have a good understanding of
expectations, in terms of we have an understanding in terms of
what we are seeing, in terms of the technology, as well as they
understand our needs in terms of what is needed for the design
certification, and I think that dialogue has gone pretty well
and puts us in good stead to receive and act on the design
certification that we will get. The funding, we do not provide
the funding for the design, develop and all that, that is
primarily through the Department of Energy, and I think they
have received some funding through the DOE. But one other thing
I would add is, in addition to the NuScale application, I think
we do expect to receive from Tennessee Valley Authority an
application for an early site permit. Basically, it is at the
Clinch River site, and basically what that is, it is looking at
the site with an assumed technology. It gets you a review of
some of the environmental issues and siting issues, geology,
seismology, things like that. So I believe we are receiving
that this spring, sometime this spring, I think in April.
Mr. Fleischmann. In your consideration of SMR license
applications, are there lessons to be learned from the recent
licensing of Watts Bar 2 and Westinghouse AP1000 plant at
Vogtle and V.C. Summer nuclear power station?
Mr. Burns. Probably less so from Watts Bar 2, because Watts
Bar 2 is completed under the 2-phase licensing process of a
construction permit followed by an operating license. Now, it
may well be that if some future applicants are interested in
going that way, you can use the 2-step or you can use the so-
called 1-step licensing that the Summer and Vogtle have gone
through, so there may be some things to learn, and I believe
our staff is doing the knowledge management on that.
Commissioner Svinicki.
Ms. Svinicki. Something that I would like to bring to the
subcommittee's attention, in my time as a commissioner, I have
occasionally been concerned that agencies like NRC are very
tradition-bound. We are most comfortable making decisions on
what we are familiar with, which is the large light water
reactors like Watts Bar 2, and as we look over the horizon at
small modular reactors, but maybe even more so to other
advanced technologies that I know your subcommittee has heard
from DOE about multiple times, I wondered about our flexibility
to adapt our regulations to something that looks quite a bit
different from what we have licensed, which by the way, we are
cautious about; even those can take quite a bit of time to do.
So I have really challenged the NRC staff to say, what are the
measures that could give us confidence when we tell Congress,
if we get an SMR, we could do this in four years or something,
half the time of what we have been doing? Something that is an
odd analogy, I think, is that my confidence was raised that our
staff has completed a review of a different, it is not a
reactor, in Janesville, Wisconsin or near there, there is
proposed to be a medical isotope production facility. That
applicant came in in medical space, but it was a different kind
of aqueous reactor, kind of a reactor, quasi-technology, to
make medical isotopes, and I was impressed, and my confidence
was increased at NRC's ability to be a little bit more agile
and adaptable in adapting the regulatory framework to something
else. Because for the NRC staff, this application and
technology did not fit neatly at all into the regulations that
we have, but what they did is, they looked at applicable parts
of the regulations and said, take this from power reactors,
this from other materials space, and we were able to find both
a legal and technical path to do that. I think that was an
accomplishment for us, because it was something we had not
licensed before. It is not a perfect solution for SMRs and
advanced reactors, but I do think it is a demonstration of
something real in terms of our flexibility.
Mr. Burns. I agree. Thanks.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you all. Mr. Chairman, I will yield
back and wait for round 2.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Fortenberry.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
joining us today. What is the future of nuclear power in
America, or let me rephrase the question, in the world?
Mr. Burns. The interesting part of the answer to that
question is, I think if you look, you wind up in worldwide, you
wind up having to look at different places. Start with the
United States, right now, we have with cheap natural gas, what
I will hear from utility executives, distortions in the
electricity market in terms of how they see their nuclear units
valued, so you have somewhat an uncertainty. You have units
being built in the southeast and in regulated markets, and we
have applications. We just issued yesterday the authorization
for the combined licenses for South Texas Units 3 and 4, and
they talk as if they are very serious about that. So that is in
the U.S. If you look in Europe, my three years there, it was
extraordinary in terms of how people talked about it. You have
the Germans with the Energiewende, with turning away from
nuclear, though buying some French nuclear and buying Polish
coal generation. You have the United Kingdom going forward with
its program. You have Eastern Europe going forward in its
program. Then you move to Asia where you have India and China,
China on a very aggressive building program, and India, less
so, but also growing their nuclear generation. Then you have
the question of so-called new entrants, with countries like
Vietnam. You have a country like the UAE with 2 units under
construction and another two, so you have a mixed bag, and I am
probably not the best fortune teller or forecaster on that, but
that is what I have seen across the world on it.
Mr. Fortenberry. Well, the question becomes, maybe you can
explain if there is any, your interaction with other countries'
design standards, because to Mr. Calvert's question, the
reality is, if we are going to have nuclear power, we are going
to have problems with nuclear science, the waste, the
technology getting in the wrong hands, the switches being
flipped to potential military uses. So while I understand that
is not the fullness of your charge, nonetheless, you are out on
point creating regulatory atmosphere to ensure safety, but
also, I would hope, to be helping us think strategically about
how to prevent non-proliferation of harmful technology and new
options for dealing appropriately with waste and other
problems. This is the second part of the question. If you would
return to the small modular reactor, what does that buy us in
terms of those questions I just posed?
Mr. Burns. Well, I think that is an interesting question,
because some of things, for example, that we will need to look
at, we have started to look at some of those in the siting, is
what is the security profile for an SMR? What is, in fact, the
number of operators that you need in a control room for an SMR;
that is more of a safety question. But that is one of those
things that we need to deal with. We have put out, I think, for
public comment the question on what is the emergency planning
profile for the small modular reactors. A lot of what you do
here, and I think partly that is going to be to the extent that
DOE helps with that, part of it is our engagement, that there
is in some of the advanced designs, more inherent protection
from a security safeguards perspective. I think those are
important things to look at, and I think that is something that
not just us in the United States, the extent, like there is a
Generation 4 forum, those are the types of things that they
will look at as well. Those are good questions; I am not sure
we have all the answers yet, but what you hear is that there
are some aspects of that just from the safeguard security
standpoint that you may have better inherent activates.
Mr. Fortenberry. Yeah, assuming this is the way of the
future and these become scalable and easily replicable, it does
not lessen the deeper, harder questions and in fact it makes it
worse, not just in terms of your job and making sure the
immediate site is secure and that there is not going to be any
significant accident but this larger issue of the problematic
strategy that is facing humanity or the problems that are
facing humanity in general about a strategy in which we control
this technology and all of the potential harm that can come
from it.
Mr. Burns. Yes, and one of the things that we can do as NRC
and we are doing, that NRC does to the extent that DOE and some
of the broader non-proliferation issues you raise is that we
are engaged with the International Atomic Agency in terms of
looking, there is a new form on SMRs there, through my old
organization, the Nuclear Energy Agency at the OECD. There is a
multinational design evaluation program where there is
cooperative and they are starting to look at the SMR.
Mr. Fortenberry. Mr. Chairman, does he have time?
Mr. Simpson. The gentleman's time has expired for this
round.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Valadao.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, Chairman
and Commissioners. I understand the NRC has been working hard
to reduce the licensing backlog that has grown over the past
four years and the NRC prioritizes license amendment requests
based on the importance to safety, however, some license
amendment requests do not necessarily impact safety but involve
improvements in the economic performance for liability of the
plants.
Many of these plant changes can only be performed during
plant outages which occur every 18 to 24 months, which
highlights the importance of a timely review by the NRC. Delays
by the NRC in processing license amendment requests can have
significant impact on the plant's bottom line, and hopefully
the actual rate that our folks pay, by pushing off significant
capital improvement projects.
Safety should come first, but because NRC is the country's
sole commercial nuclear licensing and regulatory authority, it
is imperative that the NRC provides timely servicing of the
licenses it issues. Do you agree that license holders should be
able to establish and rely on schedules that assume NRC will
live up to its commitment to process all licensee actions
within two years and do you believe that the NRC staff should
adhere to the internal procedures to ensure timely and
disciplined review of the license amendment requests? And what
is the NRC's long term strategy for ensuring the capability to
provide predictable and reliable and timely processing of
license amendment requests?
Mr. Burns. I do agree that it is important for us to set
objectives like the 2 year objective. Again, they may not be
hard and fast in all circumstances but it gives us something to
work to. It enhances, I think, communication with licensees and
the like. What we have been doing over the last couple of
years, we have been working down the licensing backlog and I
believe that through 2016, or by 2017, we will have worked it
off so we have been giving that some good attention and are
trying to meet those goals and objectives.
Mr. Valadao. All right, I think I might have time for one
more, if I am not mistaken, Chairman? One of the goals of
Project Aim is to ensure adequate sizing of the agency is
achieved by 2020 with the target of 3,400 full-time
equivalents. When Project Aim's efforts began, NRC budget was
well over one billion dollars with 3,778 staff positions. With
FY16, the NRC was appropriated approximately one billion and
NRC set a target staff ceiling of 3,600 positions by the end of
fiscal year.
Based on the current projections, NRC seems to have met
that ceiling target at the beginning of this calendar year.
Your request for fiscal year 2017 again requests a decrease in
funding as well as a decrease in staff. Because the previously
anticipated level of reactor licensing did not occur, areas
that had grown in anticipation of the projected workload
demand, such as staffing and acquisition of a third building at
a headquarters complex should be reexamined. Because housing is
now a major fixed cost that the NRC carries annually in its
budget, the committee would benefit from better understanding
what actions the NRC is considering to reduce its housing
footprint at the headquarters complex once its right-sizing
efforts are completed.
Do you agree that the NRC should be reevaluating the need
to occupy three buildings, especially in light of the staffing
reduction targets? If so, what are the NRC's plans to right-
size their physical footprint?
Mr. Burns. Well, a point of fact, we are the minority
tenant in the third building at this point. The most important
thing, probably we have in there is our operations center which
was upgraded a few years ago and we have some staff offices but
we are the minority tenant. As we look at the overall staffing
size of the agency, I would agree, we need to look at what our
footprint is. What do we need in terms of space? And to the
extent that we do not need, be responsible about the space we
have and, where possible, reduce our footprint, if it maintains
our--I think Commissioner Svinicki wanted to add something.
Ms. Svinicki. Congressman, I was listening very closely to
the figures in your question and if I heard correctly, I agree
with all of the figures that you quoted. I did want to offer
one clarification. I think you quoted 3,400 FTE as the ultimate
goal for Project Aim in the year 2020. I want to clarify; it is
accurate that we published that figure. It was a preliminary
staff estimate at the very beginning of our Project Aim work.
It is not informed by any of the work that we had done over the
last 18 months and the Commission had not endorsed this figure.
The Commission did endorse a figure of 3,600 for the current
fiscal year as an interim step but I think it is fair to say
that the Commission does not feel it has adequate information
to know if 3,400 is the right number so we never endorsed that
and we certainly have encouraged our staff not to be bound.
Frankly, I think that, as a personal view, that figure may
not be ambitious enough thank you.
Mr. Valadao. All right, well thank you. I yield back,
Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Visclosky.
Mr. Visclosky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman, in your
testimony, you indicated that the NRC expects to review an
application for interim consolidated storage in 2017. It is my
understanding that waste control specialists in Texas announced
that they may submit a licensed application during the coming
year. It is also my understanding that there is an Energy
Alliance in New Mexico that may also, at some point, submit an
application. I do not thing the time is as clear. Do you have
enough money in your budget to adequately address one, and
possibly two applications during the coming year? And if not,
what are you lacking to make sure that they receive
consideration?
Mr. Burns. I think my understanding is that we do have the
money available in the current budget to address the Waste
Control Specialists, which, as you indicated, is the first
expected application. It may require some reprogramming of
funds and then if it triggers the marks, we would come to the
committee on it. Because we did not know and did not expect at
the time the 2016 budget was promulgated, we did not
particularly plan for it but we think we have the room in there
for that, and the one in New Mexico I think is not expected
until '17. It is not in the budget so I think we would have to
look.
I think again, my understanding is we may be able to shift
some funds to be able to cover that but we could make sure we
are clearer on that for the record.
Mr. Visclosky. If you could, for the record, that you are
clear for, if nothing else, the Texas application, assuming
that it would come online for '16, I would appreciate it very
much.
Mr. Burns. Yeah.
Mr. Visclosky. Just as far as spent nuclear appeal storage,
what is in the pipeline and how do you expect to prioritize
different application requirements?
Mr. Burns. Primarily, the new things are these potentially
consolidated storage sites. Other sites, I would have to get
for the record. A number of plants already have the storage
capacity. They have done the above ground dry storage or they
have done the dry storage pads and some are working to it. I
would be pleased to provide what new ones we may be getting
from individual sites; I just do not have that number on the
top of my head.
Mr. Visclosky. But it would not be your anticipation? That
would be for the coming fiscal year?
Mr. Burns. Pardon?
Mr. Visclosky. You would not anticipate those to be coming
for the fiscal year we are funding. I just want to make sure
you have enough resources if there are other things that are
coming over the horizon.
Mr. Burns. I think we are okay on that but I will check
back on that.
Mr. Visclosky. If you could for the record, please. Thank
you. Thank you very much, Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Let me ask a couple of questions
about the budget. First, I would like to thank the Commission
for the work that you have done thus far to develop the issues
and issue a supplemental environmental impact statement for
Yucca Mountain because the Department of Energy seems to refuse
to do so.
Can you lay out for us the schedule to complete the EIS
supplemental and do you have sufficient funds to complete the
supplemental?
Mr. Burns. We do have sufficient funds to complete the
supplemental statement. I anticipate it being issued this
spring. My recollection was that it is sometime this spring, in
March.
Mr. Simpson. Can you tell me what the next steps would be
after the EIS supplemental and do you have sufficient funds for
this next step, and if not, what additional funds would be
required in 2017?
Mr. Burns. What we have is the remaining carryover that was
appropriated earlier from the high level nuclear waste fund. We
have, on the order, about $2 million which essentially we
have--I believe we have informed the Committee before, targeted
towards transferring the bulk of the documentation into our
archival--the so called ADAMS document system, and then that
expends what we have. The steps, once the staff issues an
environmental statement. The remaining steps with respect to
what the agency would have to do relate to the hearing process
that is required under the act and we have pending, when the
hearing was suspended, about 288 contentions that would go in
front of our licensing board and then ultimately the decision
would be subject to review by the commission.
We have estimated in the past that to complete a review,
would take on the order of about $330 million.
Mr. Simpson. Would that be necessary in the next year
budget or how long would that take?
Mr. Burns. No, that would----
Mr. Simpson. Over what period of time?
Mr. Burns. It would be multiple years and I am not quite
sure the breakdown of that.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. As I mentioned in my opening statement,
the NRC has taken important first steps towards right-sizing.
The budget requested for fiscal year 2017 is $19. 8 million
below the fiscal year 2016 and projects a reduction of 90 FTEs,
as we mentioned. Before we discuss the right-sizing process in
greater detail, I have a couple of questions about the budget
request.
Do you all agree that the budget request will not impact
safety?
Ms. Svinicki. I agree.
Mr. Burns. I agree.
Mr. Ostendorff. I agree.
Mr. Baran. I agree as well.
Mr. Simpson. Do any of you have any additional comments on
the actions that you have taken as part of the budget process
to ensure that safety remains a top priority?
Mr. Burns. As we develop the budget, I think that is always
our top priority. We look those things where it is important
for us to maintain oversight, where it may be important to us
to have interface. For example, I mentioned our agreement state
partners, where it is important to be able to move through an
effective licensing process that assures safety and security so
I am comfortable with where we are in this budget on that.
Mr. Simpson. Ok, in your testimony, it mentions $41.1
million in savings for fiscal year 2017 has been identified as
the result of the rebase lining. Does that budget request
reflect any of these savings?
Mr. Burns. It reflects about $10 million of those savings
and again partly because the process of our development, as you
know, the budget development process, these were things we
identified when we went through the Executive Branch process.
We were fairly comfortable with the $10 million and what we
have done and what the staff has identified in the rebase
lining paper, which I think we have provided to your staff, is
identified about $30-31 million additional areas, which are
before the Commission for review right now. We got the paper
about a week ago but that do reflect some additional, having
taken a hard look, they reflect some additional potential
savings.
Mr. Simpson. I understand that we are in the middle of a
lot of changes that are going on and so forth. Will you be done
with that and be able to identify whether that additional $31
million in savings is a reality in savings that can be achieved
by the time we do a budget or an appropriation bill? Do you
think in the next three or four months?
Mr. Burns. Yeah, I would expect that.
Mr. Simpson. Donna is looking at me like: ``Two to four
months. We are talking two months maybe.''
Mr. Burns. I think that is our intention. I have read,
myself and my colleagues can speak for themselves, I have read
the paper, I flagged--I think the staff did a good job but
sometimes they are just talking in shorthand, even to some of
us who work within the building and I want to make sure I
understand what those things are and I have a handful of those
so that is part of our due diligence and I expect my colleagues
are probably in the same boat.
Ms. Svinicki. Yes, Chairman Simpson, I believe to a person,
it is our intention to act promptly and the NRC staff has made
very clear to us their desire for a timely Commission decision
so that we can inform this budget cycle and your work.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Baran. I would just add, so the staff identified 151
specific items that would generate potential savings and a
number of those, I think it is 29, were incorporated to the
FY2017 budget request. The rest of them were not and so before
the Commission right now is the 151 for our review, and to your
prior question about are there anything in this budget that we
feel would adversely impact safety? I think that is a key part
of our review of these 151 items. I want to take a close look
at those and make sure we are not doing anything that is going
to relax regulatory oversight of licensee performance and
safety.
That, for me, is going to be a top priority in looking at
those 151. I think a lot of them are going to make a lot of
sense. There are a few of them that could involve reduced
inspection hours, for example. I would give those a hard look.
Mr. Simpson. Ok.
Mr. Ostendorff. I would say that I have looked at the 151
and I have discussed with my staff just this week. Although the
Commissioners were paying proper attention to this, when I look
at the reactor oversight program in last year, for instance and
the enhanced oversight for Arkansas Nuclear One and the Pilgrim
Plant in Massachusetts and our baseline inspection program
activities that Commissioner Baran is referring to. It is not
apparent to me that any of these proposed reductions would
negatively impact our oversight but we need to dot a couple of
``I''s and cross some ``T''s here.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. I would like to yield to Congresswoman Lowey
for a final question and then I will----
Mr. Simpson. Ok.
Ms. Lowey. Thank you for your gracious hospitality and
thank you Mr. Chairman as well. Chairman Burns, I just wanted
to bring to your attention, some questions regarding the Aim
pipeline Spectra, which as an energy company, as you know, is
constructing the Algonquin Incremental Market Expansion, the
Aim project, which would expand the natural gas pipeline, which
runs just 100 feet from vital Indian Point Structures. This is
a great concern to me and many of my constituents and I
strongly believe that the NRC has not adequately investigated
the risk, nor responded substantively to the concerns that have
been raised.
I remain particularly disappointed in your conclusion that
a further independent risk analysis, beyond NRC's internal
analysis is unnecessary. So my question is, does the presence
of a potentially dangerous pipeline impact the security
procedures NRC mandates at a nuclear power plant and what steps
does the NRC plan to take to ensure the Indian Point Evacuation
Plan is updated to reflect the additional risk of a pipeline in
the vicinity?
Mr. Burns. Congresswoman Lowey, we have looked at the
pipeline issue. In fact, our staff met with one of the persons,
Mr. Cooper, last week on it. Our evaluation is that there is
not an adverse impact on the Indian Point Plan. Having said
that, I believe we would look at what the impact might be and I
would have to consult with our staff in terms of what they have
done or what additional action might be required because of the
analysis that they have done on what is called the security--if
there is an impact or a potential impact on the security
barriers. I do not know the answer to your question immediately
but I can ask our staff to inform us and inform you of that but
that, again, would be our primary. Looking at it, we would be
concerned of--our concern is assuring that there is not an
adverse impact on the safe operation of the plant or equipment
or barriers involved or security barriers at the plant.
Ms. Lowey. So, I am just trying to understand this. Does
the presence of a potentially dangerous pipeline impact the
security procedures the NRC mandates at a nuclear power plant?
Mr. Burns. The impact of a pipeline on a facility that
could have--that has, for example, an explosive--here the
question is basically a rapid explosion and release from that
pipeline, those types of things are taken into account and are
looked at when new projects come in where an existing site is
or are taken into account in the licensing of a new facility
and what our staff does is make evaluation, whether or not it
has an adverse impact from the ability--in terms of the ability
to shut down the plant or protect the plant or something like
that.
Ms. Lowey. So then the question is are there steps that the
NRC plans to take to ensure the Indian Point evacuation plan is
updated to reflect the additional risk of a pipe line in the
vicinity.
Mr. Burns. I would have to ask and consult with the staff
and would be pleased to get you an answer for that.
Ms. Lowey. I would appreciate that and then one other
question that I wondered with regard to Indian Point we talked
before about the multiple safety issues at Indian Point. The
recent tritium leak, transformers, elevated moated
temperatures, temperature issues on the seals of the reactors
and in the last two years energy has blamed vendor failures for
major malfunction that resulted in shutdowns at Indian Point. I
just wondered to other nuclear power plants experience so many
vendor failures at this rate and has the NRCC thoroughly
evaluated these vendor failures at Indian Point.
Mr. Burns. We look at as part of our review what the
attributed cause of a failure or a violation or some sort of
transient at the plant and I could not speak right now as to
whether or not Entergy is blaming vendors more than another
licensee may. Ultimately the licensee is responsible for the
safe operation of the plant. It may have issues in terms with
respect to its vendors but ultimately they need to have
processes in place that ensure the quality of the material that
they are installing in the plant as well as maintaining the
plant.
Ms. Lowey. And lastly and I think this is an issue that has
come up over and over again. If a fifty mile area around Indian
Point were to be evacuated every resident of West Chester
County, New York City, even parts of Long Island would be
forced to evacuate. Quite simply there is no way to move all
those people safely. So for many of us Indian Point's
evacuation plan leaves much to be desired relying on buses to
get residents away from the potential in the event of an
emergency. The plant was built but not allowed to go into
operation because there was no feasible evacuation plan. Does
the NRC actually believe the evacuation plan for Indian Point
is feasible and could you share what the NRC is doing to work
with nuclear power plants in densely populated regions to
improve evacuation plans?
Mr. Burns. Well we certainly work with a Federal and state
partners with respect to emergency planning and emergency
preparedness around nuclear power plant sites. Ultimately those
entities, other Federal entities such as FEMA and the state are
responsible emergency preparedness backgrounds. We have found
that the emergency plans for the Indian Point plant meet
Federal requirements but we continue to work with as I say with
Federal and state partners in terms of improving and exercising
those plans.
Ms. Lowey. And lastly really lastly do you have any update
on when the commission will make a final decision of
relicensing and I wonder whether the recent tritium leak will
impact that decision?
Mr. Burns. Our evaluation of the tritium leak will go into
our normal oversight process and the consequences or the
significance of the leak would be taken into account as part of
our day to day evaluation and oversight of operations. My
understanding about the Indian Point renewal proceeding is that
there is a supplemental environmental statement that is due out
this spring, later this spring. There are potentially some
additional hearings with respect to that and there could be a
decision later this year but I think rather than--let me make
sure we supplement that for the record because I think there is
more time. There happens to be an unusual situation. I am
actually recused from the decision on the renewal because of my
prior role as senior staff counsel at the agency some time ago.
But I would be pleased to get you the information that you
want.
Ms. Lowey. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman for your
indulgence. I thought you were recused because you moved to
West Chester County. Thank you very much.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Commissioner
Ostendorff I wanted to hear about your upcoming visit to my
district to speak at the advanced reactor summit at the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory and then I am going to have a follow
up question sir but before I do that I wanted to convey to you
my sincere thanks and appreciate not for the work only that you
do at the NRC for the past 6 years but for all you have
accomplished for the people of Tennessee in our country and
your service at the House Arm Services Committee, at the NNSA
and of course in our great United States Navy, sir.
Mr. Ostendorff. Thank you sir. I am flying out this
afternoon to Knoxville. I will be speaking at 8 o'clock
tomorrow morning delivering a keynote speech on advanced
reactor technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The key
messages I will be delivering will be discussing the NRC's
readiness to receive license applications for small modular
reactors and other non-light water reactor advanced
technologies. I will be talking about the experience we had
with our current fleet that is under construction in Georgia
and South Carolina as well as Watts Bar and the NuScale
experience that was discussed by colleagues here and also will
be talking about our experience in non-light water reactors
technologies over the last 30 years. I am looking forward to
engaging with the folks at Oak Ridge.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you sir. A follow-up question, there
is concern over the future of licensing nuclear technologies
which are venture-funded start-ups. The NRC's current process
for licensing is not compatible with this new funding model.
How does the NRC plan to meet this challenge?
Mr. Ostendorff. Thank you for the question Congressman. Let
me just talk a little bit about the experience we have had so
far to date in pre-application meetings with NuScale. Again as
the Chairman mentioned we are expecting a license from NuScale
in December of this year. Our staff has been working very
closely in pre-application meetings with their executives,
scientists and engineers. Our staff has approved what we call
design specific review standards that would guide our staff's
review of an actual license application. I think a lot of the
technology issues (whether or not electrical power is required
to meet certain safety requirements, the use of passive safety
features, new design aspects) have been addressed and will
continue to be addressed by our staff. Mike Johnson who is our
Deputy Executive Director for operations for reactors and
Jennifer Uhle who heads our new reactor office have also been
discussing the use of a step wise approach to provide
incremental decisions back to potential investors through our
work in pre-application meetings with an applicant or potential
applicant to give them partial answers based on submittals that
would deal with one aspect of a design. So I think we are
making good progress in that area and I am looking forward to
seeing applications coming in.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you sir. My next question is for all
of you all if you would like to participate I encourage that.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the home to CASL, the
Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light-Water reactors.
CASL uses modeling and simulation to improve the performance
and safety of commercial nuclear reactors. I am interested in
knowing what kind of relationship you have with CASL and
encourage you to take advantage of the valuable work being done
at ORNL?
Ms. Svinicki. Congressman thank you for the question. I
have had the opportunity to visit Oak Ridge during my service
as a Commissioner. I did want to note that you mentioned the X-
10, the historic facility. I will say that as a bit of a nerd
about science and someone who has studied nuclear science it
was amazing to stand in that location and think about the
atomic pioneers of the United States. So I am glad we have that
type of preservation of facilities like that and I commend the
folks at Oak Ridge for realizing that is a part of our history.
My only regret is we could not get every middle school science
student to come through there. I did meet with the researchers
in CASL and they are an impressive bunch but I think very
significantly not only in terms of what is happening in Oak
Ridge CASL is a consortium and it involves research
institutions across the country, academic and DOE national labs
and I think that kind of synergistic leveraging is how we can
afford to do the cutting edge science that we need to do. It is
leveraging virtual collaboration across the country through
high speed communications tools and getting time on super
computers at various DOE labs. But I was energized about it, I
did listen to the presentations with an eye of saying how could
NRC leverage some of its research needs, I am not sure at my
level I walked away with any dazzling ideas of my own about how
that could be done but I think that the CASL consortium is
moving our cutting edge knowledge on nuclear science in the
right direction.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you does anyone else wish to
comment?
Ms. Roybal-Allard. The NRC is organized into four distinct
regions which oversee all licensees and facilities and while
some of these regions have experienced nuclear reactor
decommissionings others have seen an influx of nuclear power
plant constructions. As part of the overall project game plan
to enhance operational efficiencies have you looked at ways to
incorporate these regional differences into future plans for
the NRC and does it continue to make a sense to think about the
NRC in terms of this regional distribution?
Mr. Burns. I think the current regional distribution does
make sense. Sometimes you get some questions about whether it
might make more sense to say move the oversight of a particular
reactor into a different region because you have other reactors
operated by the same company in that other region. We once had
five regions in the NRC. About twenty years ago we eliminated
Region 5 which was primarily the West Coast and it is now
overseen by our Region 4 that operates out of Dallas. What we
have done with some of the regional offices is we have actually
consolidated some activities into those regions. I am satisfied
about where that is now. For example our Region 2 office out of
Atlanta is doing new reactor construction over sight at the
Vogtle and Summer plants and at the Watts Bar plant. They also
do the fuel facilities across the country. Our Region 1 and
Region 3 offices because that is where the bulk of the
materials licensees that are still under direct NRC
jurisdiction they have responsibility for that. So I think in
the past we have taken some advantage of that leveraging in
efficiency by consolidating some of those activities when the
activity is not as prevalent in one of the regions. For
decommissioning that is an interesting question but I think
right now because you have activity in the various regions it
probably makes sense to continue with that model. Because--in
most of the regions that there is ongoing working in that area.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. To improve the transparency and to
simplify how the NRC calculates and accounts for fees and the
timeliness of communicating fees which is a key process
strategy of Project Aim. What specific measures has the NRC
taken to improve transparency and engage with the regulated
community and what actions have been taken to simplify how the
NRC calculates these and what still needs to be done?
Mr. Burns. We have been holding public meetings with mostly
fee payers are probably most of the folks that come to that
meeting as you would expect so our chief financial officer has
been doing that. She is responsible for the development of the
fee rule. We have been doing some things to align the fee rule
more closely to our budget process and budget request so I
think that helps transparency because you are not trying to
interpret two different ways of looking at it. So those are
some of the steps. We will be publishing soon the Fiscal Year
2016 rule probably about the beginning of March. Again I think
having some public outreach on that it takes some work but I
think we are getting better at it.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you. I am going to return to the
earlier question particularly as you brought up the interaction
you had with the International Atomic Energy Agency and
standards setting worldwide. I see the IAEA as growing not only
in relevance but prominence and necessarily so given the
trajectory of nuclear and nuclear threats. The mission of the
agency seems to be shifting from one of ensuring safety to one
of ensuring nonproliferation and that is a very important
shift. So explain your interaction with--this is a mysterious
question to me how we do provide funding for them through a
variety of means. Does any of that come from your agency?
Mr. Burns. I will take the last question you asked. I think
only indirectly in the sense that we provide experts who may
attend meetings. Some are our technical experts. I attend the
general conference that is held once a year as part of the US
delegation. So my understanding, that's the primary way that
they direct. The rest of it is through primarily the State
Department budget. The Department of Energy probably has this
in a similar way in terms of support. But I think primarily the
funding comes through the State Department's support for
international organizations. The first part of your question,
our engagement again primarily is on civil nuclear safety,
civil nuclear security and where that has interfaced with
nonproliferation. IAEA has always had in a sense that dual
role. In many ways when it was founded coming out of President
Eisenhower's atoms for peace speech in the early 1950s part of
the idea was to move down from nuclear weapons but make the
availability of atomic energy for civilian purposes available
and necessary. That is the primary place that we play a role in
terms of participating in some of what I will call standards
making activities. We also do that through the NEA and a good
example of where standards and this is more on the--I will give
you an example both on what I call a purely safety side as well
as a security side. We adopt the IAEA transport regulations.
They are guides and then we and DOT will adopt them and that
helps in terms of protection of material both from a safety and
security standpoint. The other thing for example and source
security one of things going on before 9/11 because I think as
Mr. Calvert noted it came out of the problems identified with
basically abandoned material in the former Soviet Union. But
then after 9/11 the new concern about terrorists getting
material so there was an IAEA code of conduct which the US has
subscribed to and in many ways our PAR 37 which is for source
security reflects those types of ways of trying to protect and
provide security over sources. So that is a quick illustration
about we contribute, where we try to use the standards that are
developed.
Mr. Fortenberry. All of the questions I have asked are
pointed at the need for all of to think strategically about I
think to your earlier point we all do this we tend to get
captured by what is in front of us rather than what ought to be
or could be. Because of your clear leadership in terms of
setting policy or enforcing policy that to me dictates a
certain necessity of relying on you as well for strategic
advice in this regard.
Mr. Ostendorff. If I could say NRC staff frequently
presents NRC-US industry best practices at IAEA conferences,
workshops. We have staff that participates in leading missions
to other countries to help try to show best practices to other
countries trying to develop standards. I had a chance last June
to give a major speech in Vienna talking about our cyber
security practices--what we do in the United States--to the
international community. Other Commissioners do similar
outreach in their speaking engagements so I think we are very
much aligned with your notion that we take a strategic
leadership role.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Mr. Chairman, I began my questioning today,
Chairman Burns, with asking you to grade the nuclear power
industries safety and security for 2015 and you gave it a
pretty good grade. In view of Congressman Lowey's questioning
about the tritium leaks at Indian Point as we begin 2016 how do
you think the industry is doing compared to 2015?
Mr. Burns. It may be too early to tell but I think for the
most part we have seen continued performance. The Indian Point
issue is one we are following up on, but I would note again
that we were informed of it by the licensee at a reporting
below what was the mandatory reporting threshold. They are
obviously in a highly charged environment up there and they are
closely watched. But we will see issues in performance. I think
we are on top of it and overall so far about six weeks into the
year generally good performance.
Ms. Kaptur. I want to ask a question following that on
Project Aim and the relationship of that to corporate support
and how we are ensuring the safety and security of our nuclear
power production in this country. Can you expand on your
comments so far about how you intend to ensure that project
maintains or improves current safety and security requirements?
Mr. Burns. Yes. Under Project Aim one of the other things
that we have done besides the rebaselining report is we as a
Commission approve what is called a strategic workforce
planning and why that is so important I think is because it is
having our human resources office in coordination with all of
our staff technical offices focus on what are the technical
skills we need to maintain as an agency so we can do those
things we are expected to do. Inspect. Review license
applications. Learn from operating experience and the like.
That is one of the keys and that came out of Project Aim. When
we talk about corporate support one of the things we were
looking at through Project Aim is how to be more effective in
providing the support to the staff, corporate support and
overhead type activities. It is your computer, it is your
office space you are in, it is the training. It may be the
training that you undertake. We need to make sure our people
are supported with those things, but what we have identified
and that is what we are going to look at in this rebase lining
report. I think primarily you are looking at a lot of areas
where you may get administrative type efficiencies. We need to
be careful as Commissioner Baran said that some of those that
have the interface with the safety mission to make sure that
making a decision--no we do not need to do that, that we are
making a good, well informed decision.
Ms. Kaptur. That is a concern because Commissioner Baran
inferred that there might be fewer inspections. He kind of
hinted at that. And in view of Ms. Lowey's situation and my
personal experience--horrendous experience over 3 decades of
service now with two massive problems at a nuclear power plant
that I represent I have to tell you I am very concerned about
the industry at a point where natural gas prices and oil prices
are impacting what is happening across the energy industry. And
some of these plants from a operating standpoint are facing
additional pressures and economic pressures in the market place
and so I am very worried about investment in equipment,
personnel and so forth. And how does a tritium leak happen at a
plant? How is it possible that the core cover--the reactor head
at a plant in Ohio was eaten through completely by the boric
acid reaction with the steel? How is that even possible to a
point where it was quite dangerous?
And so I am very worried about how you are protecting the
safety of the public in view of what is happening in the
marketplace. Do you want to comment on that?
Mr. Burns. Where I think we maintain our presence and our
oversight--particularly through our resident program sites--
when we have incidents such as Congresswoman Lowey described at
Indian Point where we send out specialty inspectors and have
that type of reactive inspection that is where we are providing
substantial value in the inspect area and those are the types
of things we are not pulling back under Project Aim.
Maintaining that core staff, undertaking that
responsibility remains at the centerpiece and the central point
of our activities.
Ms. Kaptur. Well Mister Chairman you also in your budget
you talked about training and staff and so forth and I in my
first round asked about trained personnel. Your budget does not
include an appropriation for the integrated university program
for high level nuclear engineers and I asked you about other
trained personnel who are actually on the ground in these
plants moving between plants and how they are trained. I am
going to--and there is nothing specific in the budget on that,
but I am going to ask you for your regions to provide for the
record the types of relationships the NRC has for its training
programs with various apprenticeship programs, community
college programs, through its integrated university program
with universities.
I want to know what you are doing because I think the
pipeline is very haphazard. And I can tell you for the plant
that I represent if it were not for the workers--and these were
not nuclear engineers that went into that plant in the 1980s
and the 1990s we would have had a nuclear mishap there.
So that training is so important and because of their work
we were able to remediate two very serious situations in both
decades requiring an enormous investment by the private sector
to upgrade those plants.
I have fought for so many years unsuccessfully in this
Congress to have more robust nuclear training programs. And I
will tell you it was the plumbers and pipe fitters, it was the
electricians that risked their own lives not knowing what was
happening that saved us. And I want to give them more primacy
in your budget and more direct relationships for training. Just
know that. I continue to work for that. I would love to have
your cooperation, but I will ask for that information for the
record.
I am going to turn a little bit here to another question.
Can you tell me do you maintain records of the waste heat that
is generated by your various nuclear power plants around the
country or could you obtain it for me, the ones that you
regulate. If something is coming out of a big stack what is it
and how much is it?
Mr. Burns. I would have to give you something for the
record on that.
Ms. Kaptur. All right, very good. And finally a simple
question and I do not want to go over on my time, Mister
Chairman, on Ukraine, does the NRC have any relationship or
collaboration ongoing with instrumentalities inside the nation
of Ukraine?
Mr. Burns. Yes and I ask Commissioner Ostendorff to
supplement my answers since he visited Ukraine last year, but
we do have some bilateral arrangements with them and we provide
a cooperation and advice to them and I know I will pass it to
Commissioner Ostendorff because he was there last year.
Mr. Ostendorff. Thank you. The answer to your question is
yes we do.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok.
Mr. Ostendorff. And at several levels. We have had
Commissioner visits, various Commissioners. I was the most
recent one there in June of last year working with a regulator
and talking about the importance of an independent regulator
with technical competence. We have had our security folks go
over there to provide offers of assistance for security
training. There is a video teleconference that occurred just
this past fall between our senior staff and Ukrainian regulator
staff to look at questions they have about trying to resume
construction of the Khmelnitsky Plant about 4 hours west of
Kiev. And how did we look at similar resumption of construction
activities at our Watts Bar plant in Tennessee.
And I think we have a very healthy dialogue going on right
now. We as a commission will have meetings with their head
regulator Mr. Bozhko here in about three weeks when we have our
annual regulatory information conference. He is coming to that
in Rockville so I think that relationship is very alive and
robust.
Ms. Kaptur. I would ask for more specificity on that either
privately or for the record.
Mr. Ostendorff. Sure, we can provide more details.
Ms. Kaptur. I do have another question Mister Chairman but
I want you to have the ability to rotate to other members.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Visclosky, if you would like to go ahead
and ask the other question and I can wrap it up.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok, this is really my last question and that
concerns the continued storage of spent nuclear fuel. The
commission extended the length of time assumed to be safe for
storage of spent fuel at reactor sites from 30 to 60 years and
I am very interested in your opinion as to how that will impact
the safety and security of the public. It assumes that we
cannot find a storage site for this material.
Mr. Burns. Yes, madam. That decision that you refer to
relates to an environmental review that we are required to do
with respect to licensing. It is not a decision in favor of
extended storage. What it says is that from an environmental
standpoint, from a safety standpoint it can be safely done, it
can be safely done. That decision is actually in litigation
here.
Ms. Kaptur. I was going to ask you about that.
Mr. Burns. Yeah, it is in litigation here and I think in
the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ms. Kaptur. If the challenger succeeds in their argument do
you believe the court should side with the challengers and what
would be the impact to the rule and by extension operating
plants.
Mr. Burns. Well, I think the court should side with the
agency on that. They are challenging our decision. I think the
four of us are comfortable with the decision we made. It is
hard for me to speculate what the court--if the court agreed
even in part with the petitioners it is hard for me to
speculate what that would mean--that they may remand it to the
agency for further evaluation, they may issue some sort of an
order. I would not want to speculate too far because there is
multiple things that the court could possible do.
But we are confident that we reached an appropriate
decision on the matter that was put before us and again I want
to emphasize it is not a decision that was intended to reach in
effect a license for an interminable period of time or to
encourage that type of approach to ultimate treatment in
handling of nuclear waste.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much and thank you Mister
Chairman. Thank you all for your testimony today.
Mr. Simpson. A couple of questions, one, what are your
estimated carry over balances at the end of this year?
Mr. Burns. I believe at the end of this year--there is none
from fiscal 2016 if I am articulating this right. We plan to
fully obligate for '16. We have some carry over from prior
years. I believe the total is maybe up to about $25 million--
about $13 million fee based. That is what I understand.
Mr. Simpson. So this budget request does not assume use of
any of those funds in the budget request that you currently
have as carry over funds?
Mr. Burns. Yes, that is correct. It does not.
Mr. Simpson. Secondly, on the rule making, and frankly I
would like to commend the Commissioner for choosing to modify
the NRC stats for the proposal on rulemaking so that it fully
reflects the direction we provided in the Omnibus. Rulemaking
is significant authority under the law and the Commission
should assume the responsibility of that authority early in the
process as you all have mentioned you are starting to do in
your testimony. Do you expect that we will receive the rule
making plan no later than the March 15th deadline and that it
will reflect the requirements outline of the Omnibus.
Mr. Burns. Yes, I do expect you will get it by that date
and it will conform to the language. It will be consistent with
the language provided in the report.
Mr. Simpson. The committee received a report in January
that indicated that the Commission now has 43 proposed rules
pending instead of 93. Can you please discuss what happened to
change the number of the rules and do you expect the number to
reduce further once the new rulemaking plan is implemented?
Mr. Burns. Actually I have been talking to my colleagues
about supplementing that report. The report that we gave you
focused on what was expected to be worked on in fiscal 2017. I
think the number is higher. We are going to provide you a
supplemental report. What we did not include in that report is
some things like petitions for rulemaking and other things.
We need to get you some more up to date and better
information about that. The other aspect just to highlight one
other, there are some things that if you look at what is
technically a rule making activity in front of the agency
includes some things that are sort of long suspended, there are
no activities on it, but I think in the interest of full
disclosure and transparency we are going to give a supplement
to that report.
Mr. Simpson. Is there any challenge in not having a fifth
member of the Commission or decisions being postponed because
there are splits of two to two or anything like that because we
do not have a fifth commissioner that has been approved?
Mr. Burns. I have not experienced--I think we worked well
together. I do not know of anything we have put off because we
do not have a fifth commissioner.
Ms. Svinicki. As the longest serving current member of the
Commission I would note I have served on a Commission of four,
Commission of three, a Commission of five, back to four again.
Five works well and Congress set us up at five for the kind of
natural advantages you are talking about. It does help clarify
outcomes, but I think actually the pace of doing the business
before our agency I have to say candidly I am extremely
impressed with how effectively I think this group of four even
with the disadvantage of maybe a 2-2 and that has occurred. I
do not mean to indicate that has not occurred since we went
back down to four, but there are ways we have of determining
that outcome. Often it goes back to staff delegated authority
so I would say that maybe not speaking to whether or not we get
a fifth, but I think this four is gosh-darn impressive.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur do you have one other
thing?
Ms. Kaptur. Yes, I just want to reiterate if I might to the
Chairman and the members that based on what is happening in the
marketplace with energy prices I would urge you to consider
developing an economic model that can anticipate the impact on
given firms economic performance based on what is happening in
the energy markets and the likelihood that they would not be--
they would be less likely to invest because of what is
happening and to have a rating that you look at and you can
identify out of the dozens of plants that are operating because
I have a concern that there is going to be cost cutting and a
lot of things are going to have to be done that might impact
safety, so I would just urge you to consider that suggestion.
Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Let me just say in conclusion thank you all
for being here and I am not one who is frankly easily impressed
but I got to tell you in all honesty I have been impressed by
you all. I appreciate the fact that you have tried to follow
the Congressional direction or intent that we put in the
language and tried to work with us on that. I know of a lot of
agencies in the Federal government that could learn a lesson
from the way that you have implemented this last budget and
have been working with Congress. I appreciate that very much. I
do not expect that you all agree on everything. If that were
the case three of you would not be necessary, but it seems to
me that you hash things out and try to come to a solution and
that when you come to a solution you all say okay, that is what
we are going to do and I appreciate that because it restores
the credibility that had been deteriorated in previous years in
the NRC and the one thing that is very important with the NRC
is your credibility. Not only what you do but your credibility
around not only this country, but around the world.
I appreciate the work that you do. I look forward to
working with you as we implement this budget, as we continue on
to progress with Project Aim and trying to right size the
agency. I say that as one who supported increases in the NRC
budget over the years when we saw the nuclear renaissance
coming and we wanted to make sure that we had the personnel and
everything so we were ready to license these things.
Circumstances have changed so I appreciate the fact that you
are willing to recognize that and work with us to maintain the
right size of the agency and look forward to working with you
and implementing this budget as we move forward. Thank you all
for being here today.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Wednesday, March 2, 2016.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, APPLIED ENERGY
WITNESSES
FRANKLIN ORR, UNDER SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE AND ENERGY, DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
JOHN KOTEK, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY, DEPARTMENT
OF ENERGY
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR FOSSIL ENERGY, DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
PATRICIA HOFFMAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ELECTRICITY DELIVERY AND
ENERGY RELIABILITY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Simpson. The hearing will come to order. I would like
to welcome our witnesses, Dr. Franklin Orr, Under Secretary for
Science and Energy, John Kotek, Acting Assistant Secretary for
Nuclear Energy, Pat Hoffman, Assistant Secretary for
Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, and Christopher
Smith, Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy. This past summer
the President announced ``Mission Innovation'', a pledge to
double the investment into clean energy research and
development over the next five years. Together, your programs'
budgets represent the majority of where these increases would
take place in order to meet the President's goal. An ``all of
the above'' strategy would propose that all of the programs
within the ``Mission Innovation'' category would receive a 20
percent raise each year in order to attain the goal of doubling
clean energy research and development in the pledged five year
period.
However, that is unfortunately not the case. In fact, the
EERE budget receives a 50 percent increase when comparing funds
in the ``Mission Innovation'' category to last year's level.
This generous and unbalanced increase is proposed while the
budget request reduces Nuclear's clean energy activities, and
drastically reduces total funding for Fossil. In looking at the
overall request it is clear that ``Mission Innovation'' is
another attempt by the Administration to provide massive
increases to the EERE budget at the expense of other Applied
Energy technologies. A more balanced approach would fund
emerging energy sources and support the reliable energy sources
that we count on today.
Each of you has an important role in managing and
developing the future of these diverse energy sources. I look
forward to hearing how your vision supports a balanced approach
and continues to make investments in our energy future. Please
ensure that the hearing record, questions for the record, and
any supporting information requests by the subcommittee are
delivered in final form to us no later than four weeks from the
time you received them. Members who have additional questions
for the record will have until close of business on Friday to
provide them to the subcommittee office. With that, I'll turn
to my ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, for her opening statement.
[The information follows:]
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Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and good morning. Dr.
Orr, great to have you back here. Secretary Smith, again, and
Secretary Hoffman, thank you for being here today, and Mr.
Kotek. We are so glad that you are all here today and thank you
for being here to present your 2017 program request. I am very
sorry that Dr. Danielson could not be here today. I know all of
our prayers go out to him and his family during this very, very
trying time.
The research and development of energy technologies your
programs have generated is revolutionizing everything around
us, so we are living it in real time. The Vehicle Technology's
office works to find ways to lightweight our cars, allows us to
stretch each gallon of gas. Your new building codes are making
our homes and places of work more efficient and more
comfortable. The unbelievable growth of the fracking industry
which originated from your research and has brought America
back to the forefront of the world's energy producers, and has
significantly reduced our dependence on foreign oil truly is
transformative. And the boom in renewable energy is
breathtaking, and I am so proud to have a leading silver
company in our district that is reaping the benefits, First
Solar. I was there at its birth and I have seen its growth, and
I know its future is going to be exponential.
As Secretary Moniz noted yesterday, there are now 208,000
direct jobs in the solar industry. Two hundred and eight
thousand. If you had asked somebody 30 years ago would that
even be possible they would think that you were some science
fiction movie.
These accomplishments in your work are truly bringing
America into its new future. I am just glad I am given the
opportunity to live during years to witness it. Too few
Americans recognize just how important the role of the
Department of Energy is in protecting our national security, in
addition to being one of our most important tools to deal with
the changes in climate that affect our environment. Our coastal
dwellers certainly know that, and people in other parts of the
country do too, such as those of us on the Great Lakes that
have seen the very difficult challenge of algal blooms threaten
our fresh water systems.
With that in mind, I am happy to see that in your final
budget request of this administration your goals are just as
ambitious as ever. Our Nation has made significant strides
towards a new energy reality. Yet, they are but the first steps
in the marathon of reaching energy independence for our
country, and thus strengthening our national security and
achieving carbon neutrality. The energy innovation championed
by your offices holds the key to unlock the full potential of
America's modern clean energy economy, and we look forward to
hearing your goals for advancing our Nation's sustainable,
diversified, and self-reliant energy future.
As I said to the Secretary when he was up here this week,
one can look no further than my district where in our region we
see a company like Nature Fresh from Canada come and make a
$175 million investment in a new, I think about 200 acre,
undercover production for vegetables using the CO2
off of North Star Steel. I am telling you, this thing is
delivering tomatoes and peppers to Kroger Company this month
for the first time. It is astounding to witness the changes,
the way our private sector is transforming based on a new
energy future. So I am just so excited about what you do and we
look forward to your testimony today. Mr. Chairman, thank you
for the time.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Dr. Orr.
Mr. Orr. Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Kaptur, members
of the subcommittee, thanks for the opportunity to testify on
the Department of Energy's 2017 budget request for the applied
energy programs. Before I get started with the details I would
just like to say thanks for all the support that you provided
in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 which, of
course, we are in the middle of working hard on now.
Joining me today, of course, are my colleagues. As Ranking
Member Kaptur noted, Dave Danielson was called away for a
family emergency, but the Deputy Assistant Secretaries are here
with us, and if there are detail questions they will be able to
help us get past those.
As we meet here today, our Nation stands at an important
point in the transition to a clean energy economy. Cost
reductions and technological improvements are leading to
increased deployment of clean energy technologies. If you just
look at the last 7 years, the cost of utility scale portable
tag solar power has declined by 59 percent. The cost of power
purchase agreements for wind power fell 66 percent, and
deployment of energy efficient LED lights went from 400,000
lights to over 35 million with a corresponding reduction in
price of 90 percent. So that tells you something about what
some combination of research and technology developments and
deployment at scale can really do.
Yet, work obviously remains to enhance the energy security
in U.S. clean energy competitiveness while we work on global
climate goals at the same time. It is in this spirit that the
President is joining in an unprecedented global initiative
across 20 nations to commit to doubling public clean energy
research and development known as Mission Innovation. This is,
of course, complemented by a private breakthrough energy
coalition, and no doubt, lots of other investors as well. A
private sector-led effort to mobilize patient capital to
support clean energy technology is emerging from the R&D
pipeline. It is an opportunity to bolster the innovation
ecosystem that has been so productive for this country over the
years.
The Department of Energy Science and Energy programs invest
in all stages of innovation across a diverse portfolio of clean
energy technologies. This work is aimed at fundamentally
enhancing American economic competitiveness and securing
America's long term energy security in an environmentally
prudent manner. The National Laboratories are key contributors
to this work, and they provide the Nation with strategic,
scientific, and technological capabilities that are very
important to our future. The applied energy programs make use
of the expertise that exists in the labs and, of course,
strengthen it going forward. At the same time, they work with
partners across government and industry to research, develop,
demonstrate, and deploy innovative clean energy technologies.
The Department's 2017 request takes the first step in our
effort to double the clean energy R&D effort over 5 years. It
includes key new initiatives such as the regional energy
innovation partnerships, a desalination hub, national-lab focus
initiatives including small business partnerships. I will also
mention the request is built on technological foundations that
came from our 2015 quadrennial technology review. I am forced
to advertise for that because it was a lot of work. It
actually, of course, has been hugely important as we thought
about all the different ways we could invest the research
portfolio. So it is based on kind of an analytical systems
based analysis that really did play an important role in our
budget debates.
The overall science and energy request is $12.9 billion
which is $2.8 billion above the fiscal year 2016 enacted level.
The applied energy portion of this request is $5.1 billion to
advance the state of technological capability and enable the
clean energy future. And as the Chairman noted, this is a big
part of what is counted in the Mission Innovation area. In
fossil energy this means continuing to develop our carbon
capture and sequestration capabilities, and improving the
performance of natural gas infrastructure. In nuclear energy we
are moving forward on licensing small modular reactor designs,
advanced reactors, and implementing the President's nuclear
waste management plan with consent-based siding. I am sure we
will talk more about that as we go forward.
In the renewal space this means continuing to drive down
the costs of solar, expand the deployment of wind power, and
take advantage of the Nation's hydropower and geothermal energy
resources. As I know, the Secretary has noted for you a number
of times, in the end it is about driving down costs, so energy
is woven through every bit of the fabric of modern societies,
and societies that do a good job on making the cost be low and
be competitive will be ones that thrive going forward.
New in this year is 21st century transportation initiative
to scale up clean transportation R&D that involves some things
that we have worked on already, but continues the effort on
batteries, biofuels, and automation. In energy efficiency, it
means increasing the efficiency of home appliances, but also
making industrial process and manufacturing more efficient as
well. Again, those reduce costs in ways that benefit the whole
economy.
Critical to bringing all these clean energy technologies to
homes and businesses across the country is the Nation's power
grid. And we are continuing to invest in this through our grid
modernization initiative and through advances in energy storage
and cyber security. To leverage the expertise the department
holds across these programs we are also working to continue to
build productive links across the agency. One of the ways we
have done this is through cross cutting initiatives. The
current initiatives include efforts on the energy water nexus,
exascale computing, supercritical CO2, subsurface
science, clean energy manufacturing, and grid modernization.
We introduced this model in fiscal year 2015 and a number
of those efforts have grown and matured since. A good example
is the grid modernization cross cut which has led to a proposal
of a grid modernization institution, and also our recent
announcement of $220 million in grid modernization projects to
be spent over the next few years. Building on the crosscuts'
successes so far this year, we are also introducing a new cross
cut on advanced materials. I would be happy to talk about that
more later if you wish.
Today the Department's portfolio investment will drive
innovation and technology advancement that is essential for
economic growth enabled by affordable, clean, and reliable
energy. And with the increased momentum on the international
stage I believe we will look back on this period as one of
significant acceleration in the transition to a clean energy
economy. The fiscal year 2017 budget supports this transition,
and my colleagues and I would be pleased to answer questions
that you may have about the request, so thank you for this.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Do others of you have opening
statements?
Mr. Orr. No.
Mr. Simpson. Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I wanted to
ask Dr. Orr, first on sustainable water utilities, your budget
request includes $9 million for work in energy efficient
resource recovery in water supply and waste water
infrastructure. I also note you have a desalinization
initiative. Desalinization does not affect the Great Lakes, but
I will tell you, algae does. Particularly in Lake Erie, but
recently in the Ohio River last year. And when I asked the
Secretary the other day about this issue of the Great Lakes
versus the coasts, salty water versus fresh water the answer he
gave was, well, look at our proposal for regional centers.
But I am asking you, in terms of what our urban water
systems are facing in places like Toledo, a place called Carol
Township, Ohio which had to shut down its water system a couple
of years ago because of algal blooms. What Sandusky faces,
Loraine, and ultimately, Cleveland. This is a big issue for us.
The algae is being produced because of excess of nutrients. But
I am really interested in how the Department of Energy might
look at this region to deal with the daunting challenge,
certainly we will see it this year, of a watershed that is
being heavily impacted by algae, and where our utility plants
are spending enormous amounts of money. Not just on chemicals,
but on electricity to do what they have to do to provide pure
water, and frankly, treat the waste water. So my question is,
for the $9 million for your work in energy efficient resource
recovery in water supply and waste water infrastructure can you
outline what you are hoping to achieve with this funding? And
if I can get you a little bit to think about the Great Lakes I
would sure appreciate it.
Mr. Orr. We could actually have a good time with this topic
for a long time but I suspect our time will be limited but I
will just say a couple of things. One, that this question of
how we take water that, I mean one extreme is ocean water but
there is a lot of stuff in the middle, there is produced water
from the Utica shale in Ohio that is less saline than ocean
water.
There is, you mentioned the waste water treatment area. In
one sense, waste water contains a series of nutrients and
chemicals. The nutrients that you mentioned that come from
fertilizer use are one thing and so the possibility exists to
recover some of those resources that can be useful at the same
time that we are purifying water, the place where the desal
idea comes in is that there are kind of multiple steps in
getting to a pure water stream or a water stream that can be
useful for agriculture or for cooling at a power plant and so
on.
And we are really trying through this initiative to look at
each of those pieces so particularly the water that is in
preparation for--that might come from waste water or non-
traditional water, dealing with the energy requirements that
are in the waste water streams as well, those really fit in
this whole question of how we use energy and water together so
I think that they are very much in the purview of the energy
and water nexus.
Ms. Kaptur. This is not under your energy and water
initiative, this is a separate----
Mr. Orr. But I am actually making the argument that they
really are connected because the way--I mean right now, if you
just take the ocean water as one thing, there is plenty of
water but you spend energy to get the salt out of the water and
that is really true of any other material that is in the water
that we do not want to be there and algae fits within that, so
thinking about the energy use of all of these processing steps,
particularly the early ones where you would have impacts across
the whole country and not just in drought places.
Ms. Kaptur. We each represent a place and I would urge you
as you think through how this initiative, along with the energy
water nexus initiative is going to work, to seriously look at
Lake Erie. It is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and because
of climate change, without ice cover in the winter, there is
more evaporation and because we have the largest watershed in
the entire Great Lakes that dumps into Lake Erie with all those
nutrients, we have a huge problem and the amount of those
nutrients is increasing. This cannot continue, it simply cannot
continue and we have now had alarming things happen with our
freshwater systems; meanwhile the plant operators are spending
more and more on electricity to do what needs to be done to
provide a freshwater supply to people so it is really at a
tripwire stage.
Mr. Orr. And this is actually a place where I actually do
agree with the Secretary that one of the ideas behind the
regional efforts to understand the combinations of energy and
water use is really because there are these differences. The
specific applications that you are talking about are ones that
involve a combination of energy and water that is quite
different from what might exist in Arizona for example so the
regional focus in those modeling efforts is a chance to look at
those kinds of problems.
Ms. Kaptur. And a lot of what I have read about algae,
usually what goes on is they have to produce new algae to
create fuel where you are looking at biofuels but here you have
this stewpot that is already out there. I do not know if we can
collect these materials; that is another issue but I would like
to stop them from flowing into, we actually need to arrest them
from flowing into the lake.
Mr. Orr. We probably want to look at the upstream
fertilizer use too as another way to get at some of the same
problems.
Ms. Kaptur. And the resource recovery issue which you kind
of hinted at, I read an article recently about phosphorous over
the next--already we are in a phosphorous deficit situation
globally and what it is going to require would be phosphorous
recovery in order to help our farmer that needs a bit of
refinement maybe on the second round you can talk a little bit
more about how you view the energy water nexus, what progress
you have made since it was first discussed in the 2014 report
and I will wait for the second round to do that. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you Mr. Chairman and good morning
everyone. It is good to see you all again and I appreciate all
of the kind words in our earlier visit about Oak Ridge and I
represent the third district of Tennessee and I am going to
start with you, Ms. Hoffman because Chattanooga is also a very
large city--I was pleased to hear of your visit last week at
the Oak Ridge National Lab for a roundtable discussion on the
Department of Energy's grid modernization initiative with a
number of electric power officials from my Congressional
district.
I was particularly glad that you met with representatives
from both Chattanooga and Oak Ridge and other localities in
between. Could you please talk about the grid modernization
initiative, both the challenges and opportunities for our
country, what lessons have been learned between the partnership
between Chattanooga, the electric power board with its smart
grid, Oak Ridge National Lab and the Department of Energy,
ma'am?
Ms. Hoffman. Thank you very much, Congressman. I really do
appreciate it and I did enjoy the visit to Oak Ridge and having
a roundtable discussion with a lot of stakeholders in the
region.
The grid modernization initiative is a strategy that the
Department has pulled together looking at the integration of
renewable resources, energy storage, Microgrids, data
integration and one of the things that we are trying to do is
work very closely with the regions where they are at to how
they can expand some of their capabilities in advancing the
grid activities.
Some of those include partnerships with buildings and
looking at that data and how the data can improve the
efficiency and the operations of the electric grid but also
looking at how it can improve better customer services so some
of the activities in the regions, the importance of the grid is
very apparent with the electric power board at Chattanooga and
some of the projects that they are looking at from a Microgrid
point of view as well as their data integration for reliability
and resilience.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you so much. Mr. Kotek, the small
modular reactor program will help promote our leadership in the
use of nuclear power worldwide and represent significant
investment in first of a kind engineering for small modular
reactors in the United States. Can you please update the
subcommittee on the progress made towards preparing for the
eventual commercialization of SMRs and what is your assessment
of the current market for this emerging industry, sir?
Mr. Kotek. Thank you very much for the question. Very
pleased with where we stand with the current work we have going
on and the SMR program, our request this year, for fiscal 2017
will complete our funding commitment to new scale for the
development and certification activities for the new scale
design.
We expect to see them submit a design certification
application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of
this calendar year. In terms of potential users and a market
for that technology, as you may know, we are currently engaged
in some site specific work looking at particular locations that
our utility partners may want to use for construction and SMR,
one of course is TDH site in Tennessee. The other is a
construction called UAMPS, Utah Associated Municipal Power
Systems which is looking at a series of potential sites in the
west, including a couple of sites at the National Laboratory
Site.
I was very pleased that a couple of weeks ago, we were able
to reach an agreement with UAMPS on a site use permit that
would allow the private entity to potentially use locations on
National Laboratory site which could offer them advantages in
terms of site characterization data, access to infrastructure
and other benefits.
So we are seeing in the U.S., utility interest, as you may
know there are several states that are now starting to consider
SMRs as a potential vehicle for them to meet future electricity
demands.
We are also hearing more interest internationally in the
potential use of SMRs, which may offer very attractive low
carbon, actually zero carbon life cycle alternatives for
countries with maybe smaller electrical grids where it does not
make sense to build two units of 1,000 megawatts each or
something.
Of course, I expect that interest to firm up more as the
new scale design goes through the design certification process
and is a product which can actually be ordered which is still
several years down the road but I am very pleased with the
progress thus far so thanks for the question.
Mr. Fleischmann. Yes, sir. I have another question for you,
sir. I know you have had a few visits to the Oak Ridge National
Lab this past year and I hope you have had a chance to see the
nuclear facilities that support the Office of Nuclear Energy
and the Office of Science.
It has been challenging that ORNL has not received adequate
nuclear infrastructure funding in the administration's budget
request for many years.
I understand this is a complex situation but now the office
of science is having to fund more than its fair share. On a
related issue, the lab's nuclear activities generate low
volumes of liquid radioactive waste. This waste is processed by
the office of environmental management as part of Legacy Waste
Management on the Oak Ridge reservation.
I am told the systems used to process this waste will be
decommissioned and this will require ORNL to develop and
operate a new radioactive liquid waste treatment system.
If this system is not operational by 2020, ORNL's nuclear
missions are at risk due to the lack of a waste disposal
capability. Is there a path forward on this problem, sir?
Mr. Kotek. Thank you, sir, for the question. Everything you
just talked about, really, touches on the question of funding
for those facilities.
Of course, that has been an issue that we have dealt with,
both this committee and the counterparts on the Senate over the
last couple of years. This year, we have gotten, I believe the
number is 26 million dollars in the Office of Science budget,
up from I think it was 12 in last year's request so there has
been an attempt by the Department to address the funding
challenges there.
With respect to the question of fair share, as an example,
what we call the doors open costs for the facilities that we
have in Idaho at the Idaho National Laboratory, we fully fund
those out of the nuclear energy budget even though NNSA science
and other programs might use those facilities, they will pay
for the incremental costs of their programs but in terms of the
base operating cost, say the door is open, waste management, et
cetera, I think it is fair to say that we have taken a similar
approach here with the facilities at Oak Ridge and the Science
budget. I think our science counterparts are here this
afternoon, is that right?
Mr. Orr. Yes, we will be back this afternoon.
Mr. Kotek. And so they may have more that they may want to
add on that subject at that time, thank you.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir. One final question, Dr.
Orr, I would like to talk about the success of the
manufacturing demonstration facility at ORNL. They are doing a
terrific job and have attracted a number of businesses that are
coming to work and solve big manufacturing problems.
The Department of Energy budget goes into some length about
mission innovation for clean energy.
The budget proposes this as a new initiative to establish
regional innovation and partnerships called Regional Clean
Energy Innovation Partnerships.
Can you please tell me how the advanced manufacturing
office and the MBF might fit into this initiative with the lab
and the University of Tennessee, the MBF and the advanced
composites institutes?
We already have a lot of original capabilities, how would
these play into the proposed initiative, sir?
Mr. Orr. Well we will certainly continue the very
successful effort that is in the advanced manufacturing arena
and the composite at Oak Ridge is a prime example of ways that
you can take the scientific capabilities of a place like
Oakridge and make them available and build an ecosystem around
them.
The regional partnerships overlap in some ways and not in
others but the idea there is that if you take assets like
universities and entrepreneurial communities and national labs
that are distributed around regions in the country, that they
will look at the combination of energy challenges and
opportunities that they have and those challenges and
opportunities will be different depending on where you are. If
you are in Maine, then maybe it is wind, offshore or not, and a
whole variety of approaches that fit in the area there. If you
are in Southern California, it is a different energy challenge
and a different set of opportunities to deal with and a
different set of assets to put to work. The idea would be to
create some non-profits that would manage a local energy
ecosystem research effort that would benefit that area and
would undoubtedly have benefits beyond as well but to take
advantage of both the heterogeneity around the country and the
creative juices of all the people that can work on things that
matter for their areas but we will still continue to invest in
things like the advanced composites institutes because those
have their own ways to contribute in a more specific way.
The regional partnerships would be technology neutral in
the sense that they would go beyond the specific application.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Dr. Orr. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Mr. Simpson. Ms. Royal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you all for being here. The DOE's
Weatherization Assistance Program is a critical program that
helps low income families retrofit their homes to become more
energy efficient, ultimately reducing the cost of their energy
bill.
In fact, the DOE evaluation of the Weatherization Program
found that a single family--a home saved, on average, $283 per
year.
Meanwhile, DOE's Building Technologies Program works to
advance technologies and practices to make buildings in the
U.S. energy efficient.
To ensure that beneficiaries of the Weatherization
assistance program are receiving the most up to date and
effective building technologies, does collaboration exist
between the weatherization assistance program and DOE's
building technologies program?
Mr. Orr. Indeed, one informs the other and we are certainly
wanting to do the best job we can in terms of both providing
efficiently and at the same time taking advantage of what we
have learned on how to do this across the building space.
Kathleen, do you want to add anything to that? This is
Kathleen Hogan who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary here and
has this in her purview.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Ok well let me just add to that and
maybe you can answer. Once the building technologies program
identifies effective technologies, how quickly are they
introduced into the market and how are they adopted by the
Weatherization Assistance Program?
Also, if you could maybe comment on what sorts of new
building technologies you are phasing in for the Weatherization
Assistance Program in 2017?
Ms. Hogan. Sure, so as Dr. Orr spoke, there is a lot of
collaboration between these two efforts and when we work with
the Weatherization Program, the thing to keep in mind is that
when the community action agencies that field the cruise to go
in and do the audit look at the opportunities in those homes,
they do have to identify opportunities that have a positive
savings to investment ratio so we are always talking about the
technologies that are up and coming and what can deliver on
that positive savings to investment ration in low income homes
so there have been any number of technologies but also sort of
improved practices because some of the things that are
providing the greatest savings in weatherization are things
like improved insulation, improved home ceiling, just really
getting the things that are, you know, letting the conditioned
air leak out of the home, the really low cost measures that can
give sort of the deeper savings to the low income homes.
I think some of the technologies we are looking at, include
things like windows, higher efficiency air conditioning, type
measures. I think we are also looking at the opportunity for
renewable energy in the regions of the country where that can
make sense as well.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you. According to the DOE,
addressing soft costs like financing, permitting installation,
labor inspection, another non-hardware cost provides the
greatest opportunity to spur strong U.S. growth in solar
deployment in coming years.
In an effort to make solar deployment faster, easier and
cheaper, the DOE's Solar Market Pathways, which began in 2014,
is a program that supports solar related projects.
In fiscal year 2017, the DOE plans to build upon the
success of the Solar Market Pathways program and supports six
to ten new awards. How do they activities proposed in 2017
apply to the Nation as a whole and are you ensuring this
research is not replicating or subsidizing work that is more
appropriate in the private sector.
Mr. Orr. Thank you for the question, it is an excellent
one. I think that the cost evidence indicates that the hardware
costs have come down more quickly than the related costs, and I
know this to be true from my own experience installing solar
cells at my house in California, and that there is an
opportunity on both sides. We have not given up on the
fundamentals of photovoltaics. We know that there is still more
to be done there, and there is some really exciting work with
perovskites, for example, that could lead to real cost
reductions in the future.
But at the same time a parallel effort like the one you
described which looks all the ways that the process slows down
and, therefore, costs more, these are regulated at State and
local levels and so, in one sense, creating some best practices
and a competition amongst places to figure out how to
streamline the process, offers some ways to get to a more
efficient process and, therefore, to lower cost. So we think
that the appropriate thing to do is to work on both sides of
the equation because we know that this can be done more
efficiently.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure if I have
time for another question or not.
Mr. Simpson. Go for it.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Go for it? Ok. Dr. Orr, the budget
request contains a new request for funds to support the SMART
Consortia Initiative within the Vehicle Technologies Office,
yet does not expand on these efforts. The SMART Consortia
Initiative is part of the Smart Cities efforts announced by the
President last year to invest in technology collaborations to
help local communities reduce traffic, foster economic growth,
improve the delivery of city services, and manage the effects
of climate change. Can you outline what exactly the vehicle
technologies office proposed to fund in support of this effort?
Mr. Orr. Mm-hmm. So, I am going to have to ask for help on
that, but I will start by saying that one of the things that we
learned in doing the Quadrennial Technology Review was thinking
about energy systems offered some ways to be much more
efficient. And if you think about cities and the way we have
complicated systems that supply electricity, some more that
supply water, that deal with wastewater, and that move all of
us around, and all of those are linked together in interesting
ways, so figuring out how to look at those systems as systems,
and look for the efficiencies that come from being able now to
deploy sensors and use advanced computing to manage these
systems, that there are real opportunities there that we are
only kind of just beginning to figure out how to work on. So we
are taking this area as one example of ones where we can make
some progress and learn how to do it better at the same time.
So, let us see, Reuben, I guess you are the right one. This
is Reuben Sarkar.
Mr. Sarkar. Reuben Sarkar. Thank you for the question. Just
to build on what Dr. Orr had said, within DOE and within the
transportation sector, we do not exactly have a program called
Smart Cities, per se. Smart Cities is the vernacular that is
used by a number of agencies to describe data-driven cities,
and the ways that we can use controls and information to make
cities more efficient.
What we do have is a Smart Mobility program that is going
to be part of our Transportation as a System program, and
builds on our component level of research which looks at the
efficiency of an individual vehicle and takes it up to the
level of how do we make future mobility systems more efficient
when we think about things like connected and automated
vehicles, a multimodal transportation, and the convergence of
IT systems into cars.
And so our Smart Mobility program is a multi-lab consortia,
part of our Transportation as a System program, and it is very
complementary to the work that is being done by other agencies,
like DLT and their Smart Cities challenge, but it looks very
specifically at how do we optimize the energy benefits that we
get when we look at all of these future mobility systems, these
new business models that are coming, both in the movement of
goods, and, as well, in the movement of people.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Ok. What did you do to ensure that you
did not duplicate any efforts from the Department of
Transportation? Was there some coordination?
Mr. Sarkar. Yes. So we do both joint program briefings in
which DOT comes and briefs us on their efforts and then we
brief them on ours. We also recently hired a lab M&O contractor
from the National Renewable Energy Lab from DOE and we embedded
them with DOT on their Smart Cities team. And we use that
person as the liaison to make sure that we are coordinating our
activities and that what we are investing in is a very high
value to what DOT is investing in.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Ok. Thank you.
Mr. Sarkar. Thanks.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Honda.
Mr. Honda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome. Dr. Orr, I
have a question about energy efficiency programs, and much of
the focus on energy efficiency goes towards large power
consumption devices, such as appliances and motors through the
Energy Star programs. But the proliferation of consumer
electronic devices means their energy consumption is adding up
to a very significant level, especially if you go global.
Furthermore, the vampire devices that continue to draw power
even when they are not in use are adding to consumer utility
bills and our overall energy usage as well as our resources.
So, what is your office doing to address this ever-growing
concern that I have?
And then with regard to energy efficiency in manufacturing,
saving energy cannot only reduce cost, but also reduce climate
and environmental impact. What is your office doing to help the
Nation's small- and medium-sized manufacturers to become more
efficient?
Mr. Orr. Well, you are absolutely right that energy
efficiency is something that offers lots of benefits and often
ones that pay off economically with shorter payback times than
lots of the other investments, so it is a really important
area. I am going to ask Kathleen Hogan to talk about the
specifics of the appliance efficiency standards with respect to
how they apply to the so-called parasite or vampire devices, I
guess, is what they are called.
But I will note that, in general, that the efficiency
standards that we have worked on have had a real impact in
saving lots and lots of money for consumers and, at the same
time, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So it is an area that
really does deserve considerable effort and we will continue to
do that.
Kathleen.
Mr. Honda. In your response would you also address where we
are at in improving the energy process, the Energy Star
program? Because I think that there are ways that we can double
the efficiency, but I do not know where we are at and what
needs to be done, whether it is going to be industry-driven or
Energy Department-driven.
Mr. Orr. Well, the one thing I would say there is that in
establishing the energy efficiency standards we actually do
work quite closely with industry. It is a process that Kathleen
can describe in more detail.
Mr. Honda. Thank you.
Ms. Hogan. Yes. Terrific. So, as you point out, this is a
big problem, and one of the reasons it is a big problem is
because there are so many types of devices that are out there.
So you are always looking for the common elements where you can
find energy efficiency opportunities, and that is really where
the appliance standards have come into place. We have had
appliance standards for external power supplies or things that
have, you know, that power supply element. We can work with
industry to find the appropriate standards there.
We also have an ongoing rulemaking for battery chargers,
sort of another area to look for improved efficiencies. We
also, in our fiscal year 2017 budget, are proposing a new
research and development area for miscellaneous electric loads
that would leverage the great work we are doing in our advanced
manufacturing office around something called wide bandgap
materials, or also called, potentially, sort of like
semiconductors. It is the next generation of semiconductors,
right. So the extent that we can make semiconductors much more
efficient, we can really drive down the energy use of all of
these miscellaneous energy loads, so an exciting opportunity
there.
Mr. Orr. Say a word, Kathleen, too, about the business
competitions for reducing energy use and the energy-efficient
businesses.
Ms. Hogan. Just working more broadly with industry to drive
down their loads.
Mr. Orr. Yes. Yes. But we have also worked with a variety
of businesses to challenge them to reduce their energy
consumption as well, and then publicize what they do.
Ms. Hogan. That is right.
Mr. Honda. So, perhaps, to the chair, I request that we can
get together and sit down and go through the myriad of efforts
that is going on, and also maybe look at converting that into
cost savings in terms of the kinds of fields that is necessary
to generate just--that will be saved because of this
efficiency. I have a question on waste energy. Dr. Orr.
Mr. Orr. Mm-hmm.
Ms. Hogan. You know, I just checked the Zero Waste Energy
Development Company operates the first large-scale commercial
dry fermentation anaerobic digestion facility in the United
States. This facility can process 90,000 tons of organic waste
per year. That is just about wet waste. It generates about 1.6
megawatts of clean energy. Now, this type of facility not only
keeps tons of wet garbage and green waste out of landfills, but
also diverts mixed construction waste and debris for recycling
and reuse. Replicating this innovative approach to recycling
and landfill diversion will move our country to a more
sustainable future.
Can you explain to me how DOE intends to help both maintain
our existing WTE infrastructure and capitalize on the potential
of the WTE technology in meeting the Nation's renewable energy
and GHG emissions goal.
Mr. Orr. Well, I cannot explain it to you, but I bet one of
my colleagues can. I would just say that being able to do that
kind of thing, this is kind of the putting together of
technologies that offer combinations. So they are kind of
hybrid things that really do--just as a credit to a bunch of
smart people.
But, Reuben, can you help us on this?
Ms. Hogan. Ok, Reuben is a smart guy, huh?
Mr. Sarkar. Yes. In our bioenergy program, we have included
both municipal solid waste as well as wet waste streams as part
of our feed stocks that we are having for our next-generation
pilot and demonstration programs that will be coming soon. And
so we have bio solids to bio power represented in the next
pilot and demonstration programs.
Ms. Hogan. Well, we have one already established. How do we
go about replicating and scaling up this kind of a process
where you are actually doing 90,000 tons a year? And that is
only a portion of our city. And if we can incentivize or create
more programs like this, we generate the process where we avoid
landfills, filling and base, avoid the smell and odor, and
things like that. Is there a place where we can go to to use
this as an example for replication?
Mr. Sarkar. Yes. And maybe, just so I can clarify, our
integrated bio refinery program, which is part of our
demonstration and market transformation program, we will be
conducting both pilot and demonstration-scale plants, so taking
things from lower-scale, less integration, and moving them up
into larger-scale facilities.
And the goal is that demonstrating at a higher scale will
then lower the technical risk and will provide access to more
bank financing or financing through the loans program. And our
goal is that once you demonstrate the lower risk of a
technology and the viability, then you are able to then
replicate those plants at others.
Ms. Hogan. But if we are able to do that already, what is
the next step?
Mr. Sarkar. Within the bioenergy program, we fund only up
through the demonstration-scale facilities and not all the way
into the commercialization phase for plants. I can follow up
and get you a more clear answer.
Mr. Orr. And I would just say that, you know, in the end,
it is about cost, so continuing to work to reduce costs means
the ability to deploy more widely, that when municipalities see
that it is in their interest to do this, they will.
Ms. Hogan. To the chair, if I may, can we invite you to
come down to the district and look at this, so you can help me
articulate better how we do this, so replicate this throughout
the other communities in the near future?
Mr. Orr. Yes. We will look to figure out some way to do
that.
Ms. Hogan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Calvert.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize that I am
late. We are having hearings around here everywhere, at the
same time, but we cannot help that. But I have a couple of
quick questions.
Obviously our grid, our electric grid, and I apologize if
this question has already been asked, has become more complex
over the years and certainly we have more challenges, extreme
weather events, and now we have all these different sources of
power, solar cells on everybody's roof, changing the dynamics
on how the grid operates.
I hear from the various electric providers that this is
causing them all kinds of engineering problems and so they need
to make various fixes to it. So I guess the question would be,
how is the grid today? Do you look at it as resilient and
capable of doing this job in the future?
Mr. Orr. I would say that we are partway through the
process of modernizing the grid to be as effective as it can
be. Partly through the Recovery Act, for example, we install
lots of sensors known to the technical experts as synchro
phasors, but these tell us about voltage and frequency and kind
of the state of the grid. That helped us be able to identify
problems as they were developing and respond to them more
quickly. But there is actually quite a lot more that we can do.
As the fraction of renewables grows, as more distributed
generation appears, that offers both some challenges and some
opportunities. As we use storage to provide batteries or flow
batteries or some things like that as a way to provide some
balancing on the grid, those are all opportunities that we have
to figure out how they work, both physically, but also from a
market standpoint, and so our Office of Electricity is working
hard on these things. I'll ask Pat to join me in responding
here just for a moment. It is the reason we have created our
Grid Modernization Initiative and our Grid Modernization Lab
Consortium. We have 14 of our national labs working on various
components on this, and we have a 5-year, multiyear program
plan that is aimed at really improving services, improving
efficiency, and at the same time, making the grid more reliable
and resilient and able to recover more quickly when bad things
do happen. So it is a very important effort for us.
Pat, do you want to add to that?
Ms. Hoffman. Yes, I would, thank you. Thank you,
Congressman, for the question, and I think the grid is
undergoing a transition, and like any transition, we have to
help with the process as we move forward. California has
reached its first 10,000 megawatts per hour ramp rate in
California. Also, we have had a request for 1.3 gigawatts of
energy storage on their system. I think California represents a
leading edge of what is to come. The reason the Department of
Energy did the Grid Modernization Initiative was really to take
a look at the integration of distributed energy resources,
renewable technologies, but also find a way to effectively
integrate that, but to deal with some of the challenges that
are occurring on the system. So part of the budget request,
which is looking at grid modernization, which is the 262
request from OE and the budget request that is coming from
EERE, we are integrating those aspects of renewable energy
resources, looking at energy efficiency, looking at how we can
better manage demand on the system. So these are great
opportunities to provide the flexibility that the grid
requires, but it is a work in progress and it is efforts that
we will continue to work on.
Mr. Calvert. Ok. I appreciate that. One other quick
question, I know we spend a lot of time talking about solar and
wind. We have some automobile companies that are, especially in
California, moving forward with hydrogen technology, especially
Hyundai has some technology that they are excited about, but,
obviously, the infrastructure, just as we had with electric
cars, is woefully not there. There is no way to power up your
Tesla as you are going up the 5 freeway in California. So are
there any plans for hydrogen vehicle infrastructure and where
do you see hydrogen vehicles going? Do you think that it is a
workable technology? I know Mercedes is putting a lot of money
into that.
Mr. Orr. Yes, I am going to pass to Reuben here in a
moment, but I will say that this is one of those really
interesting areas where there is a real competition. If you
think about an electric vehicle, there, you are storing the
energy on the vehicle in a battery, and then that drives an
electric motor. A fuel cell vehicle is one where you store the
energy in the hydrogen and then put that on the vehicle and
then use a fuel cell to convert that into electricity to drive
the vehicle. So they are competing technologies.
There is interesting progress on both sides, and we will
see what that diversity in the marketplace provides. There are
now charging stations are appearing around the country. I would
say overall on the hydrogen side, they are probably more
limited on the hydrogen side for now than the electric side,
but it is definitely a competition. Reuben, do you want to add
to that?
Mr. Sarkar. Yes, I will just build on it a little bit. As
mentioned, hydrogen builds on an electrified platform, so there
is benefits for electric vehicles as is for hydrogen. We do
work in two areas. One, as you mentioned, there is already
vehicles on the road, and so we are actually supporting the
deployment of those stations in places like California. Through
our H2USA public-private partnership, we have about 45
companies and agencies involved in developing the expeditious
process for rolling out those stations in places like
California, first on examples, working on safety codes and
standards, trying to get standard reference designs for
stations. We have developed equipment that can qualify stations
very quickly and enable us to actually deploy those hundred
planned stations much more rapidly. Then on the research side,
we continue to drive down the cost of fuel cell systems on
vehicles by lowering the amount of precious metal catalysts and
things that we have onboard the vehicle, and at the same time,
lowering the cost to store hydrogen off the vehicle at
stations.
Then lastly, the biggest nut that we are working on
cracking is renewable hydrogen from advanced sources. We
already can make renewable hydrogen from solar and wind today,
and if we can push down the cost further through advanced
water-splitting technologies, you have an opportunity to really
deeply decarbonize transportation, and so we work on it both on
the deployment side with the cars today as well as on the long-
term research side.
Mr. Calvert. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. First, let me ask, following up on
the grid and modernization of the grid, we act as if we own the
grid; we don't. The grid is privately owned by private utility
companies. What is our role in helping modernize the grid? When
you say ``we are partway,'' what do you mean? The private
sector is partway? What is our role in helping the private
sector do this? I understand there are BPA and TVA but the line
that comes to my house is owned by Idaho Power.
Mr. Orr. You are exactly right that it is complicated. The
players range from utilities that generate the electricity in
both investor-owned and the regulated utilities. There are the
wires themselves and the transmission and then the distribution
system, which often can be owned in separate ways, and then
there are the regional balancing authorities that make sure
that there is enough generation on the grid and that the whole
thing is operating and stable. You are absolutely right that we
are not the regulator, but, in some ways, that gives us a way
to be a convener for the conversation amongst all these
players. There are regional differences and some significant
efforts going on to understand how it should work in particular
markets. We can participate in all those conversations in a way
that is harder for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to
deal with or the state public utilities commissions. We can
help conduct that conversation, and we can do research on the
components that they need to do all this at the same time that
we recognize that maybe the only thing that is more complicated
in its regulatory approach is water, I think, because that goes
right down to the community level. But, nevertheless, I think
it is both an opportunity for some experimentation and some
demonstration of what we need to learn, and the challenge as we
figure out how to make it all work together.
Pat, correct whatever I said that was wrong.
Ms. Hoffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question.
With respect to the grid, yes, it is owned majoritively by the
utilities and other entities out there and we do not own the
grid. The issue that it comes down to is, how do we invest in
new technology while minimizing risk for those entities? So
there are a couple things that as utilities are looking at the
integration of whether it is wind, it is how do they evolve
their system to be able to keep pace with the demands of the
new technologies that are coming on the system, so a couple
things.
With respect to grid technologies, we want to help reduce
the cost of the technology. We want to de-risk the technologies
so that the grid operators can install these technologies more
cost-effectively based on rate payers and consumers and----
Mr. Simpson. But, ultimately, it is up to them to install
it.
Ms. Hoffman. It is up to them to install it, but we can
help bring down the cost and we can bring down the risk. The
other area is that the grid is a network system, that Idaho
Power is connected to the Western Interconnect, and there are
issues that would affect Idaho Power would affect the rest of
the Western Interconnection. So how do we look at those systems
issues from a wider area so that the utilities can advance
their technologies but also be a part of the system so that
they do not affect the rest of the system as they invest in
these technologies? So those are a couple things that the
analytics that we do support where technologies can be best
placed on the system, the value of the technologies, and how we
can improve the resilience of the grid writ large.
Mr. Simpson. Tell me about the Grid Modernization
Institute. What exactly will it do? I think you have requested
$14 million for that in the budget.
Ms. Hoffman. So thank you for the question. The Grid
Modernization Institute is a core part of our mission
innovation area with the Office, but what we would exactly like
to do is focus on high-risk components that we need to have
manufacturing in the United States to support. I know that, at
least some of the numbers that I have seen, is the utilities
will invest probably close to a trillion dollars over the next
20 years in upgrading components on the electric grid. What we
would like to do with the Manufacturing Institute is take a
look at some of those high-risk, hard, difficult-to-manufacture
components and focus the Institute on investing and
manufacturing for those type of devices or components. For
example, one might be magnetic materials to help with cores and
transformers. Transformers are a very difficult component to
manufacture. We need more transformer manufacturing in the
United States. Another area might be in the wires, the
transmission and distribution wires of low resistivity
materials so that we can actually get additional capacity and
more efficiency in our transmission and distribution system. So
those would be the efforts and the topics. We would run some
workshops to fine-tune whether this is the best topic, but this
is just an example of some of the things that we would look at.
Mr. Simpson. So you would do research into those arenas?
Ms. Hoffman. Yes, yes.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Smith, not to leave you out of this
conversation, since fossil fuel seems to be the major source of
energy in this country, let me ask you a couple of questions.
Your office proposes to increase the STEP program, which
seeks to realize more efficient electrical power generation
from the use of a super critical fluid in the generation
process. The increase would fund the initial design and
construction of a pilot facility to demonstrate the use of this
fluid.
Due to the more near term deployment of this technology in
the fossil energy field, the STEP initiative has been managed
out of your office. However, coordination efforts are still
ongoing with the Office of Nuclear Energy and Solar Energy
Office in EERE.
Can you update the committee on those coordination efforts
and describe how they are incorporated in the long-term plan in
this technology?
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. So, in Dr.
Orr's introduction, he talked a little bit about the cost
cutting initiatives that cut across the offices within the
Department of Energy.
So, this is actually an excellent example. We do have a
cost cutting initiative which is for the Supercritical
CO2, the STEP initiative. That is co-chaired by the
Office of Fossil Energy and the Office of Nuclear Energy, so we
work very closely on that initiative.
Nuclear Energy released an RFP in the first quarter of
2016. That is going to then feed into the work that EERE is
doing. We are going to have a FOIA that we put out some time in
March leading ton an award that will be made some time in the
fiscal year, probably in September. The hope is that we will
move forward on construction some time in the following year.
So, again, very close collaboration between the Office of
Nuclear Energy and the Office of Fossil Energy.
We have noted that this technology is applicable to
renewables, it is applicable to fossil energy, it is also
applicable to nuclear energy. When you look at the different
fuel sources used, the greatest efficiencies for a
Supercritical CO2 we expect to occur in the
temperature ranges that would be fossil applications, so that
is why the highlight has moved from nuclear energy to fossil
energy.
Again, we work very closely with the Office of Nuclear
Energy in executing this project, and in doing the research
together.
Mr. Simpson. John, do you have anything to say on that?
Mr. Kotek. No, other than just to echo what Chris said. It
is working very well from our perspective, and of course in
addition to that cooperation, we have a little bit of work
looking at the specifics of how you would link up a nuclear
system through an energy conversion system like this. So, a
little bit of work there, but the most of what we are doing is
in cooperation with his office.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Smith, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015
directed DOE to complete a strategic review of the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve and to develop and submit to Congress a plan
for modernization of the reserve.
What is the current status of the review, and do you expect
to meet the deadline of early May?
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question.
Certainly, we do expect to meet or exceed that deadline for
May. We are working on that right now, and expect to get it to
the committee shortly.
Mr. Simpson. I know this is before the report comes out but
do you anticipate there would be recommendations for fiscal
year 2017 in the report, and if so, if it is the May deadline,
it may be too late because we are moving with the budget as
quickly as possible.
Mr. Smith. Understood. So, we understand there is a May
deadline that was input in the language. We also understand
there is an opportunity to influence the ongoing process. So,
we do expect to be able to move more quickly than May to get
something back to the committee. In fact, that process has
started within the Department of Energy and in our
collaboration with OMB. So, that is ongoing in real time as we
speak. We expect to be, as we noted in our congressional
justification, submitting an amendment to our budget very
shortly.
Mr. Simpson. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 established
an Energy Security and Infrastructure Fund. That authorization
allows appropriations' acts to direct the sale of up to $2
billion worth of oil from the reserve and to use the proceeds
for the construction, maintenance, repair, and replacement of
strategic petroleum reserve facilities.
The budget request does not include use of this
authorization, however. The budget request includes an increase
of $45 million or 21 percent for the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve. It is described as necessary to address the backlog of
major maintenance activities.
Why did we not use the fund that was created to do this in
the budget request?
Mr. Smith. There are two areas that we are looking at
funding, our base budget, including the additional $45 million,
which is to handle deferred maintenance, which we see as being
essential for the immediate operation of the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve.
So, this is the ongoing maintenance and deferred
maintenance to ensure that the Petroleum Reserve is able to
operate as it is intended.
In addition, we are expecting to submit an amendment to the
fiscal year 2017 budget, which will be for modernization of the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That would include life extension,
and that would also include modernization of----
Mr. Simpson. Somebody is calling ``bull'' on that.
That is wind energy.
Mr. Smith. But I would also include the modernization of
docks and to increase the distribution capacity of the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That is the scope of the work that
would be included within the budget amendment.
Mr. Simpson. Ok.
Mr. Orr. A simple way to think about this is we need to
keep the dern thing operating in order to sell the oil that it
takes to generate the income to do the big picks.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Kotek, I have not called you that in a
long time.
Mr. Orr. Has he called you worse?
Mr. Simpson. No, I have never called him worse. I just have
known him for a long time. What is the general health of the
Advanced Test Reactor in Idaho, and has it adequately been
funded to provide maintenance and upgrades necessary for it to
last, and what projects and upgrades to the ATR are still
outstanding but are not proposed in this year's budget request?
Mr. Kotek. Thank you, sir, for the question. Of course, the
ATR is central to both my programs in the Office of Nuclear
Energy and to the work of the Office of Naval Reactors.
One of the first things that I got into deeply when I came
back to DOE about this time last year was to ensure that we had
a plan in place to adequately invest in the long-term safe and
efficient operations of that reactor. Both we and the Office of
Naval Reactors see a need for that facility out until the 2050
time frame.
So, what we have done is we have worked cooperatively with
the Office of Naval Reactors and with the laboratory to put in
place a 5 year rolling strategy focused on improving the
reliability and predictability of ATR operations.
Of course, the Congress in the fiscal 2016 budget provided
additional funds beyond what we had already requested, which we
will use to accelerate some of the work that we had identified
in that plan.
We have in our request for this year fully funded the
activities that we had identified to be conducted in fiscal
2017 as part of that plan. The increase we received in fiscal
2016 came after we had put the 2017 plan in place.
We will work with Naval Reactors and with the contractor to
ensure that those funds are spent efficiently and at the
highest priority for the long-term safe operation of the ATR
because it is just essential to a wide range of DOE missions.
Mr. Simpson. In this year's request, the Integrated Waste
Management Systems account is proposed to fund two distinct
activities, storage and transportation R&D and consent-based
siting activities.
In previous years, the focus of the Integrated Waste
Management Systems account was on a generic research and
development applicable to Yucca Mountain and other waste
solutions.
Does this new proposal still maintain this focus, and how
much of this research and development applies specifically to
Yucca Mountain and how much applies to an interim storage
facility?
Mr. Kotek. Thank you, sir, for the question. The $76.3
million we have for the Integrated Waste Management System is
roughly split 50/50 between activities focused on consent-based
siting and then work on nuclear fuel storage and
transportation, which would be applicable regardless of what
site was chosen for the ultimate storage or disposal of fuel.
Of course, we do not have anything specifically tied to
Yucca Mountain in our request, but we are looking at being
ready to transport fuel, for example, when we are in a position
to start moving fuel, for example, from shut down plant sites
to consolidated storage, which of course, we have set as a
priority.
On the consent-based siting side, about $25 million that we
have requested would be intended to be used for grants to
states, tribes, local governments, potentially others that are
interested in learning more about what it would mean to host a
facility, either for storage or disposal, and either for
civilian waste or defense waste repository sites, to help them
understand what those challenges might be so that they can
decide for themselves whether they might be interested in over
the long term becoming what we call a ``willing and informed
host.''
Mr. Simpson. So, I guess your legal counsel has made a
determination of how far down that road we can go before we get
the roadblock of not allowing the department to look at interim
storage?
Mr. Kotek. Well, the language in our request in the fiscal
2016 request speaks to continuing to lay the groundwork for the
consent-based siting process, and of course, what we are
embarking on now is a series of public meetings and other
activities designed to get input from states and others as to
what should be considered in the design of a consent-based
siting process.
For the fiscal 2017 request, we have in our language
specifically said we now want to move forward with
implementation of that process.
Of course, as you point out, there is a need for new
legislation to do a number of the things that we have included
in the administration's strategy, assure access to the Waste
Treatment Fund, setting up a new organization, an independent
organization, and other things.
Mr. Simpson. Well, I would just add I am not opposed to
that. We are going to have this type of thing regardless of
what happens with Yucca Mountain. We have to face that reality
at some point in time, that we need a facility, more than one
facility, as a matter of fact.
Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to go back,
Dr. Orr, to the issue of municipal utility systems, and ask, do
you or any of your colleagues have any example at DOE on where
the department has worked with a local municipality to make
their energy use more efficient by reducing their energy costs
for water and wastewater treatment?
And in doing so, integrating the full range of Department
of Energy technologies that might involve a new conduit, grid
modernization, on-site installation of renewable energy
technologies, including sensors, and implementing wastewater
resource recovery so that we can recover essential elements,
such as phosphorus, in the organics that result at the end of
the treatment process?
Do you have any example literally where the department has
put its full weight behind transforming a community's utility
system?
Mr. Orr. Well, it is an excellent question and I need to
ask for some help. Kathleen, are you on the hook for this one?
Ms. Hogan. So, we have a number of engagements where we are
assisting states and municipal governments through a variety of
programs that we have, focusing on their water treatment and
wastewater treatment to improve energy use.
So, one very applicable technology is combined heat and
power, right, where you can get the biogas recovery from
anaerobic processes, trap the energy, use it on-site, and get
substantially reduced energy bills for that wastewater
treatment facility. We also have been working through our
renewable energy program and have some solar applications.
I think, as you are highlighting, that is not necessarily
the full soup to nuts type of thing that can happen at a
wastewater treatment facility, but we are trying to think
through as part of the energy-water nexus what would be a
fuller suite of opportunities for the Department of Energy to
engage in, as well as with our partner agencies. So, certainly
EPA would have an important role in these types of efforts. So,
we have some of this thinking underway.
Ms. Kaptur. First of all, thank you for the fine work you
do, and I hope you keep thinking along those lines because as I
said to the Secretary, one thing I have noticed, I have served
on almost a majority of the subcommittees of the Appropriations
committee in my career, and one of the startling facts for the
Department of Energy as critical as your work is, I have found
a remarkable lack of sensitivity to place, and your authorizing
legislation probably does not give you full weight in that
regard.
I have found lots of separate programs, but no integration,
and certainly at the community levels at which we work, and I
think Congressman Honda was referencing some issues this
morning, and I think the chairman was.
I think your department has in some ways been cordoned off
from that kind of thinking to relate to regions and places. I
think you have a lab perspective, which is critical for the
work that you do, but it is a little bit hard to integrate your
programs, and I do not think it serves America as well as it
could.
If you need additional authorizing power, let us know. I
think when you create something like an energy-water nexus that
gives you the ability to integrate.
Along those lines, let me also ask about the weatherization
program. Congresswoman Roybal-Allard asked about the program.
Again, here, do you have any examples of communities that have
benefitted from weatherization assistance in accessing it
through the states, but have developed robust local
partnerships that use all of DOE's energy programs to help
revitalize and target those dollars to neighborhoods, not just
individual homes, but integrating your technologies along with
those weatherization programs through workforce training and
development, in places where these investments are made,
accessing historic preservation, which is not your job but it
exists out there, grid modernization, where it is possible,
recapture of waste energy where possible, installation of
renewables where it is possible, sensors where it is possible.
So, again, will you target that weatherization in a way,
even though it is a smaller program, where it really can have a
major impact?
I will just say in one of the regions I represent, there is
a historic neighborhood. Unfortunately, the weatherization
program, it comes in and does its thing, but what it could do
if it could link these other assets that you have and other
partners--it could do so much more.
It seems to be unable to do that because the dollars flow
through the state and the state is a long way from
neighborhoods, at the local municipal level, let's say.
So, do you have any examples where that broader approach
has been taken, to your knowledge?
Ms. Hogan. So, I would again say this is an active
conversation at the department. We understand the importance of
addressing communities as holistically as possible.
I would point to one of the parts of our budget which is in
the Office of Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs. We
are asking for a community oriented program where we could
integrate this more holistic thinking in terms of solving the
issues that are facing communities and really focusing on
neighborhood revitalization opportunities where clean energy
can really help be part of that goal.
Ms. Kaptur. Literally, I represent neighborhoods where
there is waste heat right near these homes, and there is no
thinking about how to work with industry. The weatherization
program comes in here, it does not connect at the local level.
So, I would urge you. We put extra money in the budget for
2016 for weatherization. I do not know if your authority allows
you to try to create some pilots around the country where you
try to integrate programs. Please let me know if something
prevents you from doing that. I do not think you are having
maximum impact.
Ms. Hogan. We will certainly take those words. Again, we
are thinking through how to field an effort with partners
across the country so we can bring those partnerships together.
The weatherization program does have very strict rules in terms
of when money is put into the weatherization program.
It goes out in formula allocations to help the states, with
the community action agencies, to deliver the weatherization
services, and I think we look at the weatherization program as
a very important network and set of activities that are
happening in the community, but we agree with you about the
importance of a broader set of partnerships that can leverage
that or bring other things to the table to help these
communities.
Again, we are actively thinking this through and would love
to come back and talk with you once we have done a little more
thinking.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you for your openness to that very, very
much. I think we could do something to modernize what is
happening out there in the country.
Finally, in terms of industrials, to change the subject to
industrial assessment centers, Dr. Orr, I am glad to see the
ongoing support for these. I would like to hear a little bit
more about it, but I wanted to put this on the record this
morning.
I probably represent one of the largest automotive
platforms in the country. I represent the largest Chrysler Fiat
plant on the continent, with the manufacturer of the Wrangler
and the Cherokee. I also represent General Motors' sole
transmission facility, where we have moved from V4 to V6 to V8,
and we are going up to V10, and becoming more energy efficient,
serving all of its product lines.
I represent GM's plant at Parma, Ohio, also. I think all of
my automotive plants would benefit by your expertise in helping
them save on their energy bill. Those components going to the
Cruze, one of our most efficient GM vehicles. I represent
Ford's breakthrough EcoBoost plant at Brook Park, very
important in the energy efficiency of Ford, and also I
represent their heavy truck plant at Avon Lake, Ohio, that was
repatriated from Mexico.
So, it would be great to have some kind of a forum where we
could look at the combined energy use. One of the GM plants has
put a solar roof on their facility. To help these companies,
which can go global at any point and outsource their
production, to look at energy and figure out hey, what can we
do here to secure this manufacturing, critical manufacturing,
for our country.
So, if there is something you could do through this
industrial assessment center to look at corridors like this.
Just down the road is the General Dynamics tank plant. You
know, we have big manufacturing in our region.
Ask the question of how can the industrial assessment
centers be used to help small and medium facilities look for
energy savings opportunities?
Mr. Orr. I actually would like to ask Kathleen to respond
to that, if you do not mind.
Ms. Hogan. We can take that on. Certainly, the industrial
assessment centers have the opportunity to help small and
medium facilities look for energy savings opportunities
generally within the region, right? So they are a regional-type
center. In addition to the industrial assessment centers we
have efforts, as Dr. Orr was referring to earlier, where we
will work directly in partnership with major companies to help
them better understand and manage their energy use through
things like our better buildings, better plants effort. And we
have had tremendous success working in partnership and helping
these organizations find savings on the order of 20 percent to
25 percent, you know, over a set of years as they, you know,
strategize over the right investments to make. So we are happy
to engage in this conversation.
Ms. Kaptur. Every day when I am home I drive by the--and I
am not criticizing--I am just reporting that the Chrysler
facility, Chrysler Fiat facility at Toledo there is a big
methane plume that just keeps burning off. And I see that and I
go, is this really the best thing we can do? And I keep looking
at what is going on across the region in these big plants, and
so I will look forward to that, and I thank the Chairman for
his forbearance on this. It is really important to our area.
Mr. Simpson. I have not heard a problem here that a small
modular reactor could not fix. Mr. Fortenberry.
Mr. Fortenberry. Speak about the problem of small modular
reactor, I do not want to go there on this one. I want to talk
about renewable energy in a macro sense in terms of both
capacity and the storage issue, and then implementation in a
micro sense, the distributed generation, even down to the home
owner level. I live in Nebraska. We get about 7 percent of our
energy from wind. The surrounding states vary from 20 percent
to 30 percent. We have got a little bit different model for
energy generation in that we have a public power system and
some transmission infrastructure challenges that I think have
precluded the rapid development of wind.
But, nonetheless, the cost of wind has come down 66
percent, I understand. What do you foresee, in terms of your
own research, in terms of potential further declines in wind to
make it even more competitive? And then the storage issue,
research on the storage issue? And then integration of wind as
well as solar on a micro level along with the micro storage
issues? What is research looking like, the trajectory of
research in that regard?
Mr. Orr. I will ask my colleagues to join in here in a
minute, but let me start by saying that one of the primary
reasons for investing in the grid modernization initiative that
is one of our key cross cuts, and I would say the best
developed of our cross cutting efforts, is because that effort
integrates a lot of the things that you just talked about. It
aims at being able to accept deep penetration of intermittent
renewables and other kinds of distributed generation. It aims
at providing a variety of balancing options, so one of those,
of course, is storage. Grid scaled, battery storage is one way
to provide that, and sometimes scale of works.
Mr. Fortenberry. Incentives for demand or incentive pricing
for catch of demand?
Mr. Orr. Yeah, so that is a place where we need a better
market mechanism to recognize.
Mr. Fortenberry. So basically you run your dryer at night?
Mr. Orr. Well, yeah.
Mr. Fortenberry. And get a credit for that?
Mr. Orr. And in my case, at my house in California, I have
time of day pricing.
Mr. Fortenberry. Oh, good.
Mr. Orr. And I do have some solar cells in the backyard, so
I fixed it so that we do not run the dryer in the high cost
period of that.
Mr. Fortenberry. Right.
Mr. Orr. I mean, it is an interesting system of systems, so
particularly, we have micro grids that might generate power,
mostly on their own, and be able to deal with a crisis, for
example, or a disruption. But then be able to come back online
in a reliable and straightforward way.
Mr. Fortenberry. So define microgrid?
Ms. Hogan. Well, microgrid, it could be as small as a good
sized building, but it is often and could operate on its own.
Mr. Fortenberry. I mean, I think that is where we are at in
terms of we shifted to the concept of distributed generation
and there has been some mild implementation of that. In
California it is more possible with solar than where I live.
But at the same time, you know, if it was cost affordable,
feasible, why not think about, particularly in new home
construction, becoming your own micro energy farm through a
combination of not only wind and solar micro wind, but also
geothermal? I understand there might be on the horizon solar
panels that basically look like windows now that are
translucent, and that takes care of this problem of aesthetics
as well.
Anyway, just speak briefly, if you could, to the
technologies that are on the horizon for storage that will
further empower integration of renewables into the overall
portfolio and then drop prices that make it more feasible for
micro systems to develop? I mean, where are we at in this? That
is the core of my question.
Mr. Orr. Yeah. We are in the middle of that process. In
terms of batteries per grid scale, there are some things called
flow batteries, for example, that you would not want to put
these on a vehicle, but where they basically do an
electrochemical reaction and store the products in tanks. You
need space to do this, but you can do really big quantities.
But people are looking at other kinds of battery storage and
battery chemistries for that sort of thing as well.
That is different from the other end of the scale where, on
a vehicle, what you care about is the weight and volume of that
battery and it is much smaller, so.
Mr. Fortenberry. So what is the time horizon on the
integration of these technologies in reality into the market
system?
Mr. Orr. Well, Pat Hoffman's troops are busy. We have a
significant boost in the energy storage for some demos in 2017
to go test some of these ideas. So Pat could tell you more
about that if you want to, but we are in progress. Behind the
meter side of things, there are companies out there that now
will sell you storage, you know, 5/10 kilowatt hours that might
allow you to generate power from your solar system at your
house during the day and then use that to power your house at
night or to----
Mr. Fortenberry. Or just through the accounting
methodology?
Mr. Orr. Well, yeah. And, again, if it involves time of day
pricing there would be incentives to be able to shift your load
there. So it will be very interesting to see how the market
values these things and how this plays out. But the technology
pieces are starting to be there.
Mr. Fortenberry. Well, I mentioned this to the Secretary,
and I will defer to you in just a moment. I integrated a
geothermal into my home. My home is about 25 years old. So I
was glad to do that. I want to make advances in this regard.
The payback period is probably on the outlying end of the
spectrum, 10 years. It might be as early as seven. But this was
made possible by tax credits, state loans, as well as rebates
from the manufacturer given the timing I put in, and rebate
from a local utility. It is complicated frankly.
Mr. Orr. Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Fortenberry. And so if you wanted to do this in a much
more aggressive way, moving your home toward, in effect, being
an energy farm, integrating solar geothermal smart metering, as
well as the possibility of micro wind, is complex. Are there
models out there in which this is being done successfully? Even
in the area of the country where I live?
Mr. Orr. Well, this is a good example, I think, of why we
would think about these things as systems. That is something we
are trying to do a better job of. But you're absolutely right
that reducing that complexity would aid deployment, and I would
also argue that we need to continue to work on cost reduction
because if the research can help us give you that geothermal
heat pump setting at a price that doesn't require the various
complex programs to help get them deployed, then that will work
too, so we need to work on the cost side. Pat, do you want to
add something?
Ms. Hoffman. Thank you Congressman, I would just love to
add a couple points. I mean, our energy storage program at
$44.5 million is looking at reducing the cost of energy
storage, but also getting the deployment of energy storage out
there, partnering with the states, looking for opportunities of
deployment of energy storage whether it is on the grid, but on
the distribution level. We also have a $30 million budget line
for our smart grid that is looking at microgrids. Looking at
the integration of technologies of the distribution system. And
I think that is really important as we start optimizing
generation. As you have discussed, how do we get a small
ecosystem in pulling together technologies?
But in addition to that, we have to work on the
institutional issues which is looking at what we are calling
distribution level reform to get that, to simplify the
complexity.
Mr. Fortenberry. Yeah, I will work on that for you. You
just get us the technology, okay? I agree.
Mr. Orr. Ok. It is a deal.
Mr. Fortenberry. Changing cultures and carrying forward
legacy costs, and it is complicated. I get it. But when do you
think this technology, I know it is hard to predict, on a
larger scale what we have talked about, being more fully
integrated, what is your trajectory? Are we looking at two
years? Twenty-five years?
Mr. Simpson. You will be dead.
Mr. Orr. We can beat 25 I think for sure. We will have some
demonstrations and, for example, in remote communities in some
parts of the country microgrids are already functioning for
those.
Mr. Fortenberry. Without providing too much work on you,
would you write up just a brief summary of some of those models
that are out there?
Mr. Orr. Sure, sure.
Mr. Fortenberry. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. That is exciting. I want my home to be a place
where I come and kick off my shoes and turn on a fire and read
a book and do not worry about any of this stuff. And I want to
dry my clothes whenever they are wet. Mr. Honda.
Mr. Honda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question about
the national network for manufacturing innovation, and then
NNMI HUBS. The Department of Energy hosts three of the seven
existing HUBS right now. One in Raleigh, another in Knoxville,
and one is to be determined, I believe. So being from Silicon
Valley I really appreciate how important it is that we focus on
advanced manufacturing and potentially game changing
technologies to ensure that the next Silicon Valley is right
here in the United States.
So I was curious though, what is the current status of
DOE's NNMI Centers, and what are some of the successes from
these centers? Then how many DOE-led centers do you envision in
the full national network of 45 planned HUBS? Then, in your
opinion, would these centers develop without seed funding from
the agencies?
Mr. Orr. So thank you for an interesting and complicated
question, but let me do the specifics first. So, as you
observed, we have three in progress. We are working on defining
two more for this year, and then we requested in fiscal year
2017 funds for a sixth. So that part is in progress. The
question of whether things like this would develop without the
kind of initial funding to get them going. I mean, there
certainly are some efforts to that effect. I think the
experience so far with the advanced composites manufacturing at
Oak Ridge and with the wide bandgap semiconductor that one is
earlier, and so we have more to do to see how that goes.
If the topics are chosen well and the institutional
leadership is good then there really can contribute in
interesting ways be bringing people together to work on,
largely, the precompetitive kind of things that then can have a
much broader impact. And I would just say that the advanced
manufacturing area, particularly the additive manufacturing
area, is on that because it has both advantages for energy
efficiencies, advantages for the quantity of materials that get
used, and for the kind of speed of the cycle time of developing
some new process or part. All of those are things that really
can benefit manufacturing across the whole country. The areas
that Pat Hoffman mentioned for the grid kinds of applications
are another one where there would be specific national benefits
that really do make sense.
So I think that imposes on us the responsibility of doing a
good job of thinking through the topics where they make sense,
and where there is an appropriate government role it is not
necessarily to do all the commercial activities. It is really
to figure out where it makes sense to invest taxpayer funds.
Mr. Honda. The issue of seed money, so when the President
announced his desire to see this thing deploy and grow, it
seems like the seed money comes from the different agencies
such as Department of Defense had to put up the seed money for
the flexible hybrid electronics concept which is beginning to
establish itself and create a new arena of technologies. Are we
encouraging agencies to put up money also in their own budgets
or do they have to see a benefit for their investments by their
agencies in order for them to create this bottom line?
Mr. Orr. I am not sure I am the right guy to answer this
question, but I think we have been encouraged to think about
where they make sense for the kinds of activities that we do. I
am less certain about how that has gone for other agencies, but
we have definitely been encouraged to think through where we
can contribute.
Mr. Honda. Well, the Department of Defense, they put in $75
million and private industry put in the rest, a quarter of a
billion dollars. And I think that they saw a lot of benefits
for folks who have solutions to problems that they are looking
for, and the DOD has problems for which they are looking for
solutions, so that marriage seems to be pretty good in terms of
the area of flexible hybrid. Would something like this be
applicable to energy storage? Because we are only looking at,
it seems like it is only lithium, but there must be other forms
of technologies that we have looked at that need some research
that we can invite people to come together through a process
like this.
Mr. Orr. So there I would say that we actually have some
other activities that I think fill that role. We, for example,
have an energy storage hub. JCESR at Argonne is the center for
energy storage research. It is funded specifically to look at
advanced battery chemistries that have higher energy densities
and lower weights and good durability.
We also get at the fundamentals of that through quite a
number of our energy frontier research centers that look at
some combination of electrochemistry and nanostructured
materials. So we do have that covered. We have also, actually
at the other end of the innovation spectrum, we have funded
through the loan programs office some activities with regard to
battery manufacturing. So I do not know of anything involving
one of the NNMIs, but we do have a lot of activity in the area.
Mr. Honda. Through DOE you probably help us remain
competitive in a global competition in innovation. Is there
anything that DOE is focused on on next generation
manufacturing?
Mr. Orr. Well, the six centers are manufacturing
institutes. The three that we are working on already and the
three more that are in our budgets or plans are exactly aimed
at those kinds of issues, so we do have that in our portfolio.
Mr. Honda. So we can talk a little bit more about that
later on?
Mr. Orr. You bet.
Mr. Honda. Ok. Last question, Mr. Chairman. On this topic
of weatherization, it seems that there are statutes already in
place, but the statute does not seem to incorporate or
encourage the integration of solar. If weatherization is about
saving costs to individuals, fixed income folks, poor
neighborhoods and places like that, in hardening the building
from losing heat, why don't we in this whole discussion of
reinventing ourselves, why don't we incorporate the wording
that would allow solarization as part of the cost savings for
these homes? And at the same time, become more efficient and
save the home owners or the users' pocketbook? It seems like
they both will do the same thing, but solar would have a larger
application cost as a country from east coast to west coast?
Mr. Orr. It is an excellent question, of course. So as I
understand it, we already have examples of solar thermal that a
solar hot water heater as being included in the weatherization
side. And I think it has allowed that any technology where we
can show a positive savings over cost is a possibility for
inclusion in that. Kathleen, is that correct?
Ms. Hogan. Yes.
Mr. Honda. Solar heating for water is through solar uptake
or through dark pipes?
Mr. Orr. No, it would be through dark pipes. So it is a
question of this balancing of cost and savings to the consumer,
and as the costs continue to come down that seems like a real
possibility to me.
Mr. Honda. Not to be argumentative, but it seems like
placing solar on these homes would reduce the cost if we
maintained certain kinds of credits or helping cap agencies to,
you know, put these in on a long term basis. Cost savings to
the home owner or the dweller over time it seems it would----
Mr. Orr. And those have to exceed the cost of installing
the system, so I think it argues, again, for this idea that
continuing to work hard to bring down costs both on the
permitting side and the hardware side is a way to make these
things more widely available. And that is really true across
the energy spectrum.
Mr. Honda. So do I hear you saying that it is not possible
until we can come up with a point where cost savings would be
greater than the costs?
Mr. Orr. If I said that I did not mean to.
Mr. Honda. No, I am just asking.
Mr. Orr. I think it is within the power of these systems
now to be able to do what you are suggesting. Now, there might
be just the sort of institutional inertia that afflicts all of
us, but I think it is possible where the cost targets can be
met.
Mr. Simpson. Our chairman can help us with that. Thank you.
Mr. Orr. You bet.
Mr. Simpson. Ms. Kaptur, do you have anything else?
Ms. Kaptur. I actually do, Mr. Chairman, I do. I do. I
wanted to ask about the offshore wind demonstrations and Dr.
Orr, could you give us an update on the status of those?
Mr. Orr. Sure.
Ms. Kaptur. And when we could expect a decision on
advancing some of the proposals.
Mr. Orr. Yes, we have five offshore wind projects that are
in various stages of working through their milestones and
requirements. The next three are in the second period of that
and two more are alternates and are in the primary period. We
will evaluate all of those this spring and we expect the next
decision point is in May.
Ms. Kaptur. All right. I thank you for that clarification.
On regional energy innovation partnerships, how do you see
these partnerships coalescing?
Mr. Orr. So partnerships, well we are imagining a
competition that in a particular region that a variety of
institutions, it could be industry, it could be universities,
it could be a national lab would band together to create an
entity, probably a 501(c)3, that would organize the research
program, manage the funds, get them out, would not be a
research provider but rather would be a research organizer.
That we would select them competitively and then they would
select competitive proposals which could be by members of the
consortium, but with appropriate attention to conflict of
interests of course along the way. But these would be focused
on areas of regional interests and innovation at the regional
scale. But at the same time would take advantage of the
intellectual assets that exist in the area.
Ms. Kaptur. And you would have to wait for your 2017 budget
in order to implement that? There is nothing in the 2016?
Mr. Orr. Yeah, that is right.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok. On vehicle technologies, let me ask, do you
have examples of where, successful examples of where natural
gas has been integrated now into major fleets, truck fleets and
are they cost competitive?
Mr. Orr. I know there is quite a bit of, there are truck
fleets around that do that now. Rueben, do you want to say a
word about that?
Mr. Sarkar. Rueben Sarkar, yes, through our Clean Cities
program and through our national Clean Fleet partnerships,
where we have partnered with a number of large corporations
like Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, and others, we have seen a
considerable amount of natural gas deployment and have done a
number of case studies to demonstrate the benefits of natural
gas deployment. I don't have the exact numbers offhand, but we
do track how much natural gas penetration we have had through
our efforts, and how much petroleum displacement we have
achieved. And we continue to do a lot of activity on the
deployment side of the equation. We also do a lot of research
and demonstration on the dual fuel side in the Class A truck
space to see where we can displace additional diesel through
implementation of dual fuel technologies as well.
Ms. Kaptur. All right. What about public fleets, bus
systems, or post office vehicles? Do you have any--is there any
activity there on the natural gas side conversion?
Mr. Sarkar. We have not done as much on the deployment side
in the public transit sector. That normally goes to DOT. We do
provide technical assistance, case studies and information that
a lot of people make good decisions about adoption of
alternative fuels, but not as much deployment and research on
public transit. And then your second part of the question was
on----
Ms. Kaptur. Post office vehicles.
Mr. Sarkar. Post office. We engage with the post office to
advise them on technology adoption as part of their RFP
proposals. But we do not direct it. We generally provide them a
basis for information, whether it is alternative fuels for
electrification or natural gas. But we don't actually fund
deployment activities with the U.S. Postal Service.
Ms. Kaptur. Does your legislation not allow it?
Mr. Sarkar. I would have to check on that. Normally, we are
in an advisory capacity and that the U.S. Postal Service does
their own separate RFPs the way it is structured, and all we do
is provide assistance and guidance.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok. I appreciate that very much, and my final
question will be Dr. Smith, or Secretary Smith has sat there
today and has not been asked very many questions.
Mr. Simpson. I know he is disappointed by that.
Ms. Kaptur. And in view of the emphasis that is being
placed in other places in the budget, what can you tell us
about fossil fuels and your priorities in this budget?
Mr. Smith. Well, thank you for the question. So the center
of our research and development budget is on carbon capture and
sequestration, which we think is still a very important part of
the challenge of ensuring that all of our sources of domestic
energy including coal and natural gas are relevant in future
energy systems. Our budget has a slight increase from last
year, going from $869 million up to $878 million. The coal
capture systems are also going up slightly, total capture
budget for coal going from $131 million to $139 million.
In addition to the coal capture budget, we have added a
line for capture for natural gas systems and would like to
point out that that indeed is in addition to the existing
budget for coal capture systems. So we have maintained our
focus on coal capture and in addition, we will be doing some
additional research and development on capturing CO2
from natural gas fired systems. That will benefit our
understanding of how to reduce emissions from coal as well. So
that's the center of our program for----
Ms. Kaptur. Where are the majority of those coal capture
systems installed? Where are they?
Mr. Smith. Well, so this is a new area of innovation in
terms of deployment. There is a couple of major demonstrations
that the department is working on, one in Mississippi and one
down in Texas. There are of course coal fired power plants
throughout the United States which will be the candidates for
retrofitting so that you can take those systems and reduce the
greenhouse gas emissions that are coming out of the coal fired
systems. So there will be coal fired power plants throughout
the United States that will be candidates for this technology.
Ms. Kaptur. I thought of one other question, Mr. Chair.
Does the Department of Energy have a list, by state or region,
of waste heat, facilities generating a great deal of waste heat
and what type of waste heat it is.
Mr. Orr. Good question. I do not know if we have it by
waste heat, but we certainly do have a nationwide list of big
CO2 sources and they are pretty likely to be
connected. So it wouldn't be hard to get you, actually EPA
maintains a list of the--and we do have a list. I am sure we
have a list of all the power plants around the country. So they
would be a primary location to go look for thermal energy that
was not being captured.
Ms. Kaptur. And what about steel plants?
Mr. Orr. Steel plants would also be candidates there. I am
sure----
Ms. Kaptur. What about refineries?
Mr. Orr. Your refineries, well, we certainly know where
they are. The refineries, because they use so much energy
internally, they tend to be more organized around making sure
that they can use the waste heat that they generate.
Ms. Kaptur. What about 100 megawatt natural gas plant?
Mr. Orr. Sure, there is a lot of thermal, sort of low-grade
thermal energy that comes out of the cooling of the downstream
end of the steam turbines.
Ms. Kaptur. I am very interested in--this is very hard
information to obtain, I would like to let you know. And it is
very important for our region's economic growth to know where
these waste heat sources are. But where does one go? Do you
have to call every company?
Mr. Orr. I bet that EIA, the Energy Information
Administration, they must be able to estimate----
Ms. Kaptur. Where they might be.
Mr. Orr. Yeah, I would think so.
Ms. Kaptur. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Orr. We will have to do some checking to make sure I am
not promising something I cannot deliver, but let us look at
that.
Ms. Kaptur. All right. Thank you so very much. Thank you,
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Simpson. You bet. One source of heat waste is that
hamburger waiting in my office. I am going to have to reheat
that. Didn't the INL just convert all their fleet to natural
gas or haven't they done that? Last year your office, John,
developed the GAIN Initiative to make it easier for industry to
utilize the department's state of the art infrastructure in
order to help commercialize advanced nuclear technologies. Can
you update the committee on those efforts in the previous year
and what kind of activities will be supported in 2017?
Mr. Kotek. Yes, thank you, sir. And that initiative, I
should point out, grew out of some really good work done by the
Idaho National Lab, I think as I taught Alan back there, who
led an effort to work with Oakridge and some of the other labs
and universities to work with this community of innovators in
advanced nuclear that has grown up over the last several years.
You may have seen their recent reports talking about dozens of
small companies capitalized to the tune of more than $1.5
billion in private money and is now trying to work both fission
and fusion concepts towards commercialization.
The input we received from those companies was that the
thing they needed the most out of DOE was the ability to access
the capabilities that exist within the system, the reactors,
the hot cells, the data and the codes and the brainpower that
exists within the DOE system. And so GAIN was set up to
establish a very convenient, streamlined way for these
companies to access that series of capabilities. So what has
been happening over the last several months is building on the
work that we did through our nuclear science user facilities
where university researchers and others can come in through a
single portal and access capabilities around the system, we are
now working to build that to make it easier for industry to
use.
Because of course when you bring industry in you have got
more challenges, like intellectual property protections that
you have got to deal with. So we are building on that. The
Idaho National Lab, Oakridge and Argonne are kind of at the
core of this and are working together to get in place a series
of agreements that we need to have so that we can provide rapid
access into the system for these private companies.
Now, we are also hearing interest from international
partners. And of course we do a lot of collaborative R&D. Other
countries are coming to us and saying hey, we have got
capabilities that may help fill in gaps in the U.S.
capabilities, maybe we can come up with some sort of
international arrangement. So we're trying to round that out.
In the budget specifically, we have got a million and a half
that is tied just for GAIN administration. We have got another
couple of million dollars that we would assign for the
continuation of this voucher program. You may have seen just
yesterday we announced the first round of availability of
funding. Just a couple million dollars, we expect to award
maybe ten vouchers. But maybe $200,000 apiece roughly speaking,
provide these companies some funding again to serve as the lab
side of the project so they bring $50,000, we bring $200,000
and all of a sudden they've got $250,000 worth of access to the
labs, an idea which I should say really EERE and Dave
Danielson's shop pioneered. We just learned from it. It has
been really through the coordination efforts that Dr. Orr's
office has gotten us all engaged in.
So those are the types of things we will do under the '17
budget to try and help some of these companies get to the point
where they can commercialize some of these advanced designs. So
pretty exciting times.
Mr. Simpson. Great. Thank you all for being here today. Let
me tell you just briefly the challenges we are going to face in
this committee and I explained this to the Secretary yesterday,
is that the budget submission by the administration calls for
about a $650 million increase over last year. But in the energy
and water environment that we have to deal with here, they use
some, for lack of a better term, gimmicks to get the $650
million increase.
I am not saying it is unique to what they have done. I have
seen it happen time and time again with every budget submission
from every administration and every governor that I have ever
seen and that is kind of the way it works. But we have to deal
with it in reality when we put the budget together. So we are
going to have difficulty there.
Second, the Mission Innovation Initiative has a 21 percent
increase or a couple billion dollars and then they underfunded,
the Army Corps of Engineers by over a billion dollars, which we
are going to have to find somewhere. They know that they can
underfund it because we are going to plus it back up because
Congress is not going to sit still while it goes down a billion
dollars.
That is the challenge we face in trying to address both the
overall budget and address this Mission Innovation Initiative
and try to find the resources for that. Within our committee, I
am certain that there is going to be some rebalancing of how
those funds go in this Mission Innovation Initiative as we put
this budget together. We look forward to working with you to
address that. Pass our best along to Mr. Danielson. We wish him
and his family the best. We know that there are more important
things in this world than being here before the committee. So
we certainly understand that and wish him the best. And lastly,
John, I would not say this if Mr. Fleischmann's staff was not
here. When he says to look at NE's budget and how much of it
goes to Oak Ridge, remember they have the Science budget. So do
not be taking too much of that and sending it to Oak Ridge. Oak
Ridge is a great place, a great laboratory. It does great work.
Years ago, I was sitting in a presentation by one of our
weapons laboratories and they were going through their budget
over the last 20 years and how it used to be funded by weapons
activities almost 100 percent. Over the years, as weapons
activities money had decreased, they had increased funding from
Science. They were very proud of that, and I am going wait just
a minute. You are taking that money from other laboratories
when they do not have access to the weapons money that you
have. So it is a challenge between the laboratories, but it is
a good challenge. Be real careful there. Thank you all for
being here and thank you for the work you do. It's both
challenging and excited. So we look forward to working with you
as we put this budget together. We're adjourned.
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Wednesday, March 2, 2016.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, SCIENCE
WITNESSES
FRANKLIN ORR, UNDER SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE AND ENERGY, DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
CHERRY MURRAY, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Fleischmann. Good afternoon. Mr. Simpson has asked me
to get things started for today's hearing. So I want to welcome
everyone. I would like to welcome all the witnesses. Dr.
Franklin Orr, Under Secretary for Science and Energy, and Dr.
Cherry Murray, Director of the Department of Energy's Office of
Science. Dr. Orr, it is good to see you again. It was great to
participate with you at Lab Day on the Hill last fall. What a
great turnout we had to see firsthand the great work our
national labs are doing to solve so many tough national and
international problems.
Dr. Murray, thank you for coming by to meet with me in
January. I appreciated that so much. It is great to have you
here. This is your first appearance, I believe, before our
subcommittee, and thank you both and welcome.
Dr. Orr and Dr. Murray, the budget request provides $5.6
billion for the Office of Science, a 4 percent increase over
last year's level. The Office of Science has helped usher in
some of the most important scientific breakthroughs in the 20th
century and will continue to support important innovations in
the future. However, the balance between supporting core
research activities that maintain U.S. leadership in energy
sciences while also planning for new experiments will be one of
the major challenges you face as we move into the next phase of
scientific discovery.
The request assumes that the Office of Science Research,
Operation and Construction goals can be met, but increasing
budgets are not a given. Your challenge is to ensure that the
new facilities don't come at the expense of your research
mission. I look forward to discussing with you both how the
Office of Science will make these hard choices and continue to
ensure our country's leadership in the scientific community.
Dr. Murray, please ensure that the hearing record questions
for the record and any supporting information requested by the
subcommittee are delivered in final form to us no later than
four weeks from the time you receive them. Members who have
additional questions for the record will have until the close
of business Friday to provide them to the subcommittee office.
With that, I will turn to our ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, for
her opening statement. Ms. Kaptur.
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Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. You look
good in that position. And we want to welcome back Dr. Orr and
Dr. Murray for being with us today and for the very laudable
job that you both do.
The United States is known and respected around the world
as a leader in innovation. Scientific research continues to
yield important discoveries that have changed the way we live
and work from cell phones to high yield props to biotech
medicines. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Paris, President Obama joined world leaders from 19 other
countries to launch Mission Innovation. The initiative seeks to
double Federal clean energy, research, and development
investments government wide over the next 5 years.
As part of this effort the Office of Science receives an
increase of $276 million from this year's funding levels. I
hope you will share your thoughts on how this effort will
support innovation in the public sphere. We must harness the
work of our best and brightest to drive domestic growth and
help make American manufacturing globally competitive. While
the value of funding scientific and other research is well-
established, Federal resources remain limited and will remain
so for the near term, it appears. Research, especially in
science, can provide enormous value, but it is a long term and
sometimes indirect investment that is too easily sacrificed for
short term concerns. It would be helpful to hear from you about
the long term consequences of this kind of underinvesting in
science and research. We need to understand the tradeoffs that
we are making in the name of budget scarcity.
Scientific exploration can sometimes provide opportunities
for immediate benefit. In certain cases tools and equipment
designed for research can be applied to manufacturing processes
to increase efficiency or improve product quality.
Advanced devices and computers can help advance our
understanding of basic science and help companies find
solutions to challenging technical hurdles. With this in mind,
I want touch briefly on the National Labs which are rightly
viewed as a National Asset, and aren't they that.
Coming from an area without a National Lab, as most members
do, I continue to wrestle with how the labs can play a
significant transformational role for organizations beyond
their boundaries and help jump start American innovation,
including in manufacturing, but not solely there, in other
parts of the country. I hope you will share your thoughts on
this and the other questions I posed, and I look forward to
your insight, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Ranking Member Kaptur. Dr. Orr,
your opening statement.
Dr. Orr. Thank you very much Representative Fleischmann. I
appreciate a chance to talk to you and others of the
subcommittee again this afternoon. I will just thank the
subcommittee for the support you provided. As I said earlier,
at the Applied Energy hearing, for the support you provided in
the budget this year. We are working hard on that, and we look
forward to working with you as we work on this next budget.
So I am glad to have Cherry Murray with me today. She is
the confirmed Director of the Office of Science, confirmed in
December, and I can tell you that based on a year of experience
in office there is more than enough for all of us to do, so I
am very glad to have her with us. The Office of Science, of
course, if the labs are a crown jewel for the country, the
Office of Science is really the keeper of the crown jewel, and
indeed, a tremendous asset to the Nation.
It supports research on the frontiers of science to enhance
our understanding of nature, and also to advance the energy,
economic, and national security of the United States. We stored
in the Office of Science ten of the 17 national labs, as I know
you know, and 28 state of the art national science user
facilities. This enterprise supports more than 24,000
researchers at 300 institutions across the Nation, including
some in Ohio. I will note that you folks are definitely users
of the national labs. These are really fundamentally not only
to the science enterprise, but also to our industry.
The ability to use the x-ray light sources, for example, to
characterize materials at the smallest scale, the Spallation
Neutron Source at Oak ridge. There are facilities that allow us
to evaluate materials for the most advanced energy
applications. A favorite example for me is the little turbine
blades made by additive manufacturing. You can use the
Spallation Neutron Source to image the residual stresses that
are in those little turbine blades, and if those are
appropriately handled that turban blades will hold together in
the aircraft engine the way it is supposed to. Really, the
science facilities have plenty of applications in industry as
well.
The President's request, as Chairman said, is $5.672
billion, and we have that as a 6.1 percent increase from the
fiscal year 2016 enacted level. The request takes the first
step in fulfilling the government's Mission Innovation pledge.
As the ranking member observed, an initiative across 20 nations
to double public clean energy research and development over the
next 5 years. The effort is complemented by commitments from
private investors through the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.
And no doubt, other investors as well.
To continue global momentum and accelerate clean energy
technology development, the Department's requests aims to
further accelerate the Office of Science's innovative work that
puts America at the forefront of the global clean energy race.
Basic research supported by the Department's Office of
Science will be crucial to enabling that transition to a low
carbon secure energy future. Fundamental research is the key to
developing truly transformative technologies that could
radically change the energy landscape. It provides the
scientific foundations for clean energy innovation through use
inspired fundamental research on energy production, conversion,
storage, transmission, and use. And actually many of the things
that we talked about in the hearing this morning trace their
origins to fundamental work that was supported by the Office of
Science in its earliest days.
The increased investments as part of Mission Innovation
will support a broad-based strategy for accelerating the
innovation process. The strategy emphasized investments
targeted to support innovative platforms for early stage
research and technology development. An example of this would
be the successful Energy Frontier Research Centers. We have 32
of those, if I remember correctly now, but this will enable us
to fully fund up to five new awards in the area of subsurface
science with an emphasis on advancing imaging of geophysical
and geochemical signals. The subsurface plays important roles
across the energy spectrum, so that would be a value there.
The request also sustains DOE's role as the largest Federal
sponsor of basic research in the physical sciences. DOE
supports fundamental research and scientific user facilities in
a variety of scientific disciplines, from nuclear and high
energy physics, to basic energy and biological research. The
research conducted in these areas helps us achieved predictive
understanding of matter and energy on microscopic scales, as
well as complex phenomena such as the plants, climate, and
biological systems.
In funding this cutting edge research the request continues
science's tradition of successfully building and operating
world class facilities that enable researchers from across the
country and the globe to conduct groundbreaking research. This
includes design for a reconfigured, international long base
line neutrino facility hosted at Fermilab. Initial construction
for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment in South Dakota,
and continued construction of the Facility for Rare Isotope
Beams. The request also builds on the success of the Bioenergy
Research Centers with additional funds to expand technology
transfer activities during the last year of the tenured
program.
An area of priority for all of us with relevance across the
whole innovation chain is high performance computing. U.S.
leadership in science and industry is, of course, crucial to
sustaining American economic competitiveness and developing new
technologies in energy and other fields. In line with the
President's national--strategic computing initiative our goal
is to produce an exascale super computing environment capable
of meeting 21st century scientific challenges by the mid-2020s.
Finally, I will mention that my job as Under Secretary is
to foster productive links between the science and energy
programs. And one way we have done this is by establishing
cross cutting initiatives to accelerate progress on key
national priorities. The expertise in the Office of Science
provides the scientific underpinnings for several of these
cross cuts including the energy water nexus, exascale
computing, and subsurface science. This year there is an
additional cross cutting effort proposed on advanced materials
for energy innovation.
So altogether, the Office of Science's budget supports path
breaking discovery while advancing American competitiveness and
leadership in scientific research. Thank you for the
opportunity to talk here today and to answer questions, if we
can do so.
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Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Dr. Orr. I know that many of
the members have questions for both of you all. I am going to
begin by recognizing Ranking Member Kaptur for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. This committee
has been ensuring support for American manufacturing for a
number of years, and the department's budget request continues
to have a significant emphasis on this area. Drs. Orr and
Murray, how do the major science facilities, such as Light
Sources, support American manufacturing, and have you made any
changes since last year to increase support for American
industry?
Dr. Orr. So thank you for that question. I actually was
thinking about some version of that question as I mentioned the
idea of using the x-ray light sources to characterize advance
materials of all kinds. If you think about the energy systems,
what they do is they convert some primary energy resource,
could be wind, could be sun, could be fossil or nuclear
resources into energy services like electricity or heat or
transportation.
Almost every one of those, if you think about the process
of building more efficient energy conversion methods, at their
heart, they are fundamentally material sciences processes. They
might require higher temperatures or pressures. They might
require standing up under other harsh environments. They need
to last a long time. They need to be cheap to produce, and they
need to perform successfully.
So one of the ways that we can get there is to use our
ability now to control material structures at very small scale,
so nanostructured materials are one version of that. When you
couple that with understanding material properties of being
able, for example, to design catalysts that are everywhere in
chemical processing, and batteries, and fuel cells, and to
predict those properties computationally when we can do those
things effectively then we can design new materials that will
serve us well, and figure out how to do that with cycle times
that are shorter than the might otherwise be.
So the fundamental science that goes with these things is
an essential component of being able to get to advance
manufacturing methods. Now, there is lots to do in between, and
of course, that is the variety of our programs. In the end, the
ability to use the user facilities to characterize all kinds of
systems and to study their properties at the smallest scale,
those enable practically everything else.
Ms. Kaptur. I am going to push you a little bit, Doctor.
The question related to your reply here is what thoughts do you
have on how the Department of Energy and the National Labs can
improve their interaction with industry? I am going to give you
a real life example of what happened.
Dr. Orr. Ok.
Ms. Kaptur. Because I attempted to work with your labs. I
will not say which ones, and I come from part of the country,
as I said in the prior session, with a massive manufacturing.
Massive. But we also have agriculture. And as I looked at the
amount of jobs that have been outsourced from our region.
Actually, in Indianapolis Carrier just announced it is moving
to Monterrey, Mexico, 2,100 jobs. I thought how are we going to
grow jobs here? One area where we can is in agriculture, but
industrial agriculture.
So, 2 years ago I went to one of the labs and I said, look,
I need your help. Here is an example of an industry where we
need material science to develop a better four season canopy,
more energy efficient, more light sensitive in the sense the
wave lengths matter, frequencies matter in the production of
plants. And I said, so I want you to help me design a new
envelope because for us to be successful we cannot have a third
to a half of the bottom line being energy. We have got to
figure out how to control the energy issue, and we have got to
have robust plant life in there, and we have got to cut the
carbon footprint because we cannot keep shipping half our
fruits and vegetables from California. We have got to empower
other parts of the country, and we can do it because we have
the water.
It took almost a year and three quarters, and one of your
famous labs got back to me and said, this is not our job. This
is the Department of Agriculture's job. Well, I was very
disappointed because the Department of Agriculture is using old
technology. But what happened was the private sector did
something incredible. They just invested $200 million or $175
million, a company from Canada in our region, to build a state
of the art, not new material science, but using the materials
we have rather well, and the waste heat off of a steel company
called North Star, CO2, 200 acre greenhouse
undercover. It is going to supply Kroeger Company which just
bought Harris Teeter about a year and a half ago.
That one place is going to expand exponentially because of
what is going on in the environment. But I sort of look back at
that experience with DOE and think to myself, and I am not
blaming you. I am not blaming anybody. Again, it is a
resistance to place and to dealing with reality on the ground,
trying to apply this high science to real production, and I
still place the challenge out there for my region of the
company. Help us cut the energy use in these industrial
agriculture facilities from one-third to half to less than 10
percent. How do we do that and measure the nutrients, water?
Work with light rays in a manner that is off the charts, so
that we target a certain type of ray to a certain type of
plant?
I ask myself, do we really need light permeable coverings
or could we do this in rooms like this. There is a lot of LED
lighting going on now that we are using for plant production in
some of our cities. So I really want DEO involved in this. I
think it could help to give rebirth to the Great Lakes. So I am
not being selfish here. I am trying to be innovative, but that
is a real thing that happened with DOE, and now we are saying
can DOE and DOA work together? Why should we waste 2 years on
this? I mean, what a waste of time. We should have had
cooperation like that. And so I point that out as a concern to
mine. So my question is, what questions do you have on how the
Department of Energy and the National Labs can improve their
interaction with industry?
Dr. Orr. Yes, so I am sorry. I meant to answer that the
first time around, but I got off on nanostructure materials.
One of the things we actually are part of doing as part of my
office is to work on better ways to do that. So we established
a new Office of Technology Transitions, for example, and we are
implementing a requirement of the Energy Policy Act to
establish a Technology Commercialization Fund that will help
provide some support for interactions like this with the
National Labs.
And then we have also just created a Clean Energy
Investment Center that is a way to help industries see more
quickly into the National Lab system for ideas that they might
want to engage upon. And also to streamline the cooperative
research agreements that we use to foster these kinds of
interactions when it makes sense to do so. So we recognize that
the process of dealing with industry is slower than it should
be and we are working to try to change that.
Ms. Kaptur. Well, I would just make a formal request. When
you are ready, hopefully it will not take 2 years, to find a
way for your agency to interact with our major growers in our
part of the country. And by the way, that particular corridor
stretches from Erie, Pennsylvania to Kalamazoo, Michigan to all
of Northern Ohio. It is a massive production platform with
fresh water, and we need four season solutions because of what
is happening with climate.
And then earlier, I had asked about the automotive
platform, the manufacturing. If you could find the right people
within the department somewhere I would bring everybody
together who cares about energy in the industrial agriculture
field, and in vehicular manufacturing to see how they could
relate to you. Because we do not have a lab in our area.
Dr. Orr. Well, we talked about this some this morning, but
we do, in fact, have quite a lot of interaction with the
vehicle manufacturers. Again, part of it through the light
weighting kinds of activities. Partly in all things like
SuperTruck and various efficiency moves and so on, so we do
work with the automotive manufacturers, the vehicle
manufacturers quite a bit in a variety of ways.
Ms. Kaptur. I will just end with this, Mr. Chairman. One of
the automotive plants I represent which is a big one, the North
American president of that operation I was with him at a ribbon
cutting. I said, what can I do to help you? He goes, help me
figure out what to do about energy in this particular plant. So
I just put that out there.
Dr. Orr. Yes, it is your right.
Ms. Kaptur. A practical request.
Dr. Orr. It is a good opportunity to the extent that energy
reduction can be achieved they often payback very quickly. It
was not in your district, but I visited a plant, a General
Mills plant in Ohio that makes Cheerios, and I could observe
that they contribute usually to national sanity because anybody
that has a toddler, you put them in the high chair in the
restaurant with a batch of Cheerios, and then everything is
okay for a while.
Anyway, but they managed to reduce their energy use in the
plant by doing the kinds of things that you talked about. Waste
heat recovery, using waste heat in one part of the plant
somewhere else, reduce their energy use by about 25 percent.
Some if it was lighting. There were a variety of things that
they did, but by paying careful attention they could make
substantial reductions, and so that is a good thing to do.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur. I am going to have
a question for Dr. Orr and then a question for Dr. Murray, and
then we will continue with our other members. Dr. Orr, several
years ago short-sighted changes were made to the management
structure at the Department of Energy Oak Ridge Federal office.
These problems have removed incentives for the many Department
of Energy program offices to work together in an integrated
way.
The program offices actually like this setup because it is
easier for them to focus on their own priorities. But this
works against the best interest of the tax payers, and stifles
the kind of innovation and integration that the department
strives to foster in its management emphasis. The changes have
also resulted in serious conflicts with elected officials on
top Department of Energy priorities.
Yesterday, I asked Secretary Moniz to take a close look to
find an incremental solution to reconnect these important
program offices. My request of you, sir, is I ask you to join
in this effort to work with me to find a solution. Will you do
that, sir?
Dr. Orr. Sure. I am happy to do that.
Mr. Fleischmann. Dr. Murray we heard Dr. Orr refer to high
performance computing in his open remarks and I thank you for
your prioritization. I was very pleased to see the Department
of Energy's budget request includes continued investments to
advance exascale computing and that the department has created
a more rigorous project management structure to keep this
effort on track to develop and deploy an exascale system by the
mid 2020s. I know the department has a program called CORAL to
jointly purchase a next generation of leadership class
computing systems that will deliver capabilities and better
energy efficiency which are key milestones on the path to
exascale. What will it take to make sure that CORAL systems are
the fastest and most powerful super computers in the world when
they come online in 2018? How many petaflops will they need in
order to be the best in the world's systems?
Dr. Murray. Thank you for the question. Of course exascale
computing is absolutely essential for our national security and
our economic security as well as putting us at number one in
science. So it is a very high priority for the country and
certainly the department. One of the things that it will take
to put CORAL machines at a very high level of performance is
what we have in place now which is a collaboration with
industry, a collaboration between NNSA the national security
part of the Department and Office of Science together working
with industry to develop these machines. This is not just a
purchase of a machine it is actually codevelopment. One of the
things that is going to be critical and you of course know that
the first CORAL machine is slated to go into Oak Ridge.
Mr. Fleischmann. Yes, ma'am.
Dr. Murray. Which I would say is one of our flagship office
of science facilities. The three laboratories who are working
on this machine are Oak Ridge, Argonne and Lawrence Livermore.
As you may be aware I was Deputy Director at Lawrence Livermore
back some years ago so I know the capabilities of the people in
the NNSA. These machines are critically important for our
stockpile stewardship mission. They are also critically
important for doing the best science and as Dr. Orr said we can
have much better understanding from the atomic scale up to the
size of a turbine blade in our materials simulation where we
can simulate them in conditions that we do not wish to have in
the laboratory such as turbine blades blowing apart for example
and in order to do this we need to have the project mindset and
a goal in mind. The goal for the CORAL machine that is going
into Oak Ridge will be around 200 petaflops and that will put
it as a world class. As you are all aware we are in a neck-to-
neck fight with the Chinese on machine speeds. We want capable
machines that do not just do flops but actually run programs
that are dealing with big data as more and more of our science
and more and more of what industry needs is big data which
means machine learning and it probably means new architectures.
So I am very, very--it is one of my highest priorities is to
make sure that this stays on track and this is why we are
projectizing it.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you Dr. Murray, Mr. Visclosky.
Mr. Visclosky. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. For either
witness, if you could tell me what a crosscut program is for
the department?
Dr. Orr. Sure, I can do that. These work on problems that
really demand expertise that come all the way across the whole
department to have a variety of applications that do not just
fit in those specific organizational approach that we have. And
an example would be our grid modernization effort. On the one
hand it is about how the transmission and distribution system
works but it also involves the fundamentals of high performance
computing in optimization kinds of setting and simulation is a
very complex phenomenon. Another would be there are water and
energy nexus because water gets used in all kinds of energy
applications and at the same time it also we use lots of energy
to move water around. Forty per cent of the water that is
withdrawn from our lakes and rivers goes to the downstream end
of a power plant for example.
Mr. Visclosky. I appreciate that explanation. According to
the testimony in the office, there are 32 energy Frontier
Research Centers, two Energy Innovative Hubs, three
bioengineering research centers, and five crosscut programs. In
the 2017 budget, apparently there will be five more energy
frontier research centers added, industry linkages for the bio
energy research centers will be expanded, and there will be an
enhanced role for the crosscut programs in the office.
Dr. Orr. That is correct.
Mr. Visclosky. That is a lot of irons in the fire. Who
coordinates the priorities as far as research and the
consistency of research given that you are at the Department of
Energy? So there are lots of things going on here.
Dr. Orr. There are a lot of things going on and we would
argue that is a good thing. In the Office of Science, for
example, the energy frontier research centers are a mechanism
that we have used to bring together teams of people to work on
use-inspired applications. The example I used earlier was the
material science side of things----
Mr. Visclosky. When you say ``use inspire'' what does that
mean?
Dr. Orr. Well, that means a place--so I will give you an
example. I mentioned earlier that catalysts appear in all kinds
of devices: the fuel cells, batteries, chemical process
industries and those kinds of things and so a use-inspired
effort would be one where we develop our ability to go from
absolutely first principles and calculate the performance of
some exotic combination of metals or some configuration of the
catalyst that make it more effective so to go from first
principles to do that. Now it is use inspired in the sense that
once you can do that then you can design all kinds of things
for specific uses.
Mr. Visclosky. So who ends up coming up with those ideas
and who is coordinating that pure if you would and applied
research and how often at some point do you say this is not
working out and we have a finite number of dollars in our
budget and we are going to cease and desist?
Dr. Orr. Well, the Office of Science, and I am putting
words in Cherry's mouth here, but the Office of Science
evaluates Energy Frontier Research Centers periodically,
sometimes they are extended and sometimes they are not so that
is one version of this and they think hard about the priorities
going forward and where there are good opportunities for new
ones.
Mr. Visclosky. Is there one office someplace that looks at
all of these?
Dr. Murray. Well, that would be me I think or actually Pat.
So the Office of Science has a prioritization method which is
tried and true that it has used for at least 20 years when I
was on one of their--in fact it was Pat's basic energy sciences
advisory committee. So they have Federal advisory committees,
they report to me on every one of our programs. We--the
programs charge the basic energy sciences for the energy
frontier research centers with the prioritization of what is
important, what are the scientific gaps. So we do not do
applied research, we do a fundamental research.
Mr. Visclosky. So it is your office. There is a proposal on
the ledger for five more projects. Were people sending requests
in, was it internally generated where there were 20 proposals
and you picked five?
Dr. Murray. No everything that we do is competed, and
everything that we do is carefully thought out with either
subcommittees of these advisory committees holding a large
number of workshops. For example the basic research needs
workshops are now probably about 40 of them and from those
workshops there was one on subterranean. What is it that we as
the industry or science or anybody in the world cannot do in
the subsurface right now? A large number of workshops then
written up with the priorities of the scientific community
including industry coming in. From that we provide a funding
opportunity announcement that says here is what was found at
this workshop, we cannot do the imaging of subsurface well
enough, give us your proposals. A bunch of proposals will then
come in and then a panel of scientists will make a selection
and then we review them annually.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you Mr. Visclosky. Before I go to
Mr. Fortenberry, Dr. Dehmer it is good to see you again, thank
you for being with us today. Mr. Fortenberry.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you. We are in the final phase of
the Bioenergy Research Center funding what has been the
outcome?
Dr. Orr. Well, I would say of the ones that I have visited
they each have very interesting results and a lot of positive
contributions. There is the Great Lakes Center that has worked
on a variety of plant systems there is the UC-Berkeley Lawrence
Berkeley effort that has worked on various bioenergy systems
really quite a lot has been accomplished and maybe I will ask--
--
Dr. Murray. I was just going to look up my statistics but
as I recall there have been something on the order of 800
invention disclosures, two hundred and some to industry, nine
companies spun off and more coming. There have been engineered
microbes that are now in the industry. There are new processes
and new software for simulating how to do bioreactors.
Mr. Fortenberry. Are there plans to propose continuing this
funding?
Dr. Murray. The funding in fiscal year 2017 it will be the
last year of these bioengineering research centers the tenth
year and the intention is in that year to recompete new
bioenergy but also biomanufacturing centers. The centers could
propose to continue I mean they could certainly enter the
competition but the thought is that a new competition is right
for it now.
Mr. Fortenberry. Define biomanufacturing.
Dr. Murray. For example, it would be wonderful if we could
engineer microbes to manufacture polymers. So right now we use
oil. We are going to run out of oil at some point. If we could
use corn stover instead and use yeast that is manufactured or
one of the really interesting science tidbits is someone is
actually manufactured diatoms in the sea to be part of a
manufacturing process starting with methane and adding OH to
it. If we can figure out how to acquire life forms that can
manufacture for us because frankly if you look at things like
spider silk they do a really good job of manufacturing really
strong materials so that is the idea.
Mr. Fortenberry. So we can call it spider competition.
Dr. Murray. Exactly.
Mr. Fortenberry. How much has been spent on the ITER
Project?
Dr. Orr. I will have to get back to you with the exact
number we have but it is not currently lodged in my brain.
Mr. Fortenberry. Well it is a big number. It has had its
problems. What is its potential?
Dr. Orr. So maybe I can just say a word about where we are
in that process. As you observed there have been some issues of
schedule and cost. They have a new director who has put in
place some new systems to look at all that. They have a new
proposed time scale as being reviewed by the member countries
and----
Mr. Fortenberry. How is the coordinating entity, who is the
coordinating entity?
Dr. Orr. It is the ITER organization.
Mr. Fortenberry. So how much do we refine or impact that
culture?
Dr. Orr. Well I think we had a lot to do with arguing for
significant changes in the way it operated and a much more
rigorous cost estimation and time estimation process and we
also asked for an independent review of both of those things
which is underway now.
Mr. Fortenberry. So you know the difficulties of design by
committee and then add on that design by international
committee and you have a recipe for potential stagnation. And
then it is an unknown outcome here I recognize it is
experimental on frontier type research but it has been going on
a long time and it does not seem to have produce any positive
results.
Dr. Orr. Well they are definitely under construction of the
facility and the United States is well along the way in meeting
our commitments.
Mr. Fortenberry. Well let me ask you about our own domestic
experiments--are they showing any promise in this area?
Dr. Orr. Yes we continue to work hard on the fundamentals
of behavior of high density, high temperature plasmas and those
are part of building the understanding it will take to design
future machines. I think it is still true in terms of getting
to the DT burn the deuterium tritium reaction ITER is still the
best opportunity out there to get to that but it is a big hard
problem and a big complicated machine to do that so our
strategy so far has been to try to add some rigor to that whole
process and do what you said which is to build a project
management culture as part of that that will deliver that on
time and with stable costs.
Mr. Fortenberry. And what are the projections for or the
timeline for completion for experiments and potential outcomes?
Dr. Orr. Yeah, mid-current projection for timeline is first
plasma by mid-2020s so say 2025 and then DT burn in the 2030s
range.
Mr. Fortenberry. All right thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Valadao. You were here first.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. Good
afternoon. Dr. Murray, the Office of Science supports five
light sources located across the country at four national labs.
Last year the acting director said it was a high priority of
the Office of Science, and the department, to maintain U.S.
leadership in the light source capabilities such as those at
the Berkeley Lab, which I was able to see last year. Can you
describe what makes these light sources different from each
other, and do we have five light sources to keep up with
demand, or are there scientific capabilities that make each of
these light sources unique?
Dr. Murray. Thank you for the question. That's actually a
very easy question to answer. The answer is yes.
Mr. Valadao. There's follow up.
Dr. Murray. They are unique. The ALS is our lowest
wavelength light source. It has unique properties where you can
actually go in--first of all, if you're going to look for
what's called soft matter, otherwise known as living things, or
polymers or liquid crystals, that is exactly the wavelength
range you want to use. Also you can hit resonances with various
chemicals or various atomic structures that you can't with
higher x-rays. So if you want to do a certain type of
experiment, you would want to go to ALS. As you are probably
aware because they probably told you, they wish to do an
upgrade to stay at the, you know, world class. And actually I
will say we wish that all of our light sources remain at world
class. Each of them has from 3,000 to 5,000 users and they are
oversubscribed by at least a factor of 3. We have to turn
people away.
Mr. Valadao. All right. So then what is U.S. position
relative to other countries when it comes to light sources and
what is the Office of Science's plan to moving forward to meet
scientific needs in the future?
Dr. Murray. So we are I would say competing with Europe and
Japan and China for the best light source facilities. Currently
we are in good shape, but we need to make sure that we have the
upgrades that all of the light sources need, and they are
upgraded on a schedule so that they do remain world class.
We currently have in a charge to the Basic Energy Sciences,
which runs the light sources, Advisory Committee to look at all
the proposed upgrades in basic energy science and ask the
question, is it world-class science? Will these provide world-
class science? And second, are they ready for an upgrade now?
Have they worked out the engineering parts enough so that we
could consider putting them in line for an upgrade?
Our plan is to, of course, balance research with facility
construction, but we have to have world-class facilities. So
our plan would be to do upgrades in a rolling fashion just as
we rolling fashion to upgrade our computers.
Mr. Valadao. Ok. And for Dr. Orr, it is clear that from
increases provided in the Office of Science that construction
increases, excess computing, optimal facility operations are
the highest priorities for this account. However, tradeoffs
between running facilities at full capacity, research support,
and construction of new technologies will have to be made in
the coming years. Can you discuss the strategic future of the
Office of Science given a flat budget scenario? And what are
the Office of Science's greatest strengths, and how can we
improve them in light of flat funding scenarios?
Dr. Orr. Well, I would say that given my vantage point of
looking across all the programs that research programs in
science and energy at DOE, the Office of Science I think
actually has the most rigorous process for thinking about what
priorities are and in trying hard to balance the needs for the
facilities, but also to have the support of the research
communities that make use of them.
Dr. Murray also mentioned that we make careful use of the
Science Advisory Committees to help us think through where the
research opportunities are, where the highest priority
investment should be made, and we will absolutely continue to
use that mechanism going forward as we make the tough
tradeoffs.
In some sense assembly of every budget is one where you ask
the question of balance, of investment across the portfolio,
but also where can we invest the next dollar for the highest
scientific return for the country. So we're absolutely
committed to do that in whatever funding environment we find
ourselves in.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Honda.
Mr. Honda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you Dr. Orr
and Dr. Murray. I wanted to go into the advanced scientific
computing area that's been already spoken of. It has been clear
that it is a priority and it is important, just as the
discussion around the issue of the light source discussion you
had with Mr. Valadao.
So with those two in mind, in light of the budget request
proposals, there is an increase for advanced scientific
computing research within the Office of Science. And we know
that the national labs have an incredible computing resource
and we are part of the top 10 most capable supercomputers in
the world. But every sector of our society has become dependent
on growth in a computing performance in order to continue to
drive innovation in science and technology, but our Nation's
leadership in advanced computing is increasingly been
challenged as you have said by other countries.
So how will this proposed budget be used to keep the U.S.
at the forefront of computing technology?
And then if you can provide us with an update on
development of the plans in terms of moving the DOE to provide
a report on the plan that develops the exascale computing
systems. So we need that kind of information in order to just
sustain the increase in budget, but there is always that
problem like you described balancing your budget and trying to
find that priority.
Dr. Orr. Yeah, let me start and then I will ask Dr. Murray
to chime in here. If you look back at the history of big
advances in computing in this country DoE has actually been in
the lead for a number of them. The one that sticks in my mind
was at the time we agreed to stop testing nuclear weapons and
we wanted to be able to simulate what happens as those devices
operate in a way that we could assure ourselves that the
stockpile was maintained in an appropriate way and that the
deterrents would be there. The need for that advance in
computing led to a big investment which led to a quantum leap
in computing power. Once that was available, of course the
scientific community said, well, heck, we can use this to do
all kinds of cool stuff that we could not do before.
This time around the question you asked about the
leadership in computing, we recognize that leadership in many
fields fundamentally makes use of the highest performance
scientific computing and, therefore, we are leading the way in
the Office of Science with this investment.
Now, it does have important applications in the weapons
side of things, so there is a substantial commitment from NNSA
as well. But the intent there is that we will continue to lead
the world and we will do that both by the speed of the machine,
by the communications, because as you add processors and so on
the communication links matter. And in the energy-efficiency
side because the power consumption, if it just goes up linearly
with the number of processors, you soon need one of those small
modular reactors next to each machine.
So the net result is that this is hugely important for us
and for the Nation and for everything we do.
Mr. Honda. So the bottom line is really what you have in
our budget, if it is cut or if it is diminished, our ability to
stay in front, our ability to complete, our ability to keep
improving our computing power, will be diminished?
Dr. Orr. I think that if we invest less, we get less.
Ms. Murray. Yes, I would add that what is in the budget for
the next 4 years is research and development with industry to
try to figure out what is it that is going to be the next, call
it quantum leap, but it's really 12 order of magnitude that the
stockpile stewardship program attained. They did not do it by
themselves sitting in a room, they actually brought in U.S.
industry, including semiconductor industry, the IBMs of the
world, for example.
And I just turned to a page in the book of my cheat sheet
which shows the plan for how we would get to exascale through
developing bigger and bigger machines that are going to go to
Oak Ridge, then Argonne and Livermore, then Los Alamos, then
Oak Ridge, then Argonne, and so forth. And Berkeley will be--
the NERSC machine is upgraded regularly. Berkeley will have 30
petaflops, which is way beyond what we have today, by the end
of 2016. And then it will be upgraded with the machines that
then we go to like 200 petaflops at Oak Ridge by 2018
timeframe, and then we need to go to exascale. But we learn by
getting bigger and bigger computers.
One of the things that is going to be different this time
is that what was developed and what has been developed so far
in the industry and DOE are machines that are kind of I call
them vanilla. That is to say they can do everything. They can
do simulations, they can look at data sets, whatever. As we are
going to exascale we probably will need to have different
architectures for different problems. And so the use-inspired
machine development will be, for example, Large Synoptic Survey
Telescope will have petaflops of data coming in per day. And so
how do we deal with that is an extremely good and very
interesting question that is part of this effort.
Dr. Orr. The DOE, we asked the DOE to provide a report on
the plan, on developing the exascale computing system, and it
was supposed to be developed within 180 days. So where are we
on that report?
Dr. Murray. I did not know about that.
Mr. Honda. Ok. Can we get an update on that?
Dr. Orr. We will get back to you on that.
Dr. Murray. We will get back to you.
Dr. Orr. I'm not sure either, so.
Mr. Honda. Ok.
Dr. Murray. Ok.
Mr. Honda. Thank you. And do I have time, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Simpson. Sure. You have a petaflop.
Mr. Honda. Ok. Thirty petaflops. This is about 1 year ago I
was one of the lead authors of the National Nanotechnology
Research and Advancement Development Act that paved the way for
Federal Government's increased investments in nanotechnology.
And that was a result of President Bush in his State of the
Union message when he mentioned nanotechnology. So I had the
pleasure of working with Chairman Balart in developing that
bill. And then it went over to the Senate and got passed at the
Senate with about $3.7 billion worth of grants back in '03. And
I had the pleasure of attending the groundbreaking dedication
of the Molecular Foundry at Berkeley Lab, and I will be joining
them again celebrating their 10-year anniversary. And it looks
like nanoresearch, some have said, made great progress in our
enabling revolutionary science along with computing powers.
Could you describe how these national scientific user
facilities are benefiting our understanding of nanoscience and
benefiting the economy, and what does the future look like for
these centers and for nanoscale science at the DOE generally?
And what can Congress do to--these are all softball questions--
support DOE's downscale science research centers.
Dr. Murray. Yeah, the thing that is a little bit different
about the nanoscale research centers from our other user
facilities is that there are scientists at the research centers
that actually collaborate with the users that come in. And that
is incredibly important, not only for the graduate students who
don't know how to use the machines, but also for industry. So
there are tremendous collaborations with industry. We cannot do
exascale without the nanocenters. For example, because things,
and particularly things in energy technologies, happen at the
nanoscale, it is materials, it is chemistry, and they are truly
essential. They are also oversubscribed. Right now they are
just flourishing and I think--I am not absolutely certain, I
might ask Pat, how many users there are, but I will hazard a
guess that they are in the thousands, including quite a bit--
yes? Thirty thousand----
Dr. Dehmer. No, about 2,000.
Dr. Murray. Thirty thousand across the user facilities for
Office of Science. But they are absolutely essential.
So one of the things that a nanocenter did recently that I
thought was incredibly cool, and this is like why didn't I
think of that, is reducing the wasted heat of an ordinary light
bulb. And that was an Energy Frontier Research Center as well
as the Molecular Foundry, by putting nanoscale--call it
photonic bandgap structures--around the tungsten filament that
reflect the infrared light back to the tungsten. So they have
reduced the energy loss of a light bulb to better than what an
LED is. That is really cool.
Mr. Honda. And it extends its life, also, does it?
Dr. Murray. Don't know if it extends its life because the
tungsten filament probably burns out a lot faster. However,
this is using fancy photonic bandgap science and nanocenters to
do something that is--you know, could affect a huge number of
people.
Mr. Honda. Mr. Chairman, if I could ask one more question.
Using these----
Mr. Simpson. Wait one second before you ask one more
question. I am still trying to understand this. Why is this a
benefit? Just out of curiosity, if the filament burns out
sooner, so you replace it sooner. I mean, you have reflected
heat back, but big deal. It used to warm up my house, now I
have got to have my electric heater running more to warm up my
house because now that heat isn't going into my house with all
of the lights being on. I'm curious as to what the benefit is
that we reflect it back to the filament?
Dr. Murray. So I will answer that you live in Idaho.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah.
Dr. Murray. If you happen to live in Florida, you would
have a great benefit because you would not have to put your
air-conditioning on.
Mr. Simpson. Well, that would be a mistake living in
Florida instead of Idaho. Go ahead.
Dr. Orr. Could I just jump in here as long as you are
poking fun at this?
Mr. Simpson. Yes. I mean, I am not saying it is not cool.
Dr. Murray. No, I just thought it was----
Dr. Orr. You know what is cool about it is that it
increases the overall efficiency of how much electricity it
takes to make light that gets out into the room.
Mr. Simpson. So it takes less electricity to light one of
these light bulbs than it does a----
Dr. Orr. Yeah, or you get more light for the same amount of
electricity. That is the idea. Now cost, of course, is an issue
here.
Mr. Simpson. Sure.
Dr. Orr. And these are fancy materials. But it tells you
the opportunities that fundamental science can have for these
kinds of hybrid interactions that really might pay off in a
real way even if we don't use it exactly in that form.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah, yeah.
Mr. Honda. That was pretty cool. You probably could cook
potatoes faster, too.
Mr. Simpson. It doesn't take as much energy to cook a
French fry.
Mr. Honda. The other question I had was kind of off
subject, but using these technologies, supercomputing,
nanoscale, how close can we get or how close are we in
replicating photosynthesis? If we can do that it seems to me
that we could really move towards creating fuel without having
to go through the process of the billions and billions of years
that takes for----
Dr. Murray. That certainly is a grand challenge. We are not
there yet. Life over billions of years has managed to do things
that we don't know how to do yet. We do have an energy hub on
exactly that, which is can we take light from the sun and
create fuels out of it. It is, I would say--I would hazard a
guess, 20 years out. But as we study how life actually does
this and the same thing for a biofactory, we can either make
things that look like life, biomimicry, or we can take things
that are alive, such as yeast cells, and have them begin
manufacturing things.
Mr. Honda. But taking these computational powers and going
down to nanoscale, merging together with the light source that
Mr. Valadao was talking about, it seems that we could compress
that time.
Dr. Murray. You are right.
Mr. Honda. But we need research monies. But the investment
will return much higher it seems to me.
Dr. Murray. I agree. It is a grand challenge. Actually a
challenge of mimicking what life has been able to do is another
grand challenge, not just, for example, creating fuels, but all
sorts of things. Self-replicating, for example, and we are on
it. That is an important challenge for science.
Mr. Honda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. I am tempted to ask if we are even close to a
perpetual motion machine, but I won't.
I am frankly inadequate to sit in a hearing with this stuff
because most of it I don't understand. It is fascinating stuff
and it is good to go look at and I really get excited about
science just for science's sake, but it is way above my
comprehension level to a large degree.
Let me ask you this, seldom do we think about the
Department of Energy when somebody wants to talk about the
biological sciences. Usually you think of Labor-HHS, NIH, CDC,
etc. You have been included in the BRAIN Initiative, the
President's BRAIN Initiative and the President's Cancer
Moonshot.
Explain to me how the Department of Energy is going to be
involved in what are fundamentally biological sciences here?
Dr. Orr. Well, I would just start by saying that we
actually have been a long-term player in the biological
interactions of some sort, mostly through the earliest work on
radiation and what that did to living things. So we have had a
very long effort there. In some ways that is what led to the
human genome, because as we tried to figure out what kind of
bad things could happen when radiation damaged the molecules,
it was clear that one of the ways that you could cause damage
was by damaging the genetic material. So that led to efforts to
figure out what was there, and it got changed, and of course,
now that, in turn, is what makes so much of what is called
precision possible.
Now, the medicine part of that, definitely NIH, but with
regard to things like, how do we understand very complex
interconnected neuron systems like the brain, that has a big
computing element to it, and how do we understand huge datasets
that involve genomic information, and images, and patient
history, and all kinds of things, how can we pull those
together and use advanced computing and sort of unsupervised-
machine learning to----
Mr. Simpson. Explain unsupervised machinery----
Dr. Orr. Well, in other words, tell the built software that
can go look at all this data and extract patterns out of it,
and help us figure out ways to make use of information we
gather about parents, for example, to help just add, how to
treat a particular cancer, or how to avoid the conditions that
led to it in the first place.
Mr. Simpson. So these are machines that can teach
themselves essentially?
Dr. Orr. That is a part of the--and because this is a
classic problem that actually goes much broader than just
biological implications, it creates an opportunity for us to
learn how to do some things as part of the advanced computing,
an exascale exercise that will aid our whole exascale effort in
the first place. So there is a legitimate role in here to do
some things together with NIH, that neither agency can pull off
as well on their own, and so that is the part that we are
looking for, is that.
Mr. Simpson. A lot of the facilities that the Department
has are user-friendly facilities, but are they usually paid for
under work for others, a lot of the activities?
Dr. Orr. Some are. We provide the fundamental--the basic
facility, but in some cases, for example, NIH comes in and we
built the synchrotron, and they have built some end stations
that work on their kind of biological systems.
Dr. Murray. If I can interrupt for a bit. We provide
competitively, so the users have to compete to use the
facility. But once they are deemed scientifically competitive,
the facility use is provided free. That is true for everyone
except those who do not want to publish any open literature and
want proprietary information. You know, so businesses actually
have to pay the cost of using the facility, but NIH researchers
do not have to pay the cost of the facility.
Mr. Simpson. Because it is the government solely? I mean
government organization.
Dr. Murray. Because we provided it through their--you know,
they are doing good science. They do have to pay the cost--NIH
has to pay the researchers their time, we do not do that, but
the facilities, including the computational facilities, are
free of charge.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. Marcy.
Ms. Kaptur. Yes. As I am listening to all this, Mr.
Chairman, I keep looking at the budget request of $5.672
billion. It is not a small budget.
Mr. Simpson. True.
Ms. Kaptur. And I think about the panel we had earlier in
the week when we asked, what do you consider to be your major
challenges, in addition to the work you do, and basically it
was, those that will follow us. And how do we make science of
interest to the next generation.
And I keep rolling that over in my mind and looking at your
budget, and thinking to myself, can the Department of Energy be
more relevant to the next generation than it currently is? Not
that you are irrelevant, you are not, because you have
internships and you bring up labs, and so forth, but I thought
I would just put this in, because I find Secretary Moniz most
captivating, and he was up here before the committee the other
day, and he is quite able to communicate. He has a very special
gift.
So I am asking you to be messengers back to the Department
of Energy, thinking about all of your labs, and how can we
create programming that would be shared with our science
centers. Cleveland has the Great Lakes Science Center; Toledo
has Imagination Station, there are science centers around the
country, or with public television. Does the Department of
Energy have any role to play?
Now I have all these images of Dr. Moniz being a part of
programming, like, there was a DVD called ``Finding Nemo'' a
few years ago. It was the best-selling DVD of all time. And it
was the two highest grossing G-rated films ever in our country,
so I guess I could say, Finding Ernie, or Traveling with Ernie,
and I could see part of this budget, part of this budget, and
he would like to be inside the internal combustion engine that
I saw in one of your labs in California, trying to figure out
how propulsion really works.
That registers in my part of the country where, you know,
you have drugs, drips, and cars are made and all. But you could
make it fun, you could task each one of your labs, you have got
all these labs, 2 dozen labs every year, each of them would
have to come up with two ideas that could be put to film,
right. So, we then find him inside of algae in Lake Erie, and
maybe going down with a snorkel and those things you put on
your feet, what do you call those, when you swim.
Mr. Simpson. Flippers.
Ms. Kaptur. Flippers, flippers, right. So he is down there,
then I think about the laser beam projects that I have seen,
and can you imagine, you know, up on a wind turbine up there at
NREL. I mean, there are all kinds of places you could be
finding Ernie or traveling with Ernie, and we need a modern day
Mr. Wizard. I was sort of auditioning you, Dr. Orr, and you
have a wonderful voice, and you look a little bit like Mr.
Wizard when I grew up.
Dr. Orr. I think so, yes.
Ms. Kaptur. I thought he was a very good-looking man, he
used to wear, like tweed jackets, right. But I keep thinking,
but how do we reach out, teachers could do this, you would have
DVD, you could put, you know, public television could do it, we
have to do something to break through the clutter, and you have
this vast indecipherable world, it is like a planetary system
to its own, but it has such unmapped potential to teach. That
is not what you are authorized to do. That is the Department of
Education. They are not succeeding in their mission, so they
need some help.
And I am not against them, but I see these assets that are
not fully operationalized, and you have got intrigue. You have
got unbelievable capacity and there is a communications budget
at DOE, and it would not take that much. And obviously the
secretary, his friends in high places, like at Google, and they
hand out all these keyboards and all this stuff, you know.
There is really something that can be done. So I just want you
to think about it.
Dr. Orr. Yes.
Ms. Kaptur. Just communicate a message back. That was not
really a question. I will be pleased to yield to the gentleman.
Mr. Simpson. What you are bringing up is kind of
interesting because one of the great shows of all times that
got me interested in this stuff was Carl Sagan's ``Cosmos,''
which kind of took it down to almost understandable level with
all this stuff, and I mean, I have got it on DVD, I have got it
on VHS, I have probably got it on something else that we used
to use, probably on disk, or something.
Dr. Orr. A track----
Ms. Kaptur. He could, out of a battery.
Dr. Orr. I cannot resist saying that I love the idea of all
of us sitting around thinking up things for the Secretary to
do, and----
Ms. Kaptur. Well, we could cast people in his like, but I
would say, you have a gold mine, and I do not feel that gold
mine, I can guarantee you, you talk about usage from Ohio,
yeah, we have got usage, but if you look at the number of
people that you directly touch at your labs, it is a very small
percentage of the American people. But you have a powerhouse
inside those labs and inside your department, and the
department is a rather--compared to the SBA, you do not meet
the ground.
You are into the future, but it is that intrigue that could
captivate, I think audiences, and we have platforms to display
you, you just do not give yourselves to us in a way that is
easily accessible to the American people, and I am just pushing
you a little bit to say, think about that. With a $5.67 billion
budget I think that we have the capacity to reach deeper into
the country, so just, Dr. Murray, you are an educator, you are
a researcher, you understand this and we have to reach the next
generation in a really fun way.
Dr. Orr. Now, I think you are right, that we need to learn
better how to tell stories about, you know, if all of us--I
mean, gosh, you cannot hardly cross the street without using
the GPS that is in your cell phone. But there are so many
layers and threads of science woven into the ability to do
that, that being able to tell stories about the science that we
kind of take for granted is actually done, would be a good way
to help get kids excited for doing this in the future.
Ms. Kaptur. I will tell you. When I went out to one of your
labs and I saw, based from the nuclear research that the
department does, this film, and you could not even see it, but
at the end of it, was a nuclear chip that is being developed to
use in medical to irradiate bad cells, not the good cells, just
the bad cells, and it was, I do not know how many years from
development, but I thought imagine if somebody at Cleveland
Clinic, which is one of the institutes, imagine if those
students could see that.
Imagine if the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland
could broadcast this, can you imagine the number of--it takes
you into the future. And that is what you really do, and I
think that is where young people would be attracted if you
could somehow put a ring of folks around yourself, to disgorge
what is already in your purview, it is just locked up.
And I am going to get a little political now. We talk about
1 percent versus 99 percent, the 99 percent, large numbers of
them need to understand why you are relevant. And I think that
this is a way to do it, while we do the most important task and
that is to raise the next generation to love science, to not be
afraid of it, to understand how it relates to their lives, and
to see that it is part of the magic that is going to help
America and the world.
And right how it is locked up. It is really--I read in one
piece of the testimony 31,000 people users or something, these
must be direct users of the lab, they have 325 million people
now, or something. The way political people look, the way I
look at that is, there is a mismatch here, between those that
are creating the funds for the $5.67 billion to be transferred
to the Department, and those that are directly involved.
So I have made my point. But I want you to think hard about
that, and I said that to the prior panel too, we need a modern
day Mr. Wizard, we need that face, and if Nemo could do it,
certainly, an institution with billions of dollars, and an
interest in the future can help our country. So I am just
challenging your staff and those who are listening. And I thank
you, Mr. Chairman, and members.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have got a
couple of questions. The first question on the isotopes program
transition; several years ago the Department of Energy
transitioned all isotope production programs to the Office of
Science; a transition that was directed by the Congress a
number of years prior. Can you briefly provide an update to
those efforts?
Dr. Orr. I am going to let Dr. Murray respond to that.
Dr. Murray. Ok. I have had one briefing on this, so I will
provide this as updated as I can, and I can also give you more
information.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you.
Dr. Murray. But in 2009, Congress directed the Isotope
Program to move to nuclear physics. And nuclear physics charged
their Advisory Committee with, okay, so now we have the isotope
program, what do we do. They have so far created two strategic
plans; the Committee has a new updated strategic plan, and has
looked at what the Isotope Program is doing in 2015. The
outside committee that looked at them was very pleased with the
drawing from across the Department, various either reactors or
accelerators that can create various isotopes that are needed.
The Isotope Program started from the Atomic Energy Act, so
DOE has the mission to provide isotopes to industry or to
scientists as needed by the U.S., but in any competition with
any industry partner who can create the isotopes themselves. It
turns out there are not that many people that do this. You have
to have a reactor, or you have to have a very large
accelerator.
And so, we are providing the isotopes that are necessary.
One of the issues in the program, which you will see is in our
fiscal year 2017 budget, a small amount of money to start a
facility to make stable isotopes, this is the first facility in
20 years. We have not had the possibility of making stable
isotopes.
Mr. Fleischmann. Dr. Cherry, if I may?
Dr. Murray. Yes.
Mr. Fleischmann. Is this the facility that is proposed at
Oak Ridge?
Dr. Murray. Yes. It is.
Mr. Fleischmann. Ok. Very good. If I may, let me ask my
follow up.
Dr. Murray. Ok.
Mr. Fleischmann. We are on the same page. The request
proposed to build a stable isotope production facility at Oak
Ridge to produce medical isotopes and to provide inputs for
commercial and suppliers of isotopes. Can you, please, explain
then, when this new activity is needed, and what this brings to
isotope program?
Dr. Murray. Yes, absolutely. So as it turns out, for the
last 20 years we have not had the capability in the U.S. to
make stable isotopes. This turns out to be okay for the last 20
years, kind of okay, because we could either get them from
Russia or we had them in a little drawers in Oak Ridge. We are
running out of things and drawers in Oak Ridge, and we are
relying on Russia for our stable isotopes.
One of them is kind of important. It is Lithium-7. It is
used in nuclear reactor coolants, and our industry needs it and
we cannot make it. So that is an issue.
This facility will also make the isotopes that are around
the Molybdenun-98 or Molybdenum-100, which are used by NNSA,
which is the agency that is responsible for the Moly-99
isotope. It is the one isotope that we do not create or
provide.
In order to actually get Moly-99, you have to start from
somewhere, and one way of doing that is Moly-98 or Moly-100.
This isotope is used for pretty much all cancer treatment and
radiation therapy in hospitals.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dr.
Murray, we have touched on this earlier, but it is very
important. The scientific user facility supported by the
Department of Energy, Office of Science, provides some of the
most unique, powerful, cutting-edge tools to over 30,000
university, industry, and government scientists from all over
the country.
Given the importance of these user facilities to the
Department of Energy's overall science mission, this committee
directed the Basic Energy Science Advisory Committee to
prioritize the next three to five major user facility upgrades
or construction projects within the Basis Energy Science
Program. What is the current status of this effort, and has DOE
provided any further direction or guidance to BESAC about
implementing this requirement?
Dr. Murray. Yes. I provided, I think it was my first day of
work, a letter to the chairman of BESAC with the charge, and
the chairman of BESAC has created a subcommittee of BESAC to
look at the charge. And the charge is exactly the same charge
that we use for our use for our project management of any major
projects, including upgrades, which is, is this upgrade--they
are looking at five different proposed upgrades, are these
upgrades--is this upgrade going to produce world-class science?
Do they have a good science case?
And second, is this upgrade ready to go? Do they understand
all of the engineering that they have to do, and have they
thought through the design well enough that they could start
actually doing real designs? That committee will report out in
June. So I am looking forward to that report.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Visclosky.
Mr. Visclosky. Mr. Chairman, I understand in my absence
there was a discussion about the issue of new facilities coming
online and the problem of making sure you can pay for their
operation.
I would just associate myself with that conversation. I do
not know if it got specific enough as to whether or not the
agency is going to provide a 5-year plan to show how this is
going to work out as far as the operation of these new
facilities. I do not think that is a bad idea either to put
that into context.
So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Honda.
Mr. Honda. Mr. Chairman, I want to talk a little bit about
tech transfer to Cyclotron Road.
Our national labs are really an amazing resource to this
country, both in the facilities that they house and in the
quality of the scientific talent that they attract, and we need
better use of these resources to drive development in the
private sector and make an impact on the energy industry.
There is an innovate program at Lawrence Lab called the
Cyclotron Road. The Cyclotron Road is combining the best
elements and Silicon Valley startups with top talent, sense of
urgency, and an all-in attitude and commitment, with the tools
and expertise of Berkeley Lab to help these technology
entrepreneurs to develop their cutting-edge clean energy
technologies. And this is a type of partnership and innovation
that we need to reinvigorate our energy innovation and
accelerate the commercialization of these new technologies.
So what is the department's current plans for this program
at Berkeley Lab? And what is being done to expand the Cyclotron
Road program to other facilities and other national labs?
Dr. Orr. Ok, well, let me start and Dr. Murray can join in
if she wishes.
This has been an experiment that provides modest resources
to let startups or small companies make use of the facilities,
link up with the scientists at the lab that has an interest in
the area, and make use of some of the incredible facilities
that we have at the lab. So it is a little different from the
transfer stuff out of the lab, but rather to create a
conversation that we hope will be productive.
I happened to be out for a meeting at Lawrence Berkeley
here not too long back, and I had breakfast with a bunch of the
young folks who were working on this scheme. And they were
uniformly enthusiastic about both the scientific opportunity,
but the chance to put some interesting questions in front of
the scientists at the lab, who, of course, got interested in
what they are doing, and so a good interchange all the way
around.
I know that the other lab directors are looking over the
fence to see where something like that might work at their labs
as well, and that is a conversation we are trying to encourage
as part of our broader discussions with the Office of
Technology Transition.
So experiment in progress, conversation underway, and I
think you will see more of that going forward.
Mr. Honda. You will keep us updated on that. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. If there are no other questions, Dr. Orr, we
have taken your whole day.
Dr. Orr. I think that is what I get paid for.
Mr. Simpson. We apologize for taking your whole day, but
you guys all do exciting work. Like I say, I wish I was smart
enough to ask some questions because you do really need stuff.
It is fascinating to go out and see what you do and have it
explained to me when I am there, even though an hour later I am
kind of going now what the heck was that?
But I am glad there are smart people like you in the world
that are making advances to make the world a better place for
all of us. And like I say, sometimes I just want to sit down by
a fire with a good book and forget about all this stuff.
Dr. Orr. I do that, too.
Mr. Simpson. I tell my wife all the time I am glad I am not
going to live too much longer because the world is changing so
rapidly, I am not sure I could keep up with it.
I look at a kid going to high school today, or grade school
today, what is going to change in their lifetime? How are they
going to keep up with it? You know, it is fascinating stuff. I
love the commercial on TV where the grandkids stop by the
grandfolks' house, and they rush out to welcome them with the
trays of all of their appliances, and hand it to them and say
these do not work, you know. It is for the kids to fix them.
That is kind of the way I am, at this these do not work anymore
stage.
I appreciate all you do, and it is good to work with you,
and we look forward to working with you on putting together
this year's budget, so keep up the good work. Thank you for
being here today.
Dr. Orr. Thank you.
Dr. Murray. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you very much.
We are adjourned.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, March 15, 2016.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
WITNESS
DR. MONICA REGALBUTO, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT,
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Simpson. I would like to call the hearing to order.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to what is the last official
hearing this year of the Energy & Water Subcommittee. We saved
the best for last. I would like to welcome Dr. Monica Regalbuto
to her first appearance before the Subcommittee. This is the
first time since March of 2011 that we have had a Senate-
confirmed Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management
testify before the Subcommittee. So congratulations on getting
through the Senate. We look forward to your testimony today and
to hearing more about your plans to lead the environmental
cleanup program through its many challenges.
The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the
President's Budget Request for the Department of Energy's
Office of Environmental Management. That request totals $5.4
billion, a reduction of $773 million below fiscal year 2016.
Instead of requesting enough funding to keep all of the cleanup
sites operating, the Administration has proposed to shift
spending for the cleanup of Paducah, Portsmouth, and Oak Ridge
to mandatory accounts. The Department includes these mandatory
funds in their budget totals, but they are not the jurisdiction
of the Appropriations Committee. Rather, this proposal to
expand the authority of USEC Privatization Fund is ultimately
under the purview of the authorizing committees. This budgeting
gimmick allowed the Administration to push to the side the cost
of these cleanup activities and use that money for some other
initiative that they wanted to highlight. This is simply
irresponsible and risks hundreds if not thousands of cleanup
jobs. Once again it will be the work of this Subcommittee to
put forth a responsible funding plan that will keep these and
other programs of the Department of Energy functioning.
Please ensure that the hearing record, responses to the
questions for the record, and any supporting information
requested by this subcommittee are delivered in final form to
us no later than 4 weeks from the time you receive them. I also
ask members to submit any additional questions for the record
to the subcommittee by close of business tomorrow.
With those opening comments I would like to yield to our
ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, for any comments that she would
like to make.
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Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Regalbuto, welcome
to the subcommittee and thank you for taking time this morning
to discuss the Environmental Management Program.
The program faces massive challenges. You surely know that;
we thank you for taking on this responsibility. The legacy of
the Manhattan Project is an obligation we as a country must
address. The continued issues at the waste isolation plant and
at Hanford are illustrative of not only the dangers posed by
the remaining materials, but also the technical and budgetary
challenges that further complicate the eventual success of the
Department's efforts.
The budgetary challenges this year are exacerbated by the
ill-conceived movement of a portion of the program to mandatory
funding. There remain lingering concerns about the Department's
safety culture. With such a critical mission the work
environment at your sites must ensure employee concerns are
addressed in a timely manner and without fear of retribution.
Given the constrained fiscal environment it will be crucial
that all resources are employed to their fullest potential.
Therefore, issues of project management and corporate
governance are increasingly vital to the success of the
Department's mission. The Department must follow through with
strong leadership and fundamental management reform. And
failing to do so will significantly inhibit the execution of
this mission as well as the Department's credibility.
Finally, I would like to reiterate the budget hurdles posed
by the use of mandatory funding and uranium sales to fund this
important work. While I appreciate the Department is working
with me to address concerns at the Portsmouth site, your budget
effectively requests no funding for the uranium enrichment D&D
fund. Though the Portsmouth site is one of three primary sites
funded by this account, and is not in my district though it is
in my State, and it is one of the highest unemployment counties
in our country. Additional job losses and job uncertainty send
harmful waves throughout the local economies of these sites. I
hope we can continue working together to minimize instability
and ultimately complete the important cleanup work at the site
and find a way to transition workers who may be losing their
positions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. We are looking forward to your
opening testimony.
Ms. Regalbuto. Good morning, Chairman Simpson, Ranking
Member Kaptur, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to
be here today to represent the Department of Energy's Office of
Environmental Management and to discuss the work that we have
already successfully accomplished and what we plan to
accomplish under the President's fiscal 2017 budget request.
The total budget request for the EM program is $6.1
billion, which includes $5.4 billion of new appropriations, and
$674 million of proposed mandatory spending as you correctly
mentioned. The request will allow EM to maintain a safe and
secure posture across the complex. We are maximizing our work
on compliance activities.
I would like to take this opportunity to briefly highlight
a number of EM's recent accomplishments. Earlier this month, on
a schedule with agreement with the State of Washington, workers
started pumping tank waste from AY-102, one of our oldest
double-shield tanks at the Hanford Site. This is a huge
accomplishment by our workers, as you know that they are
working in very, very challenging conditions. At the Savannah
River site, the 4,000th canister radioactive glass was recently
poured. Achieving this milestone enabled us to close the seven
high level waste tanks at the site. And at Moab Site half of
the estimated 60 million tons of uranium mill tailings have
been removed and shipped to an engineering disposal cell.
The fiscal 2017 budget request will allow us to continue to
make progress in our ongoing cleanup priorities. Among EM's top
priorities is the safe reopening of WIPP. EM continues to
support recovery from two incidents at the facility that
interrupted the national program for the disposal of
transuranic waste. The request will support initiating waste
emplacement operations by December of 2016, if it is safe to do
so. In Idaho, the request will support the Integrated Waste
Treatment Unit. This facility is planned to treat approximately
900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing tank waste. At the Savannah
River Site we will complete construction and ramp up
commissioning activities at the salt Waste Processing Facility
which will significantly increase our ability to treat tank
waste. In addition, we will also continue to receive, store,
and process spent nuclear reactor fuel. At the Hanford Office
of River Protection the request supports continued construction
of the low activity waste facility, balance of plant, and
outfitting of the analytical laboratory, which are the
centerpieces of the Department's plan to begin the direct feed
of low activity waste as soon as 2022.
The requests at Richland allow us to continue important
work on the central plateau and to complete the demolition of
Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant, once one of the most
dangerous buildings in the complex.
At Oak Ridge the request supports continuing design of the
Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National
Security Complex and complete the demolition of Building K-27,
the last gaseous diffusion enrichment processing building. It
will mark the first time that a gaseous diffusion enrichment
site has been completely decommissioned.
With the most challenging cleanup remaining we understand
importance of technology development in reducing life cycle
costs and enhancing our effectiveness. To help address many of
the technical challenges involved the request reflects a total
investment in technology development of $33 million. The
funding will allow us to continue to integrate robotics
technology into our efforts to help improve overall work and
quality of life by easing the performance of physically
demanding tasks.
In closing, I am deeply honored to be here today
representing the Office of Environmental Management. We are
committed to achieve our mission and will continue to apply
innovating strategies to complete our mission safely.
Thank you very much for having me here today and I will be
happy to answer any of your questions.
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Ms. Kaptur
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Doctor, in order to
give the public a sense of how much has been accomplished and
what remains to be accomplished, you stated in your testimony
there is about 300 square miles left of various types of
cleanup. Put that in context for the American people, how much
has been expended to take care of how many square miles? You
say in your testimony what is remaining is some of the most
daunting cleanup. Could you explain where we are on a platform
here to finish this? Put it in a context.
Ms. Regalbuto. I would be happy to do so. Thank you very
much for your question. The Department of Energy Office of
Environmental Management breaks down the projects into a number
of different categories. One is material disposition and spent
fuel disposition, the other one is sold waste, followed by soil
and groundwater and facility activation, and then the most
challenging one, which is liquid waste.
In the area of nuclear material disposition and spent
nuclear fuel disposition, we pretty much are complete with that
task and we have successful consolidated and packaged those
materials and they are ready to go once a disposal facility is
available. So those we have completed. And, I am sorry, let me
give you this for the record.
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Ms. Kaptur. Ok. Thank you very much.
Ms. Regalbuto. I am sorry.
Ms. Kaptur. So these are all the sites?
Ms. Regalbuto. These are all the sites and they are lumped
by the level of risk and difficulty that we face. So the first
two categories, which is nuclear material disposition and spent
fuel, we pretty much have completed--and you can see that by
the blue bars, almost all the ones to the right hand side. And
we have a number of containers and the bulk of the material. So
once a disposal facility is available those are ready to go.
The next category I would like to highlight is solid waste
disposal. And let me focus your attention to contact-handled,
which is the low level waste, the mixed low level waste and the
transuranic waste. Those are roughly about anywhere between 75
and 80 percent completed. But clearly the transuranic waste
that is remote-handled is still in just initiating. And we only
initiated that at Idaho with terms of packing and the like. So
it is the first site that we are actually doing this is in a
very extensive form.
In terms of soil, groundwater remediation, that is about 75
percent. This is where we actually do a lot of pump and treat.
And I would like to emphasize that this is the area, even
though it says estimated end date is 2075, this is where when
we invest technology we can actually have a significant
reduction on to-go cost. So what happens right now is doing
pump and treat and we are trying to in the future move into
bioremediation so we don't have to spend all that energy and
different ionic exchange resins and the material that goes into
doing this, mechanically pumping and treating. So there are a
number of other technologies in the future as we move forward
that require bioremediation that are more passive and actually
will decrease that to go cost. And we started doing some of
that at Savannah River, so we are in the process of testing.
So that is where, in my opinion, investing some technology
money really will pay in the future. So we are looking forward
to those results.
Ms. Kaptur. In terms of the number of square miles already
completed.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes.
Ms. Kaptur. If there are 300 left how many--is it really
the square miles or is it the amount of material?
Ms. Regalbuto. It is more the amount of material.
Ms. Kaptur. Material. So on a scale of 1 to 100 are we 25
percent done, 50 percent done?
Ms. Regalbuto. For groundwater?
Ms. Kaptur. The whole cleanup project.
Ms. Regalbuto. Ok, so if we don't account for the tank
wastes, because the tank waste is by gallons versus by
footprint, right.
Ms. Kaptur. Right.
Ms. Regalbuto. If you don't account for that I would say we
are about 60 percent.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok. All right. A very straightforward answer.
And at a level of close to $6 billion a year, then how many
years would it take us to complete this work?
Ms. Regalbuto. Without tank waste, 25 years. With tank
years, 50.
Ms. Kaptur. All right. Thank you very much. That is a good
way to begin this hearing. Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary,
good morning.
Ms. Regalbuto. Good morning, sir.
Mr. Fleischmann. Good to see you today.
MS. Regalbuto. Thank you.
Mr. Fleischmann. I wanted to begin my questions with the
high-risk excess facilities. Secretary Moniz named a panel to
find solutions to the pressing problem of high-risk excess
facilities. What were the panel's findings and what is your
plan and timeline for reducing the risks and taking down these
buildings?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. The Secretary's
Infrastructure Panel or Excess Facility Panel is something that
we all collectively collaborated. So it was Office of Science,
NNSA, some of the smaller offices of DOE and Environmental
Management. We have a report that is scheduled to be published.
I believe it is at the beginning of the summer. But we
certainly have enough information to do a briefing at any time
that you may be available, or the committee will be available.
Basically what it has done is it has ranked the different
excess facilities in terms of risk. So what are the most high-
risk facilities, and associated I would say a predetermined
cost next to each of those facilities. So, for example, the Y-
12 facilities are already on the list and I think many of you
know that. There are also some facilities that currently are
not on the list that belong to Office of Science. And there is
the caveat of some small universities and the likes.
So that integrated list will be available once the report
comes out. And I can find out exactly the date when the report
will be out, but we will be happy to come back and brief you
just specifically on the findings of that report.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Secretary. If I can
follow up in that regard. The first House nuclear cleanup
caucus event this year is scheduled for April the 20th. As you
know we worked very hard last year with your cooperation and
participation to make the Nuclear Cleanup Caucus a tremendous
caucus with tremendous bipartisan support. Very thankful for
that. You have alluded to the report. It would be so beneficial
to have that before April the 20th. Will the Department release
the report before that date so that we can have an open
discussion and build support for our challenges ahead?
Ms. Regalbuto. I appreciate the opportunity for the cleanup
caucus to review this report and I will find out exactly the
date that it is available, but if it is not available by the
date, I believe it is April 20, for the caucus, we will be
happy to still keep it on the agenda and give an informative
briefing to the people participating because we do welcome
their feedback. So regardless if the report is in final
concurrence, because it has to go through a lot of desks, we
will be happy to report on the findings.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you.
Ms. Regalbuto. So more than happy to facilitate that.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. If I can segue into historic
preservation. Several years ago, the Department of Energy
entered into an agreement with the State of Tennessee and
several other parties on historic preservation in order to
proceed with cleaning up the contaminated buildings at the East
Tennessee Technology Park. For the past two years funding for
the agreement has been zeroed out in the administration's
budget. As chairman of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus
stakeholders and contractors have complained to me of the
distrust that is created when the Department fails to follow
through on its commitments. Why does the Department sign
agreements that the administration will not allow to be met?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question and interest. We
are committed to meeting the consent agreement with the State
of Tennessee for the historic preservation. In fiscal 2016 we
received, and thank you for all of your support, $6 million
which we are currently using those funds to meet our commitment
for the visitor center for K-25. So we are using the funds that
we receive in 2016 and continue to do and fulfill our
agreements with the Historic Preservation Office. I understand
there is a viewing tower in the visitor center planned with
that money.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. On a related issue, recently I
had the opportunity to tour the Oak Ridge water plant, which
was transferred to the city about a decade and a half ago, on
the premise that it was a valuable asset that could be run more
efficiently by local government. It has turned out to be a cash
drain on the city due to very serious infrastructure problems.
Many in the community want the city to tie Federal assistance
on the water plan to future cleanup work. I would rather see
the Department of Energy become a better partner with its host
communities which are strapped by a low tax base from Federal
land ownership, substandard housing from the Manhattan era, and
an aging population living on low pensions. It does not help
when the Department centralizes decision-making in Washington
on complex issues where there is sometimes a lack of experience
and knowledge about the major sacrifices that these atomic
cities have made.
I was interested in your comments on this.
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you very much. I am very familiar with
the Oak Ridge site as I started my career back in 1988, and I
have seen the town, as you mentioned, really not blooming
anymore. I still remember driving to the mall and the mall was
closed.
Mr. Fleischmann. Yeah.
Ms. Regalbuto. And that really has a big impact, at least
to me, when I used to be able to go and walk around after work
and just get a little exercise. I do recognize that a lot of
this is an impact to your local government. And the water
plant, the details of that water plant and in what condition it
is and when was this transferred, is something that I will have
to go back and look at it. And I would be happy to work with
you and the committee related to these issues.
I do personally recognize that sometimes when decisions are
made the exact impact of the well being of that facility is not
truly known.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you.
Ms. Regalbuto. So we understand that.
Mr. Fleischmann. It was really eye opening for me to see
the dilapidated condition in the infrastructure, and really the
decay that is at that facility. So I do appreciate your
assistance in that regard.
Mr. Chairman, I have one more question in this round, if I
may?
Last week, Madam Secretary, I visited Protomet, a very
successful company that started out of the Department of Energy
system. It has requested a land transfer of adjacent property
that is no longer needed by the government. But the lengthy
process may cost this homegrown business to move out of Oak
Ridge. It has become apparent that the process needs to be
streamlined. I am told that there are multiple and duplicative
approval points in the process with no time limits for review.
How can we work together to streamline and shorten the land
transfer process that is so important to several Department of
Energy communities?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. I do share your
frustration on this land transfer. Unfortunately, as you
mentioned, there are a number of agencies that have to be
involved in all of this review process, and each of them have a
set of days that they have to go through. So we are committed
to try to streamline anything that is within our control, so
anything within, inside DOE we can expedite and control that.
Once it gets to interagency, it requires a little bit more
difficulty. For example, the last transfer that we did for the
Metropolitan Knoxville Laboratory Station for the airport had
to go through endless steps, including signing by EPA, the
Governor's Office, Department of Energy, transfer to the GSA,
and eventually transfer to the city. So those are the number of
things that we are required to do in order to transfer land,
and I recognize that it is a very tedious process.
On the positive side, we did send the committee yesterday
afternoon a letter regarding a transfer in the ownership of K-
31 and K-33 to Oak Ridge Economic Development Organization, so
it may be working down the committee, and so that puts you 60
days away for getting 280 acres. So we are very excited about
that. We are very excited, actually, with working with your
community to do this, and during my business to Portsmouth and
Paducah, I have set Oak Ridge and the model that you have for
economic redevelopment as an example. So one of the things that
we are going to be working with the unions and the community
members at Portsmouth and Paducah is to bring Sue to come in
and brief them, and also invite some of your community
organizers to come in and teach them how they change from going
from gaseous diffusion into an economic redevelopment area. So
we are very happy and it was very well received by both
Portsmouth and Paducah, because we have done this once already.
Unfortunately, we know how much this costs, too, which is
significant, but we also know some of the headaches that you
mentioned and some of the lessons learned, so, hopefully,
communities like Portsmouth and Paducah can benefit for the
same type of turning gaseous diffusion plants into more
economic development areas. And I certainly hope that your
small business does not leave, because we do champion small
business communities, and we actually try to do our best to
promote that and increase that at the local level.
Mr. Fleischmann. Madam Secretary, thank you for your hard
work on this issue, and I appreciate the very good news on the
land transfers.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes, we are very happy.
Mr. Fleischmann. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Doctor. A Federal judge has set new
deadlines for the Hanford Vitrification Plant requiring this
utility to come online and by 2036. How will the judge's ruling
impact DOE's plans at Hanford? And does your budget request
support the new deadlines or are we going to expect an amended
budget request once you have had a chance to fully review the
judge's decision?
I notice that DOE proposed sliding milestones. I find that
interesting, sliding--I am not sure if those are like sliding
wedding vows or what, but ultimately, the court rejected those.
What will happen if DOE is not going to meet a deadline?
And finally, EM has been operating for years without a
formal performance baseline for the Waste Treatment Plant
against which progress could be measured. What will be done to
improve the transparency of DOE's management of the project so
that we can monitor DOE's progress?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you mentioned,
the District Court of Eastern Washington's ruling was last
Friday, late on Friday, and the Department is in the process of
reviewing all the legal paperwork regarding the court order and
the consent decree amendment. With that, I would be happy to
come back and once they dissect all of that and the 30-day
period of communication is over, I would be happy to come back
and brief you specifically on the impacts of the court order
decision.
With that said, the Department remains committed to
initiating glass as early as 2022, and that is with the Direct
Feed Law. We have requested sufficient funding to initiate
operations by 2022; that includes the Low Activity Waste
Facility, the balance of plant, which is all the infrastructure
necessary to maintain that facility, and the Analytical
Laboratory where we go and make sure that the quality of the
product is good.
Regarding the issue of the project cost, because this piece
was carved out of the contract, so the contract was for the
whole thing and we are committed to do this on a phase
approach, which is, in our opinion, a more efficient way to
chunk it in pieces. As the Secretary has put in his views
regarding project management, it is easier to address a smaller
portion than these huge capital projects. So we are following
the Secretary's lead, and in that case, we are in the process
of negotiating CLIN 1, which is basically doing what I
described to you, and we should be getting very close to
getting a baseline for that.
Regarding the other facilities, that will be impacted by
the court ruling, and we will be back to do that.
In terms of project management, as you clearly pointed out,
this facility has struggled over the years, and we have done a
number of things regarding these facilities. Some of them are
lessons learned from others. One of the recommendations has
been to get an owner's rep, and we did hire an owner's rep,
which is Parsons. We are already working with them, and they
are walking through this facility. We do not have to wait until
a year out before commissioning to find out any surprises. So
we are walking very systematically through the plant and making
sure that we address anything going forward. So we are taking a
lot of modifications.
There was also a GAO report regarding the tracking system
of the issues that have been determined by the contractor or
DOE, and we have gone back to them and made sure that the
tracking system actually captures every single thing, and so
that has been revamped. Also, the accountability to the
contractor has been revamped, so we have put in a lot of effort
in that. I think you know Kevin Smith, and I will say, in the
last three years, Kevin has done a magnificent job just to make
sure that that transparency is there for you and all the
taxpayers to see.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. This is a huge facility, billions of
dollars, many years to operate to complete. I look at the IWTU
in Idaho. In comparison, very small compared to the Waste
Treatment Plant. I have to tell you in all honesty, I seriously
wonder if WTP will ever be able to operate given the problems
that we have had at the IWTU and trying to get it operating. I
look at that huge facility and wonder if this will actually
ever work. What do you think?
Ms. Regalbuto. So let me address that. IWTU has a first of
a kind technology, which is really the most challenging thing.
Traditionally, we use either solvent extraction or ion exchange
to do any of the separations of any of the materials, and then
we either vitrify or grout. Those two technologies,
vitrification and grout, are already being used every single
day at Savannah National Lab and throughout facilities
throughout the rest of the world. Hanford has the vitrification
technology for the low activity waste. At least we do not have
any of the dark cells, which have been really the issue of some
of the technical issue resolutions, and we do not have any of
the pulse jet mixers, also, which is another reason where those
are new in this enterprise. So LAW has paddle mixers and
traditional mixers that we use at Savannah River. It has ion
exchange, filtration, similar technology that we used before.
On the other hand, IWTU, unfortunately, when the technology
was selected, they selected one that is not used commonly for
environmental remediation. It is used in the pharmaceutical
industry, and it is also used in some cases in the gas and oil
industry for basically the catalytic converters where you
increase your yield of gasoline. Those are projects that, in
just my personal opinion, all of them make money on their
product, so they can afford an exotic technology. In our case,
we do not make money from our product. Our product is waste
that is going to be disposed, so that has been the main
challenge in IWTU, but we cannot correlate that to WTP, because
it is a completely different technology. WTP correlates better
with Savannah River because the technologies are the same.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. Let me ask you about WIPP. WIPP funding is
down from last year's level, partially due to the completion of
the summer recovery activities. There is also a decrease
associated with lower levels of construction project funding
for the two projects that must be completed. In addition, part
of the operating funding will now be used to provide funds to
the State of New Mexico for road improvements. DOE did not
request a specific amount for these costs, but rolled them into
the overall funds for WIPP, and there are discrepancies in just
how much the WIPP funding will be diverted to pay for these
road improvements in the agreement.
Last April, the Department of Energy recently agreed to
provide the State of New Mexico $34 million in economic
assistance to build roads in New Mexico as part of the
settlement agreement with the State for the events that led to
the closure of WIPP. Economic assistance payments were
previously authorized under the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act and
appropriated by Congress, but that particular spending
authority expired after 15 years. Reinstating those economic
assistance payments, which totaled about $20 million per year,
has been a major goal of the State. Last year, the Secretary of
Energy testified that WIPP would be reopened in March 2016 and
resume full operation some time in 2018. The date for initial
limited operations has now been pushed back to December and the
Department has not released any new estimates for achieving
full recovery.
Is there a possibility that reopening WIPP to limited
operations could be delayed beyond December? When exactly is
WIPP scheduled to be returned to pre-2014 operational levels,
and can you speak to the short and long-term challenges to
resuming operations? Do you anticipate challenges in permitting
or demonstrating safety operations with the regulators? And
talk a little bit, if you would, about the money going to
economic assistance or road development or improvement in New
Mexico out of the operating costs of WIPP rather than out of a
special line for economic assistance.
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your interest in WIPP. WIPP
is, as you know, our highest priority. It does have an effect
throughout the complex, and their inability to move waste has
significantly affected the rest of the sites and our ability to
meet the commitments with the other States. So it is critically
very important for us.
We are on target to reinitiate operations at the end of
this year, December of 2016, provided it is safe to do so, we
will never put safety ahead of a schedule, but right now, we
are on target. We have got three activities, main activities,
that need to be completed for us to reinitiate waste and
placement operations.
One is the DSA approval, which we are in the process to do
so. We are working with the regulators and we are working with
the Defense Board and all the interest stakeholders. We have
been very transparent through our recovery process. We have
town hall meetings, and we keep a website with every single
piece of information we generate so the community knows exactly
what we are doing, and also the regulators. So we will have the
DSA approval, which is followed by an operation readiness
review; one is done by the contractor, one is done by DOE, and
other people are observers during this. Once we have that, we
are ready to initiate operations.
At the same time, there are a number of permit
modifications that we are working with the State of New Mexico,
and we are on target to complete our permit modifications as
the schedule requires. So going back to the delay on the
schedule, the original schedule that was published was
published before the second Accident Investigation Board report
was released. Once the second Accident Investigation Board
report was released, it was clear that there were a significant
number of things that needed to be done before we restart
operations, and the most important one was--and I can briefly
summarize it as--WIPP had to be a more demanding customer. So,
in other words, we have to expand our boundaries all the way to
the waste generators, because in order to protect our facility,
we have to protect the start before the waste initiates. So
that has caused some delays in the thinking, including some of
the DSA and also a delay from the contractor--was also delayed
by a number of months. So that caused the shift to December.
Regarding funding, there was a decrease this year for $33
million, and that is really just a signal of we are making
progress. Regarding funding to support the SEPs, and I am not a
lawyer, so I will have to refer you back to general counsel,
just a little engineer here, but it is my understanding from
the attorneys that there is authorization under the Land
Withdrawal Act to do this type of activities, but I would be
happy to go back and take this as an action and get back to the
committee. In essence, I really do not have the personal
knowledge on that. What I can tell you is that the request
includes for 2017, $18.4 million, and that is on PBS CB 0080,
which is really our operating disposal of facilities, and the
total for that PBS is $196.3 million, of which $18.4 are
specifically for roads and operations.
Mr. Simpson. Why not put that in a special line when you
request it for 2017? I can understand trying to find another
area to fund it out of in 2016 when you are looking at trying
to meet agreement with the State of New Mexico and you do not
have that line item available, but if that is going to be
ongoing, why not create that line item instead of putting it in
the operations budget?
Ms. Regalbuto. I will follow up on why they did not create
a new line item. Personally, I do not know the answer. What I
can tell you is that it is not an ongoing cost, it is a one-
time use of the money. It is almost like a grant that goes to
the State and then the State manages multiyears. But I do not
know the answer why they did not create a line item, and I
would be happy to go back and get an answer for the committee.
[The information follows:]
The Department submitted to Congress on April 5, 2016, an amendment
to increase by $8.4 million the appropriation request for the Defense
Environmental Cleanup account to fund a portion of the settlement costs
to resolve the New Mexico Environment Department claims against the
Department of Energy (DOE) related to the February 2014 incidents at
the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico,
including the associated activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The additional $8.4 million will allow DOE Office of Environmental
Management to pay a total of $26.8 million in Fiscal Year 2017 to the
State of New Mexico for necessary repairs to its roads needed for
transportation of DOE shipments of transuranic waste to WIPP.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. Marcy.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Regalbuto, the
Department of Energy has failed to reach a number of cleanup
milestones, most of which are part of an agreement with the
State; some, like Hanford and Idaho, are subject to fines and
penalties through the courts. How does DOE pay fines when they
are assessed by the States or the courts, and do these come
from the judgment fund, as many people believe, or must they be
paid from appropriations?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. We try not to
miss milestones. That is a number one priority. When we see a
milestone that is at risk, we engage with the State and EPA and
the other agencies, and in some of our agreements, we have the
opportunity to have a dialogue and change the dates as needed,
so usually, that is the first thing we do. It is only when we
cannot reach an agreement with the State or tri-parties or the
stakeholders that we end up in an unfortunate litigation path.
I personally prefer not to be there, because I will have to use
my best engineers to start doing the positions on litigation
when they should be doing cleanup. So, unfortunately, it is a
big distraction for everybody, including the State and the
Department of Energy and taxpayers at the end of the day. So
that normally goes through a litigation process, which is held
by the Department of Justice. It is not done by DOE, so
Department of Justice does that. I will tell you that
appropriated funds are not used to pay fines. We do not have
that authority.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok.
Ms. Regalbuto. That at least has been what counsel has
mentioned to me.
Ms. Kaptur. All right. I want to go back to my original
question about how much we have done and how much remains
ahead, and you said, in most of the most serious categories, we
have cleaned up about 60 percent of all material?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes.
Ms. Kaptur. That excludes the water and the items that are
in--the quantities that are in tanks?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok. So that is what remains. If we are
expending $6 billion a year and we will not be finished for 50
to 75 years, going back to the start of this program, can you
estimate how much we have spent to date cumulatively on all
cleanup dating back to what year?
Ms. Regalbuto. I don't have the exact number, but let me
try. I think it is about $150 billion. So $150 billion since
1988.
Ms. Kaptur. Since 1988.
Ms. Regalbuto. When Department of Energy created the Office
of Environmental Management. There was a big spike during
American Recovery Act, as you probably remember where the
funding almost doubled. That was since 1988. But we have gone
from 104 sites to 16 sites.
Ms. Kaptur. How many?
Ms. Regalbuto. One hundred and four to 16 remaining sites.
So that has been the footprint reduction--is huge. Rocky Flats
and Mound were two huge industrial complexes that are gone. And
when people say what impresses you the most, we say is what I
don't see anymore, right, when you don't see this big
industrial complex. So, you know, truly they are really like
little mini cities that were built with complete infrastructure
needs to be knocked out.
So in terms of our disposition of the facilities, one of
our main goals is to decrease the hotel costs. So some of our
investments, for example, in the gaseous diffusion plants are
to consolidate a lot of the switch yards. Those were very
energy intense facilities. They tend to have four different
switch yards to feed the facility. We eliminate all of them
except for one so we can continue having electricity and the
like for our D&D activities, but we don't need to support all
other ones.
We also do the material consolidation because material
consolidation requires a high cost on safeguards and security
and we are down to pretty much one, when we started with, you
know, every site had everything. So now we are consolidating in
that. So tried to, as much as to the extent possible, use our
funding in a balanced approach where we tried to bring down
hotel costs because that is money spend ahead of time.
We also like to forecast what is coming ahead. So, for
example, even though the Y-12 facilities haven't been
transferred to us, eventually they will. I hope with some
funding too, right. And we know already that there is a mercury
problem associated with all of the COLEX facilities which used
to, at the time, they separated lithium and they used mercury
in the liquid phase as a catalyst. So it is all over the place,
and it is in the groundwater, it is in the soil, it is in
metallic form, it is everywhere in the Y-12 facilities.
So knowing that, we are spending some technology dollars on
that already and the purpose of doing that is we don't have to
wait until they transfer those facilities. We can proactively
start thinking how to invest in what is going to come ahead.
Ms. Kaptur. I think in one of the facilities you closed and
cleaned up Fernald, gaseous diffusion in Ohio, we are very glad
to see that gone.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes, we are very happy and we are going to
have a little ceremony in Tennessee when we finish that one and
we would be happy if any of you could come to this end of the
gaseous diffusion plant. It really is, it is a big win for us.
So I have a little mercury plan. This is in general for
doing the cleanup of Y-12s that I will pass for the record if
the committee would like to take a look at.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Kaptur. All right. I am sure that the chairman would
agree. We can put that into the record. Since you mentioned
mercury, the export ban was established on mercury in 2008 and
was contingent on our country establishing a domestic long-term
storage facility. But DOE has made little progress, if any, on
getting that facility up and running, so you began discussing
that. Could you give us a little bit of an update? You talked
about technology, what progress you have made, how soon could a
storage facility location be selected. Can storage fees be
structured to fully offset the costs of what will be required?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you. The mercury storage facility, we
have seen it bubble up, and I personally think it is a great
idea because everybody has this orphan material all over the
place, right, which is not a good way to manage it. Right now,
the purview for the building of the mercury facility relies on
the Office of Legacy Management. It is not under our purview.
So we have given them forecasts and a number of things that can
be done. I know some communities have expressed interest in
hosting this facility. But I will have to get back to you with
details.
[Additional information follows:]
In December 2008, the Acting Deputy Secretary of Energy assigned
responsibility for construction of an operational elemental mercury
storage facility to the Office of Environmental Management, and
operations of this facility to the Office of Legacy Management.
DOE issued its Final Long-Term Management and Storage of Elemental
Mercury Environmental Impact Statement in January 2011 and,
subsequently, issued a Final Long-Term Management and Storage of
Elemental Mercury Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement in
September 2013.
DOE is currently preparing the Congressional report as required by
the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016, which will include a rough
order of magnitude cost estimate for new construction of a mercury
storage facility, and an estimated fee structure to fully recover the
costs of operations and/or construction of such a facility.
Additionally, DOE has initiated the planning and project management
activities in accordance with DOE Order 413.3B, Program and Project
Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok. And what about the storage fees? Are you
saying Legacy Management is the one that will take care of that
as well?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes.
[Additional information follows:]
No. The Office of Environmental Management is preparing the
Congressional report which will include an estimated fee structure to
fully recover the appropriate costs of operations and/or construction
of a facility for long-term storage and management of elemental
mercury.
Ms. Kaptur. Ok. Thank you for that clarification. I have
other questions, but I am sure the chairman does as well, and I
will.
Mr. Simpson. Back to WIPP, we like to jump back and forth
and around. It has been stated that when WIPP resumes
operations, it will do so slowly, and we have heard there may
be as few as five shipments a week for several months or even
years. At Idaho in particular, there are hundreds of canisters
of waste packaged and ready to be shipped to WIPP. Which waste
will go to WIPP first? And with the improvements that you have
to make to your packaging procedures, do you anticipate any of
the waste at Idaho or other DOE sites will need to be
repackaged? How long will it be before DOE catches up on all
the true waste commitments, and particularly, how soon should
DOE begin shipping waste out of Idaho to get through the
backlog? What is WIPP's planned timeline for returning the pre-
2014 rate of shipments?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. We do take WIPP
starting to take care of the backlog very seriously. Let me
walk you through a couple of things that are being done.
In 2017, we requested sufficient funds for five shipments a
week. That is, to give you a comparison, in our heydays, it was
17 shipments a week. With that, the purpose of doing that, and
the reason why we cannot do 17 is because we don't have full
ventilation capacity. So this is a slow ramp.
Mr. Simpson. So that is what they mean when they say
partial----
Ms. Regalbuto. It is a partial.
Mr. Simpson. --opening?
Ms. Regalbuto. When the full ventilation capacity comes
into effect, then we can resume full operations, which is our
goal. How do we determine WIPP? So there is a number of things
that happens. One is, as part of the accident investigation
report, and the fact that we need to go and relook at what is
packaged and how we are going to package, we have done a number
of scans throughout the complex and see if there is anything in
there that could be concerning, right.
So that is ongoing right now. And we have what we call the
TRU Corporate Board where all the stakeholders who generate
transuranic waste are part of the TRU Corporate Board, and they
collectively determine what is the best way to do this. They
met about a month ago, about 3 or 4 weeks ago. And the
collective recommendation is that we are going to do what we
call a weighted average. Basically, those who have the most get
the majority of the shipments. Those who have less get the
least amount of shipments, and we start moving things from all
the sites.
As you mentioned, Idaho has the greatest number of
transuranic waste in the complex, so the weighted average is
higher for Idaho, basically because of the amount of material
that is currently stored. And if we look at the snapshot chart
in here, you will see there is a little bit of transuranic
waste generated, remote handled, that is all in Idaho. So we
will be able to support those.
Our plan is to increase operations as soon as the
ventilation is up and running. So we will need to have, for
full operations, we do need to have the complete ventilation.
Mr. Simpson. Again, will any of these canisters that are
already packaged have to be repackaged? Do you know?
Ms. Regalbuto. From the quick scan that I have seen people
doing, it is really more about what we call by waste streams.
And also some waste streams in Sandia National Lab does and Los
Alamos, also, but none of the other sites. We have a complete
inventory of everything and we know exactly what waste stream
was what and where it is. So some of them, they are suspicious
if you want to call it that way, haven't been packaged. So that
is an advantage. There is a small percentage of some that we
will be a little more careful and set aside, but they are not
in the giant number of dollars.
One thing that we are investing in and we hope this
technology pays for us is currently all we do is do an x-ray,
and an x-ray just gives you a limited information. But if you
ever had a CT scan, and I don't know if you have had the
opportunity to, but I have.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah, I have enjoyed those.
Ms. Regalbuto. So a CT scan gives you significantly much
more information. And so we already have CT scan technology in
Homeland Security for cargoes that go in and out of our ports
and we are actually building a prototype to scan our drums
using a CT scan. So that will give us one more sense of
confidence of what goes in there.
Mr. Simpson. Does the ventilation system that currently
exists for partial opening, would that be sufficient to address
a problem that might arise should another container decide to
expand beyond its ability to hold it?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. Explode?
Ms. Regalbuto. Well, first of all, we hope we don't have
that, but our strategy is not based on hope.
Mr. Simpson. We hope we didn't have the first one.
Ms. Regalbuto. Our strategy is not based on hope, it is
based on what we have, right. So we are being extremely
careful. And I jokingly say I wouldn't want to be the first
drum going down the shaft because it is going to be really
scrutinized. But that is what needs to happen and the
ventilation will take in account.
Now, remember that before the incident, we didn't have the
ability to detect radioactive--airborne radiation inside the
mine. And all of that has changed. So there is all the
instrumentation in place to do that.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. NNSA's new proposal to start shipping
plutonium to WIPP, will that take up any of the limited
shipping capacity? And if it is going to be years before EM
catches up on its current TRU waste commitments, how will you
prioritize the plutonium shipments? And is there any capacity
available for adding an entirely new waste stream to the queue
at all? And what exactly has NNSA asked EM to do to support its
plans for the MOX alternative?
Ms. Regalbuto. All right. So let me walk you through
plutonium disposition. There are two types of plutonium assays,
right, one that is a very low assay, which is waste, and the
other one is pit material, which is very high assay. We have
already disposed at WIPP low assay plutonium material because
it is transuranic waste. So you have uranium on the periodic
table and then you move to the right, so plutonium, neptunium,
americium, and curium, so there is plutonium there, right.
And that has already been--happened in an assay. They put
an environmental impact statement a year ago in April, and they
did select the preferred method for 6 metric tons. Again, that
is low plutonium assay, which we already have disposed.
If they decide to go on record of decision, and they will
have to down blend, terminate safeguards, and package, which
will take a number of years, and then they have to go to the
queue. So the queue is determined by the stakeholders in the
TRU Corporate Board. So unless somebody else is willing to give
their spot, right, so they have to go to the queue as everybody
else is in the queue. So that is where we are with the
potential situation.
Mr. Simpson. So you are saying that with the proposal
currently by the Administration to down blend and package this
stuff and ship it to WIPP, it won't delay the schedule of
things that are already scheduled to go to WIPP?
Ms. Regalbuto. Right. Those are higher priorities. You have
to go to the queue.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. Again, what is EM? What has NNSA asked EM
to do to support their plans for this MOX alternative? Have
they asked anything yet?
Ms. Regalbuto. No. The MOX alternative right now, they are
looking at options, and WIPP is an option, but also, all other
repositories are potential facilities, could be an option. We
personally are focusing on initiating waste and placement right
now. So we have not done any analysis. That will be done by
NNSA.
Mr. Simpson. Have you reviewed the results of the red teams
and the recommendations on the MOX alternative and do you see
any issues implementing that alternative? Stanford University
called on the Department of Energy to perform a new documented
safety analysis, WIPP as a result of the proposed disposal of
excessive plutonium at that facility. Also, articles have been
published and the Secretary has recently testified that
researchers at Sandia National Lab had looked further into the
safety issues raised by outside groups concluded the risks were
overstated. Have you looked at this?
Ms. Regalbuto. So let me give you a little bit of
background. Regarding the alternatives, I am familiar with the
document. I read it a long time ago, so I don't have all the
details right now in my mind. But I understand that the
proposal is to down blend and dispose as opposed to converting
to fuel. When one down blends and dispose, you actually take
the plutonium assays and you mix it with a lot of other
materials, which is classified, but it is a big mixture, right.
And then you package and you dispose.
So I did read in the media the concern regarding
criticality. And I can only tell you a couple of things, basing
it off of my engineering knowledge. And that is, one, in order
for you to have criticality, two things have to occur. One is
the plutonium molecules or the--not only the plutonium but the
fissile material has to see each other. Ok, so they have to be
close by. And second, they have to be a neutron generation.
Those two things have to happen. So when you down blend
plutonium or any fissile material, I mean it could be HEU for
that event, same thing. When you down blend, you sparse the
matrix, you know, collapsing or crunching or whatever is really
not a separations method. So that would not happen.
In addition, you have sodium chloride, which is one of the
best neutron absorbents ever. So you don't have any neutron
generation and that is why the accident is not credible. So,
you know, from a point of view fissile material going critical,
it is not like it is a reactor where everything is assigned to
go like that. These are passive facilities.
Mr. Simpson. Right. Well, and of course, the one study came
out and said the idea of WIPP is that everything does get
condensed eventually.
Ms. Regalbuto. It gets collapsed, not condensed.
Mr. Simpson. It gets collapsed?
Ms. Regalbuto. So condensed means that I will have to
take----
Mr. Simpson. If it doesn't get condensed, how does it get
collapsed.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yeah. So the same way, we have this bottle
right, and we squish it and do whatever we want to do, that
doesn't mean we physically separate the oxygen from the
hydrogen. That takes a lot of effort. So, that is exactly the
argument is you can do a lot of things here, but you really
have not separated oxygen from hydrogen. And in this case you
don't separate the plutonium from the matrix that it is in. It
is very difficult. So it is not done by physical crunching or
mechanical things.
Mr. Simpson. How can there be so much disagreement on, and
I don't know how much disagreement there is, but disagreement
between professional individuals as yourself and other people
that have made these things that say--I mean they essentially
said, listen, it is not a matter of if it goes critical, it is
when it goes critical. How can they be that wrong?
Ms. Regalbuto. They are not wrong. It is just the
probability. And, you know, there is a probability of something
happening, and the way I can equate it to you is, there is a
probability that I can grow 5 inches if I go to Mars, too, like
the astronaut, right. But unfortunately, you know, my
probability is very low that that will actually happen. But it
is feasible that I could grow 5 inches if I go to space for 5
years. I think it was 2 inches per year, so maybe I will need
to be there 2\1/2\. But this is based on probabilities, and
some things are more credible than the others. And I think the
Secretary mentioned the scenario was incredible given the
circumstances. So it is not like a disagreement on the physics
of things, it is really on the probability of that happening
that is really the disagreement.
Mr. Simpson. Ok. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary,
I have got some questions about the Manhattan Project National
Park. Last November, the Manhattan Project National Historical
Park became a reality, one park at three Department of Energy
sites: Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los
Alamos, New Mexico. The park is now being created jointly by
the National Park Service and the Department of Energy. My
question is why was there no funding in the DOE budget request?
And what is the Department of Energy doing to support opening
these legacy sites to the public? Further, are there any
security issues or new infrastructures that will need to be
built to open these previously secret legacy facilities to the
public?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. We are actually
very excited about the Manhattan National Park. In 2015, at the
end of 2015, Department of Energy signed the Memorandum of
Agreement with the National Park Service, which is part of the
Department of Interior. And the Department of Interior manages
all the park services for us and we are very happy for that
collaboration. There are a couple of steps that we are
following.
Number one that has to occur--and this is actually a newer
learning for me because I have never been in a situation where
a national park is being built, so it is kind of learning for
all of us.
First of all, we have to have what they call a foundation
document and that will be completed in 2016. Once that
foundation document is provided that is what the Department of
Interior calls the comprehensive interpretation plan and that
is scheduled for 2017. You will see these activities and the
funding request will come from the Department of Interior, but
what is DOE doing in the process as we are going into this
path?
What we are doing is we are continuing to execute
maintenance and surveillance of the facilities, but we are also
rating the sites so that when these plans start being
implemented, our timing of how we allow visitors to come into
the areas is done properly. Right now I think you are familiar,
one of our open sites already is B Reactor and B Reactor has
hosted 60,000 visitors in the last 6 years and that is because
we cap it at 10,000; otherwise, we cannot do it. It is run by
volunteers and community members and we offered the tickets for
free and the minute that they are offered, they are gone. If we
offer 20,000, we will get 20,000, so we are very excited. We
are using our own funds to make sure that these facilities come
out to be released to the public at the right time.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. Final round of questions on the
uranium D&D fund, Madame Secretary, the Department recently
provided the committee with a report on the status of the
uranium D&D fund that was directed by the fiscal year 2015
omnibus. It paints a pretty dire picture of the ability of the
D&D fund to address projected cleanup costs. The report
estimates that the fund ``will have a shortfall up to $19.2
billion'' and that ``without additional deposits the fund is
projected to be exhausted in 2022.''
The Department of Energy's proposal to transfer a couple
hundred million dollars from one fund to another seems to be a
drop in the bucket in comparison to the projected shortfall and
certainly not a comprehensive solution. I have three questions.
What is the DOE's long-term plan for meeting these cleanup
costs? Second, how much cleanup work remains to be
accomplished? And thirdly, what costs have been updated since
the last report?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. We do share the
same concern regarding the lack of funding for the UED&D as we
move forward. We do have one thing that we have learned and
that is we are about to complete this year the Gaseous
Diffusion Facility at Oak Ridge. Our cost estimate is based on
actually a job already being executed, which is a really good
number. Our projection is that to finish the job at Portsmouth
and Paducah is going to cost between 20 and $22 billion. That
is the cost.
Unfortunately, when the contributions to the fund were
stopped back in I think it was 2006, I can't remember the exact
date, but when the contributions were stopped, we didn't really
know the true cost of what this job was going to take. The
Secretary has been very interested in making sure that we
follow the principles of polluter pays and that is something
that he feels very strongly. I understand that the Department
will be forthcoming with a proposal to the Authorizing
Committee and also will come back and brief you at a later date
related to that, but we do have really solid costs. We finished
the job and we know exactly what it is.
These facilities are big industrial sites and not only do
they have radioactive hazards, they have a significant amount
of chemical hazards that we have to deal with. So those are two
main things that we have to look at.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madame Secretary. Mr. Chairman,
I yield back.
Mr. Simpson. Mr. Visclosky.
Mr. Visclosky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Doctor, I
understand you were confirmed on August 6th. Why did you want
the job?
Ms. Regalbuto. I think I am asking myself the same thing.
Actually I have to tell you one thing. I have been very
passionate about this type of work. I started my career at
Argonne National Laboratory back in 1988, and I had just come
out of grad school from the University of Notre Dame and I was
pregnant with my third child and I needed a part-time job back
then and when I requested a part-time job in industry they
looked at me like I came from Mars. That was back in the
eighties and those were different times, I understand. But I
was very fortunate to be able to get a part-time job at Argonne
National Laboratory. And my first job that I ever got was
working with tank waste at Hanford. We were working with the
transuranic--at the time it was Argonne East and West, so Idaho
was part of the mix, and we were working with transuranic
waste. And the plan was to take the fraction of low activity
waste, high activity waste and then one was grouting, one was
with petrified. We worked in the chemical process that did
that.
Over the years things change in terms of areas, but I also
had the opportunity to work in other projects that have been
implemented. For example, I was very fortunate to work with my
colleagues at Idaho National Lab, Oak Ridge, Savannah River,
and Argonne, too.
Mr. Visclosky. You've got your bases covered.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yeah. Well, are you all from here? Ok.
Mr. Visclosky. If my----
Ms. Regalbuto. And we did all the cleanup work that is now
the basis for SWPF at Savannah River. So I really believe in
these efforts.
Mr. Visclosky. I believe that you do and I appreciate as a
Notre Dame grad myself----
Ms. Regalbuto. Oh, really?
Mr. Visclosky. Yes. She is acting like she did not know.
Ms. Regalbuto. No, no, I really did not know.
Mr. Visclosky. She is acting like she did not know, Mr.
Chairman.
Ms. Regalbuto. I am going to have to look at your----
Mr. Visclosky. Which explains why you took the job.
Mr. Simpson. The next you know she is going to tell us how
good the Notre Dame football team is, right?
Mr. Visclosky. No.
Ms. Regalbuto. No, we do not want to go there. We do not
want to go there. No, seriously, I did not realize that.
Mr. Visclosky. Let me--because we have a hearing. But I
will tell you, and I am deadly serious, you may have the most
difficult job in the United States Government, because I have
been on this wonderful subcommittee with great jurisdiction and
great member staff for a long time. And I must tell you, every
year when we have a hearing on environmental cleanup it is
exactly the same hearing.
You reference your time in the 1980s. I have a question on
Hanford. I visited Hanford in the last century, and I see the
same question here.
I visited those tanks in the last century. On overbudget
projects, it is a 5-to-1 ratio as far as those that are not
overbudget compared to those that are. On Hanford, again, I see
a question on proposed milestones being shifted further to the
right when in the last century I visited those tanks and was
told this was going along just like sliced bread, which is not
your fault, but you are responsible now. I wish you well and
trust that you will try to imbue everybody in your Department
with a sense of urgency.
I do believe, and we can have a budget conversation all
day, that some of this is administration requests and
congressional decisions as far as resources. I have had the
privilege to be in the chairman's position as well as ranking,
that at some point there is a finite amount of dollars. If we
do not clean it up this year, we will clean it up this year.
Well, I have been saying that since the last century,
literally. So I do hope with whatever resources we are allowed
to give you--and I know the chairman and ranking are killing
themselves to do their very best here, there is no question
about that--that you just use every dollar as efficiently as
possible.
And I hate to take the commissioner's time. I do have two
questions, though.
On Savannah River, on the processing of plutonium, have you
looked at the total cost of the investment needed at Savannah
River to support the NNSA's plan and the increased operating
cost of securing the area? And if so, is the cost one that
should be born by your Department or NNSA?
Ms. Regalbuto. First of all, thank you for your confidence
in me on this job and you have my full commitment that we will
spend all our money that we are given to the environmental
mission job wisely. And just a comment on that is we do not
have the luxury of time anymore. Our infrastructure is old and
the tanks are getting old. So my sense of urgency does not come
from just simply wanting to get this. It is because I
understand that we are beyond the point of luxury of time. The
tanks are aging and we need to work on that.
Mr. Visclosky. Right. But if I could ask you about the--
because I also understand if you are talking about
infrastructure that the budget request is a hundred billion
below this year's level.
Ms. Regalbuto. The budget request for EM?
Mr. Visclosky. For deferred maintenance.
Ms. Regalbuto. For deferred maintenance for us is actually
higher. Let me get you the deferred maintenance number. Was
that--300, I want to say? Do you have the numbers?
Mr. Visclosky. My understanding is the budget request for
deferred maintenance is 100 million below this year's level.
Ms. Regalbuto. No, let me have them check my number for
you.
[The information follows:]
The Environmental Management program manages its deferred
maintenance through an integrated facilities and infrastructure budget.
Although the integrated facilities and infrastructure budget has
several sub-areas that do not address deferred maintenance, overall our
integrated facilities and infrastructure crosscut budget request is
$15.7 million higher in 2017 than it was in 2016.
Mr. Visclosky. If you could for the record. If we could get
back to who should bear the cost.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yeah, I would be happy to get back to you. I
believe ours went up. Specifically, at Savannah River we
increased--okay, what is the first--that one went down. Ok. Oh,
that is the backlog. So we do have an investment in
infrastructure and the investment in infrastructure is half a
billion for EM across four sites: Carlsbad, Savannah River,
Richland operations, and WTP--well, ORP. So those are the four
and it is half a billion. It is 500 million for that. This is
the backlog, unfortunately. Unfortunately, the backlog grows
every year, which is a sad part.
Mr. Visclosky. Who should bear the cost?
Ms. Regalbuto. For Savannah River, we added an additional
30 million in infrastructure because we have some finance from
the defense board in some of the buildings that were high
issues.
Mr. Visclosky. But on Savannah, and I appreciate that, I
guess my second question was on deferred maintenance. Do you
have an estimate on the increased operating costs? And again,
do you believe that is your responsibility going forward if it
proceeds or is that NNSA's responsibility?
Ms. Regalbuto. So anything that is fuel take-back programs
and things that NSSA has the purview, it is their
responsibility to provide the funding for us to do so.
Mr. Visclosky. For theirs, okay. All right.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes, it is.
Mr. Visclosky. Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, I appreciated Congressman
Visclosky's emphasis on the amount of time this is taking. I
wanted to ask about the funding for the environmental
management program and how many of the milestones or those that
you anticipate to miss over the next few years are strictly
funding related and how many are due to other issues and could
you discuss those issues?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes. Thank you very much. As I mentioned, a
milestone is something that we take very serious. It is our
commitment to the State and the stakeholders. At the point that
any milestone is at risk we inform the State and the
stakeholders that this will happen. We will enter into a period
of negotiation in trying to address it. Some of the milestones
are technical issues and some of the milestones are strictly
funding, as you mentioned. I will say the majority are funding
and to a lesser extent technical issues.
Ms. Kaptur. I want to ask a question about the
reindustrialization of cleanup sites, Doctor. As you make
progress on the cleanup of the Manhattan Project sites, we
always face the issue of how communities cope with that change
and DOE is the primary employer at most of the cleanup sites,
because those sites were initially located far from habitation.
What can DOE do to promote future industrial or other uses of
these cleanup sites? How early should that planning begin? And
are there any examples you can describe where you think DOE has
done this or other Departments have done this well?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes, we do recognize that we were number one
employer, right, during the Manhattan Project and, yes, all
these sites tend to be remote because that is how they got
picked, right? One of the good examples that we use is Oak
Ridge, at least from the EM point of view, where we really have
worked with the community through the community reuse
organization. Another very good example is Richland in Hanford
where we have already released a significant amount of acres of
our land to industrial revitalization. I will say the sooner we
initiate conversations with the community, the better it
becomes.
Also, we do respect that the community sometimes has a
desire for us to initiate cleanup in a slightly different
sequence because they have a reuse program in mind, and when
that happens we work with the community in going to the
priorities that allows them to release the land or use the land
sooner.
At Oak Ridge, we were still doing D&D for the East
Tennessee Technology Park and, at the same time, we have a
number of small businesses moving in, so we coordinated that as
we work our way out of the demolition jobs.
Ms. Kaptur. I really appreciate your openness to this and
as I said at other meetings, I think one of the greatest
weaknesses of the Department of Energy because of the way that
it was set up is that it doesn't think about place and I have
often wondered whether it does need additional authorities to
do that. This Secretary is trying very hard to think that way.
And if I look at Ohio and the Piketon area and the D&D
activities that are anticipated there, those are probably the
highest unemployment counties in Ohio. So as this ratchets down
one of the difficulties DOE really has, in my opinion, is
working cross-departmentally, across the Federal establishment,
to work with the Department of Labor, let us say, several of
the trades that are onsite, looking at some of the new clean
energy initiatives. I do not know what those counties would
want to do. I don't represent those counties, but I really
think that our country could do a much better job of
transitioning these people and communities.
We saw this in the coal situation where because of the
mothballing of old coal-fired utilities you have entire States,
our chairman from Kentucky, Mr. Rogers, experiences this
firsthand. And Ohio, southeastern Ohio, is a tragedy in terms
of what has happened in that industry, but it seems like we
cannot catch up to ourselves. It is like we are too stovepiped
at the Federal level.
So as you work through this, if you have recommendations to
us on additional authorities you might need, I think you could
sign interagency agreements. I am not sure you need any
additional authority, but it just seems to me that the Federal
Government is too far away from where people live and you have
such massive responsibilities just on the technical side, this
really is not in your portfolio exactly.
But it sure would be fine to see a way of approaching these
communities, as you say, that we plan ahead, we work with the
people there, and we do our best to minimize damage to human
beings and their livelihoods. So I want to encourage you on in
those efforts and I thank you for listening to that.
I wanted to ask one additional question in this round on
the Manhattan Project National Park, which is our newest
national park authorized by the 2015 Defense Authorization Bill
actually, and there was no funding. And my question is what is
DOE doing to support opening these legacy sites to the public
and are you paying for the cost of the national park? And is
this a cost, as we believe it is, of the Department of Energy
instead of the cost of the Park Service?
Ms. Regalbuto. As you mentioned, we reached the agreement
with the Department of Interior on the National Park Services
in 2015, and actually that was really a great opportunity for
us to get kickstarted. I know that many people worked very,
very hard over the years to make this happen.
In 2016, we have to combine it and it is led by the
Department of Interior. We have to deliver the foundation
document. And this is all news to me because I am used to a
NEPA process and surplus and whatever, but they do have a
process, too.
And after the foundation document is delivered, then they
have what they call a comprehensive plan. And in the plan is
where it spells out what is going to be needed, the funding,
and the likes. This will be part of the Department of Interior.
With that said, we also have responsibilities on the EM
side, and that is we continue surveillance, we continue to
execute the mission so those parcels of property become ready
for public access, and our job really is to coordinate as
Interior moves forward to make those pieces of property
available.
We also have the responsibility for long-term surveillance
of any of the sites because of the type of materials that were
present in the past.
I was mentioning before, the B Reactor in Hanford has
received already 60,000 visitors in 6 years. That is already
open to the public. If we could give more tickets, more people
would come. It really is a destination area, and we have
busloads of folks coming in who want to see the reactor.
So, that one is already ongoing, and it will be folded into
as part of the Manhattan Project National Park, but some areas
are already open. We are very happy for that.
Ms. Kaptur. So, on the Manhattan Project National Park, how
is that cost-shared? Is it half and half, if you look at the
total cost of operating those?
Ms. Regalbuto. The cost of operating will have to be
negotiated after they have the comprehensive plan, but we are
responsible for cleaning the sites. So, what we spend is money
that is used to clean up our sites.
Ms. Kaptur. And what are you paying--what are you asking
for this next fiscal year of 2017?
Ms. Regalbuto. It is not a line item. It is embedded in the
operations of Richland, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos, for whatever
pieces we are responsible for. So, if our job is to do
surveillance, it would be embedded in there, but if you would
like us to give you some more detail, I will be happy to do
that.
[The information follows:]
The Department of Energy is responsible for sites within the
Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Richland, WA; Oak Ridge,
TN; and Los Alamos, NM. At these sites, the Office of Environmental
Management is currently responsible for funding the surveillance and
maintenance of the B Reactor at the Hanford Site in Richland and the
Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge. The budget request in FY 2017 for
surveillance and maintenance of these facilities is about $2.5 million.
This funding covers not only surveillance and maintenance activities,
but also facilitates public access for visitors. The Office of
Environmental Management has no current responsibilities for
maintaining facilities or coordinating visits to Manhattan Project
National Park facilities at Los Alamos.
Ms. Kaptur. I think that would be very helpful to us. Are
all those facilities safe for public access?
Ms. Regalbuto. We do not open the whole site. We only open
segments of the sites, and we have to make sure they are
available, 100 percent safe for the public to come. Otherwise,
we cannot use those facilities.
Ms. Kaptur. Will you have to build new infrastructure?
Ms. Regalbuto. No, all is existing. So, if you have a
chance to go to B Reactor, you actually get to go to the
control room with the original furniture that was in there. Of
course, we removed all the radioactive materials and the like,
but there is really no cost, and it is usually manned by
volunteers who used to work in those facilities. The tours are
very good. They are really, really good.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. I always ask this question, for the last 15
years or so. How are we progressing about moving facilities to
EM that need to be moved to EM and getting them out of the
laboratory part of the budget?
You know, I am smart enough to understand that the
laboratory people would like to have that moved to EM and have
the responsibility go to EM, but the money to stay.
My concern is, I want to know what our total
responsibilities are on EM and what our reliabilities are on
EM, so I want those things moved to EM that ought to be done by
EM.
Over the years, we have been trying to move that process
along. How are we doing with that?
Ms. Regalbuto. So, right now, we have not moved any new
facilities to the EM side in the last few years, mainly because
of budget constraints. So, once you get into----
Mr. Simpson. But the budget constraints--this is paper
stuff. It is money that we are spending somewhere right now.
What I want to know is what is our liability in the future.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes, somebody owns that liability no matter
what; yes.
Mr. Simpson. Right.
Ms. Regalbuto. I do not know the exact amount until the
report comes out, which will tally out the total liability
regardless of who owns it, as to your point. We will come back
and brief you on that. That exercise is ongoing, and that was
one of the number one priorities, the Secretary wanted to know
how much is still there, regardless of what office it does
belong.
So, we will have to come back to you, but it is part of
this----
Mr. Simpson. Ok. Then we can make a determination about
where it belongs, so we know what our total liabilities are in
the future. That is what we have been trying to accomplish over
the last several years.
One final question for a colleague that is not here today,
but I am sure I am going to be asked about it by that colleague
and others.
The largest reduction in your budget request is for the
Richland Site office which is reduced $206 million below last
year's. Why such a steep reduction, and can DOE fulfill all of
its commitments to clean up the River Corridor at this funding
level? DOE recently proposed shifting some clean up milestones
for Richland back in order to concentrate on a tank mission at
Hanford. Has the State weighed in on these proposals?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. First, the
request is $800 million, which is, you know, $190 million below
the appropriated funds from last year. We do have a significant
amount of carryover from the bump up we got the year before.
Still remaining in the funding is areas of significant
progress that we have done, and in order to do risk reduction,
so PFP will be completed to a slab-on-grade this year, it will
be done, and as you remember, it was the number one most
dangerous building in the whole complex. So, we are very happy
to have moved that one off the list.
We also continue to do cesium and strontium capsule
packaging in order to get it out of the old building, and the
infrastructure is going down, and we will get out of there.
In the same process, we are moving sludge out of the River
Corridor, so we are packaging, procuring equipment, and
initiating operations in order to start moving that area's
sludge into the Central Plateau. So, that is still funded.
We have also the 324 building, we are still working on the
technology development for the soil underneath, and that will
be done this year, so we can initiate that. The 618-10 burial
grounds, we are also working on some of the vertical pipe
units. So, that is ongoing.
We recognize it is less than the appropriated funds from
last year, but it is not at the expense--we really do look
across them, and there are other sites that----
Mr. Simpson. So, is it accurate to say you do not
anticipate any layoffs at Richland based on this budget?
Ms. Regalbuto. Not as of today.
Mr. Simpson. Let me ask, do other members have questions?
Do you have more questions? I have to leave for a meeting. My
Vice Chairman is going to take over here. Thank you for being
here.
I think what Mr. Visclosky said is absolutely true, you do
have the toughest job in the Federal Government. Like most
tough jobs, all of us that sit on the sidelines could do it
better. That is the way we usually think, you know.
Ms. Regalbuto. You are welcome to come and help.
Mr. Simpson. We are great armchair quarterbacks. Thank you
for the work you do, and we look forward to working with you.
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Fleischmann [presiding]. Madam Secretary, hello again.
I am going to defer to the ranking member, Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. I think it is important
for the record, for those who may be listening to our words,
that your request for close to $6 billion this year actually
constitutes a very large share of DOE's entire budget, much
larger than other programs. I think of weatherization of $270
million. So, this is a very, very important office that you
head.
In terms of overbudget projects, it is my understanding
that Environmental Management has about $15 billion worth of
ongoing projects that are still considered to be either behind
schedule or overbudget, and many of those do not have a valid
project baseline against which project performance can be
measured.
For instance, there have been some references made to this,
the Waste Treatment Plant, the most expensive project in the
entire Federal Government, was last estimated in 2006 to cost
$12.3 billion, and that was before DOE became aware of major
design flaws. What is the current estimated cost for completing
that project?
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you for your question. We do share
your concern regarding project management and escalating of
costs. This has been something that the Secretary has taken
very seriously, and we have a number of initiatives that we are
putting forward, including new project oversight, specifically
WTP.
We have an owner's rep that was recommended in the past for
us to hire, so we hire persons to oversee WTP. We also have a
revision in cost estimates and also assessment fees for
performance, which is supporting the Secretary's strategy.
Regarding WTP, the cost is still listed as $13 billion, as
you correctly pointed out. We are in the process of
rebaselining that cost estimate, and that is really because we
are taking out of the original contract--which was really all
WTP--taking out the phased approach, which includes the Low
Activity Waste, the Balance of Plant, meaning the
infrastructure needed to support that, and then the labs, so we
can initiate that project by 2022.
We are engaged in negotiations with the contractor, we are
about to finish those negotiations, and once those negotiations
are completed, we will rebaseline and we will provide that
information to the committee.
Regarding the rest of----
Ms. Kaptur. May I ask, why does it take until 2022, just
lack of money?
Ms. Regalbuto. To initiate the facility? To commission the
facility, yes, 690 per year. We have to distribute those costs.
That is the target date for operations.
Ms. Kaptur. So, you cannot really state the current
estimated cost for completing the project?
Ms. Regalbuto. Once we finish the negotiations with the
contractor, which should be very, very soon, we will come back
and provide that information to the committee, but it will be
rebaselined, yes.
Ms. Kaptur. Do you expect it to go up?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes.
Ms. Kaptur. A lot?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Let me ask you about
replenishing the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and
Decommissioning Fund. The Department recently gave the
committee a report on that, and it states that the fund will
have a shortfall of up to $19.2 billion, and without additional
deposits, the fund is projected to be exhausted in 2022.
Your Department's proposal is to transfer a couple hundred
million dollars from one fund to another. It seems to be a drop
in the bucket in comparison to the projected shortfall you will
be facing. Your proposal does not seem to be a comprehensive
solution.
What is DOE's long-term plan for meeting these cleanup
costs?
Ms. Regalbuto. So, thank you for your question, and we do
share with you the fact that these costs are significantly
higher. One of the areas, as I mentioned, is we will be
completed with the first gaseous diffusion facility at Oak
Ridge.
So, we now know the true cost of what it takes for these
facilities, and then we have Portsmouth and Paducah, which are
very similar, all three facilities were almost identical. The
to-go cost for those two facilities is anywhere between 20 and
$22 billion. This is based on real work that we did at Oak
Ridge.
Ms. Kaptur. All of them?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes, the two sites, Portsmouth and Paducah.
Recognizing that, unfortunately, when the contributions to the
UED&D Fund stopped by the people that use those enrichment
facilities, we did not really know the cost of this job. So, we
stopped it too soon.
There has been some estimates that it is about a quarter of
a million per kilowatt hour, which is really the fair cost of
doing the decommissioning of these facilities, and the
Secretary has proposed some language, and the department will
be forthcoming with these proposals, but basically going back
to the principle that the polluter pays.
So, it is a combination of not having the complete costs at
the right time when we stopped the contributions to the fund.
I do understand the concern, and once we start moving into
this area, I will be very happy to work with you and the
committee because we do need a long-term plan for these
facilities.
The workforce needs to be stable, and one of the reasons
why we are looking at this proposal is to provide some
stability and funding at least for a few years until we really
fix the big problem, which is the 20 to $22 billion. It is
important that we proceed with this.
These are very large complexes, they are almost little
cities, the two of them are little cities right now.
Ms. Kaptur. What was your reference to trained individuals
to do the job? Could you expand on that?
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes. We do have a number of things that we
would like to implement, and one is training as the number one
priority. We do have a very good workforce and they are coming
from other facilities, especially in Ohio, that we can train to
do the kind of work that we do.
We also have a very nice initiative which is a robotics
initiative, and it is our view that the same way we transfer a
lot of the knowledge in robotics from Homeland Security to the
police departments, we can do that in the environmental
management arena.
So, we are working with some of the employment groups. In
fact, we will be visiting Sandia next week, because they were
the ones who did this for the police department, so the goal is
what we call the ``safety of science,'' but it has to be driven
by the workers, not by us, right, because the workers know what
tools do and what tools do not benefit them.
There are a number of tools that we have that are really
much more modern, and make their quality of life significantly
better. What I like the most is it allows them to transfer this
knowledge to other areas, so we joined the National Robotics
Initiative.
I will give you an example. The same prosthetics that were
used and are targeted are used by the National Institutes of
Health, because the population is getting older and people have
to lift patients and the like, so the same exoskeleton that is
used to lift is what we will use to lift a piece of equipment.
Once they are trained in that area, they do not even have
to stay with us, although I wish they would, because we pay for
them and train them, but they can actually get jobs outside.
Ms. Kaptur. Does your training account for part of the
basic budget or is it a separate account?
Ms. Regalbuto. It is under technology development. We also
joined the National Science Foundation. There is some money
there, go directly to universities. The goal is to have a
workers, the universities, and the national labs triangle.
Ms. Kaptur. Is there a way your Department or your office
could provide to us the types of workers? How do you categorize
the skills or the hiring categories? Are you able to do that,
the kinds of workers you need to train?
Ms. Regalbuto. You know, I am sure we can find that out. I
am not familiar with those statistics. I can check for you.
One of my goals is really to remove the amount of hazards
that a worker has to face in a single day. So, to give you an
example, in the U.K., when you walk into a facility that is
contaminated, the first crew has to go and find out where all
the hot spots are. That is a risk. Those are the first ones
that go in.
In the U.K., they put little drones in and they map the
room before they go in. That is the kind of thing that we would
like to teach our workers to use themselves in order to go into
a facility without putting them in hazards which is unnecessary
with technology.
Ms. Kaptur. Do you know how many of your workers are union
workers?
Ms. Regalbuto. A significant amount of them are.
Ms. Kaptur. I am interested because one of my interests for
the Department as a whole is to get a better relationship
between the training academies of these various skilled trades,
and what tends to happen with the Department's relationships is
they go to community colleges and universities, and I am not
against that. However, in our part of the country, we have
major training academies, whether you are a plumber and
pipefitter, whether you are an electrician, whether you are an
ironworker, where they are teaching.
It has been my experience with the Department of Energy
that they do not even realize--they do not even have a list of
where these academies are. That was shocking to me,
particularly in the area of nuclear power where it was, in
fact, these trained workers, not because of the Department of
Energy and not because of the local energy company, but because
of the building trades that trained these workers, that
literally saved thousands of lives in my part of the country
because of what they detected in a faulty plant, nuclear plant.
So, somehow we have to figure out a way of at least
introducing the Department to the leaders of these academies,
and if you are open to that, in terms of your skills training,
I would love to find a way for you to meet some of them, where
they are actually operating schools, big ones.
Ms. Regalbuto. I appreciate the comment of the disconnects
because we do have periodic meetings with the building trades.
I am not sure if you are familiar with HAMMER, our facility in
the State of Washington, and the National Training Center.
Those we do jointly with the trades.
What we are working on right now, and it will be ready
roughly in a month, is one of the things we noted and it has
been brought up to us by the building trades, is the ability to
move from job to job, and the fact that you have to be
qualified, so we are merging those two. And we are going to
have the cost of reciprocity, where you reciprocate training
that you took in one area to another, so I personally am taking
Worker I and II, and so are they.
It also allows us to have a population of workers that are
already certified and the skill set is ready.
Ms. Kaptur. Right.
Ms. Regalbuto. So, we are working with the unions who are
part of the National Training Center and HAMMER. With that, we
also recognize that geographically, sometimes it is difficult
to go out west or southwest, and they also have themselves some
of these other training academies.
We have a very successful program in Aiken with Aiken
Community College, where we actually certify people to go work
in the nuclear industry. We started that because there was a
shortage of workers, because they were all going to work for
the reactor operator for the AP-1000.
So, we would train people and they will go work in this
other area. We started a center, which has been very
successful. We can duplicate this model, obviously with the
caveat that every community has different needs, but through
the community colleges is a very successful way to do this. A
lot of the training can be done there.
We also have for the first time this year what we call a
``trainership program,'' and the Secretary initiated a
trainership program. We put it out for competition. The
university will be announced. That is also to bring people to
work with us that do not have traditional backgrounds.
So, if you were an electrical worker, trained, you will
have a background on nuclear, so you understand the hazards,
with the understanding that we need mechanics, electricians,
everything, not just people in the waste packaging arena.
So, we are expanding because our population is aging, and
we are going to need to replenish all our workers in the next
10 years or so.
Ms. Kaptur. Well, if you are ever flying over Ohio, I would
ask you to parachute down, and I would like to introduce you to
some incredible workers whose training was amazing in what they
did and their bravery in a couple of situations that was
historic.
I do not think they get the kind of recognition that they
deserve, so it might be really interesting to host a meeting at
one of these training academies, I would say probably the
electrical, because there are two parts to the electrical
union, and one works in nuclear power plants.
Just to put on the record, what motivates me is that they
were aware of certain things happening in this particular
plant, and ultimately, it was not under your jurisdiction, it
was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the plant had to be
shut down because the head on the reactor was subject to coming
off.
As the NRC began investigating what went wrong, they
followed where these workers had stayed in various hotels, and
there were nuclear particles in the hotel rooms. These people
were carrying nuclear particles themselves.
So, it is the new century--actually, it was at the end of
the 20th century, and this is how we continue to treat workers
in America. I am really driven on this.
I would just like to watch an interaction between some of
your representatives with some of our training academies to see
if we cannot do a better job, and giving them a pathway to work
with the Department of Energy more directly.
What tends to happen in our area is if the community
colleges are involved in training, they hire these people to do
the training. I do not sense that there is that direct a
connection with the Department of Energy in our region of the
country. Maybe it is different in Indiana, maybe it is
different in Tennessee, but I would just make that request.
Ms. Regalbuto. I would be very happy to parachute and come
over and visit. We are very sensitive to developing the next
generation of the workforce. A very large percentage of our
workforce, about 40 percent, can retire today. They will not
have the benefit of the training that we had, working in these
facilities when they were in production mode.
So, we take very seriously who is going to be here in the
next 10 years. I would be more than happy to do that, and there
are other people in the department that will be very interested
in doing this, too.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. I do not want to inconvenience you,
but when you find the right person, please let us know.
Ms. Regalbuto. Yes, we will definitely put them in touch.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Ranking Member Kaptur. Mr.
Visclosky, do you have any questions?
Mr. Visclosky. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Fleischmann. Madam Secretary, in closing, again I want
to thank you for coming before our subcommittee today,
appreciate your answers to these difficult questions, and I,
too, thank you for approaching this very arduous task that you
have. It is very difficult.
Again, I want to welcome you to the Nuclear Cleanup Caucus,
April 20. We have communities, business interests, contractors,
labor unions. We all come together to work together to try to
solve this problem. As a matter of fact, the Nuclear Cleanup
Caucus has become somewhat of a model. I know Ranking Member
Kaptur is the national co-chair of the Automotive Caucus, and I
am a vice chair, and we are actually using this model to try to
make that a much more successful caucus.
I look forward to working with you, and of course, with
her, and I thank you for being with us today.
Ms. Regalbuto. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Fleischmann. The subcommittee is adjourned.
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W I T N E S S E S
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Baran, Jeff...................................................... 1
Burns, Stephen................................................... 1
Hoffman, Patricia................................................ 49
Kotek, John...................................................... 49
Murray, Cherry................................................... 149
Orr, Franklin...................................................49, 149
Ostendorff, William.............................................. 1
Regalbuto, Dr. Monica............................................ 213
Smith, Christopher............................................... 49
Svinicki, Kristine............................................... 1
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