[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AN OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET PROPOSAL
FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
March 22, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-69
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., ZOE LOFGREN, California
Wisconsin DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
STEVE KNIGHT, California PAUL TONKO, New York
BRIAN BABIN, Texas MARK TAKANO, California
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas BILL FOSTER, Illinois
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
GARY PALMER, Alabama
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois
C O N T E N T S
March 22, 2016
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 13
Written Statement............................................ 15
Statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 17
Written Statement............................................ 19
Witnesses:
The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Energy, U.S. Department
of Energy
Oral Statement............................................... 22
Written Statement............................................ 25
Discussion....................................................... 65
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Energy, U.S. Department
of Energy...................................................... 98
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Documents submitted by Representative Brian Babin, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 130
Documents submitted by Representative Marc Veasy, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 134
Documents submitted by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 136
Documents submitted by Representative Elizabeth H. Esty,
Chairman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 143
The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Energy, U.S. Department
of Energy 144
Documents submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 161
AN OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET PROPOSAL
FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY FOR
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2016
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
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Chairman Smith. Good morning. The Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology will come to order. Without objection,
the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at
any time.
Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``An Overview of the
Budget Proposal for the Department of Energy for Fiscal Year
2017.'' I'll recognize myself for an opening statement and the
Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from California, for hers.
Today, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will
examine the Department of Energy's Fiscal Year 2017 budget
request. The Science Committee has jurisdiction over more than
one-third of the Department's $30 billion budget, including
almost $13 billion for fundamental scientific research and
energy R&D. This includes the Department of Energy Office of
Science, which is America's lead federal agency for basic
research in the physical sciences. DOE's basic scientific
research and energy R&D are conducted by 31,000 researchers at
over 300 sites around the country, which include universities
and the 17 national labs.
The fundamental research conducted by the Office of Science
has led to groundbreaking discoveries about our universe, made
possible innovative new technologies, and provided the
foundational knowledge for private sector achievements across
our energy and manufacturing industries.
This Committee provided strong support for the Office of
Science through the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, which
provided $5.3 billion for basic research. The Science Committee
bill passed the House last year. And that authorized level was
enacted into law as part of the 2016 omnibus appropriations.
I'm pleased to see this budget proposal build on COMPETES
and Congressional appropriations to provide priority funding
for basic R&D. Unfortunately, the President's budget proposal
doesn't stop there. The President refuses to make the tough
choices necessary in a responsible budget environment.
Instead, the fiscal year 2017 proposal reads like a
wishlist for the White House's political allies. It uses budget
gimmicks to add more spending for expensive commercial
technologies already available to American consumers or
rejected by them in the market. For example, the Office of
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) receives an
increase of $830 million, or 40 percent, in discretionary
spending in the fiscal year 2017 budget.
In addition to this unjustified substantial increase, the
Obama Administration proposes adding another $1.3 billion in
new mandatory spending for ``clean transportation.'' This
allows DOE to commit large sums of money without following the
budget caps set in law. Combined, this is a 105 percent
increase in EERE's budget. The President's budget does not
reflect current constraints on federal spending or support a
balanced, all-of-the-above energy strategy.
The President's budget also proposes significant spending
to support the administration's Mission Innovation initiative.
This commitment was made during the Paris climate change
negotiations and doubles federal spending on clean energy
research and development.
But investment is not made primarily in basic research in
pre-commercial areas such as high-performance computing and
advanced materials that cannot be accomplished by the private
sector. Instead, this budget appears to focus Mission
Innovation dollars on methods to move renewable energy into the
market.
The budget proposal lacks transparency on Mission
Innovation. It should be clear what the Department hopes to
accomplish since this budget proposal cuts projects with
bipartisan support in order to fund this initiative. One
example is the Department's proposed $40 million in cuts to
fusion energy research. This is $90 million below the
authorization in the House-passed America COMPETES Act. Fusion
energy research could provide for safe, clean, and reliable
energy for Americans in the future. If Mission Innovation is
about investing in long-term research for clean energy, fusion
should be a priority.
In my home state of Texas, funds awarded to the Texas Clean
Energy Project, a coal gasification project with longstanding
bipartisan support, were abruptly pulled to fund these new
clean energy priorities. Since the project is expected to
capture 90 percent of the CO2 emitted from enhanced
oil recovery in the Permian Basin, it is hard to understand how
this project doesn't meet the administration's ``clean energy''
standards. I'm pleased to be working with my Ranking Member
colleague, Ms. Johnson, to restore funding to this important
project.
While Secretary Moniz and I may disagree on the spending
and research priorities outlined in the administration's
budget, we do share an appreciation for DOE's vital role in
maintaining American leadership in scientific discovery and
technological achievement.
Over the past year, this Committee has examined a broad
range of the Department's research. It is our responsibility in
Congress to ensure American tax dollars are spent wisely and
efficiently. As we shape the future of DOE, our priority must
be basic energy research and development that only the federal
government has the resources to pursue. This will allow the
private sector to move groundbreaking technology to the market
across the energy spectrum, create jobs, and help our economy.
I want to thank Secretary Moniz for a good working
relationship with this Committee and for his open and
straightforward approach to issues of mutual interest.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
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Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
the Ranking Member, Ms. Lofgren, is recognized for hers.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this
hearing, and thank you, Secretary Moniz, for being here to
discuss the fiscal year 2017 budget proposal and for your
distinguished service to our country not only during this
Administration but throughout your career.
I think we can all agree that the federal investments in
research and development have proven to be worth every penny,
especially in the energy sector. Without these crucial
investments over the past century, the nuclear power industry
would not be where it is today, the shale gas boom might never
have happened, and our growing utilization of the vast array of
renewable sources might be nonexistent. So I'm proud of our
accomplishments but we need to look ahead.
During the Paris climate negotiations, Secretary Moniz and
Bill Gates took a basic idea, doubling our investment in clean
energy, and grew it into an unprecedented effort to modernize
our world energy economy. Mission Innovation is a joint effort
between 20 countries to double publicly funded clean energy
research over the next 5 years.
This was coupled with an announcement from a group of many
of the world's top private sector investors called the
Breakthrough Energy Coalition which aims to invest billions of
dollars in commercializing new technologies developed in
Mission Innovation partner nations. COP21 was an ideal location
for Mission Innovation to come to fruition, and the way we
produce and use energies over the coming decades will
ultimately determine the future of our planet. And technology
and innovation is a key factor in all of this.
And so I applaud you, Secretary Moniz, for your work to
guarantee a brighter future in the face of the growing threat
of climate change.
The budget request is the first attempt to identify and
account for Mission Innovation funding, and I'm pleased to say
I believe the proposals for the Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy, the Office of Electricity, ARPA-E, and most
of the programs within the Office of Science are in line with
the thrust of this new initiative, and I strongly support them.
However, I am concerned that some areas of the budget were
neglected, areas that are consistent with the ultimate goal of
achieving a clean energy future. And while I appreciate this
year's reasonable request for supporting the operations of the
National Ignition Facility, the Fusion Energy Science budget,
as the Chairman has mentioned, within the Office of Science
seems to baffle me every year. With a ten percent cut proposed
last year, followed a nine percent cut this year, it's the only
program within the Office of Science receiving a cut, and
they're just does not seem to be justification provided for
this decision.
The potential for fusion energy is growing, as we see
incredibly innovative researchers and companies approaching
this challenge with new ideas and designs, yet these innovative
concepts seem to reach a dead-end if they go to FES for
support.
The landscape and potential for fusion research is
changing, and it does not appear that the fusion energy budget
is changing with it. It would be disappointing and
disheartening if the ultimate fusion breakthrough never saw the
light of day because of unnecessary limitations within this
budget.
Now, Ranking Member Johnson is with President Obama today.
It's the only reason why she's not here, and I want to mention
her concern with the budget for the Office of Fossil Energy and
in particular the proposed de-obligation of funds for the Texas
Clean Energy Project also mentioned by the Chairman. I joined
the Texas and Washington delegations in their desire to work
with you to come to a fair and transparent path forward for
this project. It appears to have a great deal of potential for
developing and deploying carbon capture technologies that could
be key to meeting our and the world's climate targets.
More broadly, the research and development activities
carried out by the Office of Fossil Energy are almost entirely
devoted to climate and environmental impact mitigation, and as
much as I would like to see a faster shift toward renewable and
other low-carbon sources in the near term, I expect that we
will continue to rely on some mix of fossil fuels. So we need
to find ways to make them cleaner sources of power in the
interim, and I'm afraid this budget does not properly
prioritize that responsibility, especially in the context of
Mission Innovation.
In addition, I'm interested in learning more about how the
budget proposal supports the future of advanced fission
reactors, which have the potential to be significantly safer
while producing far less waste than the current generation of
nuclear reactors. As a zero-emissions source of energy that can
provide reliable baseload power, researching these new
technologies should be a high priority. But the proposed 28
percent cut to advanced reactor technologies does not seem to
indicate that.
So while there's lots to like in this budget request, I
think we can understand why we'll also have more than a few
questions. Your agency plays a lead role in determining how we
power our economy and protect our environment. I very much
appreciate your leadership and look forward to working with you
to address each of these concerns.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my
time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]
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Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren.
Our witness today is the Hon. Ernest Moniz, Secretary of
the Department of Energy. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Moniz
was the head of the Department of Physics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology where he was a faculty member since
1973. Previously, Dr. Moniz served as Under Secretary of the
Department of Energy where he oversaw the Department's science
and energy programs. From 1995 to 1997, he served as the
Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and
Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President.
Dr. Moniz brings both impressive academic credentials and
practical skills to a very demanding job. Dr. Moniz received a
bachelor of science degree in physics from Boston College and a
doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford University.
Secretary Moniz, we welcome you and look forward to your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ERNEST MONIZ,
SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Secretary Moniz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Lofgren and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss our budget proposal with you today. It
totals $32.5 billion in discretionary mandatory spending, but I
want to emphasize the request for annual appropriations is
$30.2 billion, an increase of two percent above the fiscal year
2016 enacted appropriation. And that two percent applies to
both the national security and the domestic side of the ledger.
It is supplemented by the $2.3 billion in mandatory
spending request, including $750 million for R&D and $674
million for uranium enrichment D&D, the latter from the USEC
fund.
I want to emphasize, however, that in particular the $1.6
billion USEC fund is an existing, not new, mandatory spending
account, and our proposal is in keeping with the spirit of
current authorization that revenues from the beneficiaries of
past uranium enrichment, rather than taxpayers at large, be
used to pay the cost of D&D of the now-shuttered facilities.
The USEC fund, by the way, is one of three federal funds
totaling nearly $5 billion that can be used in this manner.
I want to acknowledge that underpinning all of these
priorities is stewardship of the Department as a Science and
Technology powerhouse, with an unparalleled network of 17
national laboratories. And we are working hard to strengthen
the strategic relationship between the Department and our
national laboratory network.
And finally, in this introduction, I want to highlight the
crosscutting R&D initiatives in the budget. Among these
initiatives are large increases proposed for grid
modernization, the energy-water nexus, and the exascale high-
performance computing initiative to support everything from
nuclear weapons to energy technologies to cancer solutions.
The supporting budget details for each of these are
provided in an extensive statement for the record, which I
request be inserted into the record, and I will spend my last
few minutes discussing our Mission Innovation initiative.
The fiscal year 2017 budget includes an increase of 21
percent in discretionary spending for clean energy R&D
activities supporting our U.S. Mission Innovation initiative.
The President's budget proposes this increase within the
overall discretionary budget cap.
Mission Innovation is an unprecedented global initiative by
20 countries pledging to seek doubling of public clean energy
R&D over five years. Those countries represent over 80 percent
of global government investment in clean energy R&D, so this
entails a highly leveraged opportunity to drive energy
innovation.
The initiative is long overdue. In 2010, the American
Energy Innovation Council, comprised of CEOs from multiple
sectors, recommended that the government triple its investment
in clean energy R&D. The Council made three points: One,
innovation is the essence of America's strength; two, public
investment is critical; three, the cost of RD&D are tiny
compared with the benefits.
So the pledge to seek to double the level of investment
over five years is ambitious but needed in the context of the
AEIC. Bill Gates, who was the leader of the AEIC, I know has
recently met with a number of Members of Congress and
reiterated the need for greatly increased government-sponsored
energy R&D.
The objective of Mission Innovation is to greatly expand
the suite of investable opportunities in clean energy
technologies. The U.S. and global clean energy markets have
been growing rapidly, but they should pick up the pace even
more now as the world's nations implement the Paris agreement.
Picking up the pace of our own clean energy innovation will
result in commensurate benefits for our economy, environment,
and security.
The scope of Mission Innovation spans the innovation cycle,
from the earliest stages through initial demonstration, but
with a weighting towards the early stages. And all clean
supply-and-demand technologies and infrastructure enablers are
part of it.
Mission Innovation is complemented by the Breakthrough
Energy Coalition that was referred to, launched simultaneously
with Mission Innovation, spearheaded by Bill Gates, launched
with 28 investors from 10 countries. The Coalition committed to
providing investment in new technologies originating from the
innovation pipelines in the Mission Innovation countries from
early-stage R&D through ultimate deployment. These investors
are committed to a higher risk tolerance and patience for
return than is typical, combined with a willingness to take the
most promising innovations all the way past the finish line to
deployment. And that's another important leveraging of the
Mission Innovation proposal.
In particular, I want to single out the fiscal year 2017
budget proposal for $110 million to establish Regional Clean
Innovation Partnerships as not-for-profit consortia
competitively selected for a fixed period to manage regional
clean energy R&D programs focused on the energy needs,
policies, resources, and markets of the individual regions.
The program design and portfolio composition for each
partnership will be based on regional priorities. As research
portfolio managers, not performers, the partnerships will
connect resources and capabilities across universities,
industry, innovators, investors, and other regional leaders to
accelerate the innovation process within each region.
This approach tracks recommendations from the National
Research Council's Rising to the Challenge, which noted that,
``until very recently, U.S. federal agencies have done little
to support state and regional innovation cluster initiatives''
and recommended that ``regional innovation cluster initiatives
by state and local organizations should be assessed, and where
appropriate, provided with greater funding and expanded
geographically.''
The Mission Innovation budget also supports increased
investments in successful ongoing innovation programs at
universities, national labs, companies, programs such as ARPA-
E, energy frontier research centers, advanced manufacturing,
bioenergy centers, advanced transportation technologies,
advanced nuclear reactor technologies, and next-generation
carbon-capture technologies, to name a few.
In closing, I want to note that we will be holding a set of
regional meetings across the country to gain input on these
regional partnerships, and for the Chairman and Ranking Member
Johnson, I'd like to say that we will have a May meeting in
Texas, and we will extend invitations to both of you.
That concludes my summary. Thank you for your interest, and
I look forward to the discussion.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Moniz follows:]
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Chairman Smith. Thank you, Secretary Moniz, and I'll
recognize myself for questions.
And that meeting that you just mentioned is going to be in
Austin, Texas, is it not, May 9?
Secretary Moniz. May 9 is the plan----
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --in Austin, Texas----
Chairman Smith. Great.
Secretary Moniz. --at U.T.
Chairman Smith. All right. My first question goes to the
subject of the budget, and just to make sure that we all
understand, this is a budget proposal that the President cannot
unilaterally implement. It is a budget that has to be
authorized and appropriated by Congress, and that may or may
not be exactly what the President requested. Is that the case?
Secretary Moniz. I believe we are here, in fact, to seek
support for the budget, yes.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Secretary Moniz, my next question
goes to our oversight responsibilities. And the Committee has
engaged in continued oversight of the Department, including
raising questions about DOE's Loan Guarantee Program, DOE home
energy standards, DOE scientists who may have been fired for
talking to the committee staff, and then just last week, a
bipartisan request regarding the Texas Clean Energy Project.
While we have received some documents from DOE on these
issues, and I appreciate your telling me yesterday that you are
conducting an investigation in regard to the home energy
standards issue, many of our questions remain outstanding. For
example, in the case of the DOE Loan Guarantee Program, we have
yet to receive the Department's Risk List, which would include
DOE's assessment of the risk for each loan guarantee.
Now, just last week, news broke that the Ivanpah solar
plant, which received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee, was
struggling to meet its production commitments. And will you be
able to assure us today that we will get the information we
have requested, including the Risk List?
Secretary Moniz. As we discussed, Mr. Chairman, the Risk
List is very sensitive for proprietary information, but I think
the best thing we could do is perhaps arrange a briefing on
that risk profile of our various projects.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Let's start with the briefing and
then we'll go from there. Thank you.
My next question is this: In--another subject involves
the--what I mentioned just a minute ago, the DOE scientist who
worked with this committee that was fired six days after
meeting with our committee staff. These discussions took place
at the Committee's request, and the briefing was organized
through DOE Congressional Affairs.
I just am curious whether any officials connected to that
episode have in any way been sanctioned or upbraided, or is
that going to wait on your--on some internal investigation?
Secretary Moniz. That particular case, we indeed delved
into that, and a settlement was reached that is confidential
among the parties. But the employee is employed at the
Department of Energy.
Chairman Smith. Right. I understand that. We are still,
however, interested in the circumstances that caused the
dismissal of the employee. We're also concerned about an
intimidation factor in regard to other employees who might talk
to members of our staff. And in that regard, will you also
assure us today that you'll provide the documents and
information that we have requested? I know some more was
forthcoming, I think, yesterday----
Secretary Moniz. Last night, yes.
Chairman Smith. --but not everything we have asked for, and
so in regard to what--the documents that remain that we've
asked for, can we----
Secretary Moniz. Well, we--okay. I believe our General
Counsel felt they were being responsive, but let's get together
again with your staff, make sure what the staff views as not
including in those documents yesterday, and we'll keep working
at it to----
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --get you what you want.
Chairman Smith. I would guess your general counsel knows
the documents that we have not yet received, and I guess I'm
looking for an assurance that, all things being equal, that we
will get those documents in a timely fashion.
Secretary Moniz. Again, I am committed to providing
documents as much as we can within the constraints of the
General Counsel says if there are things that are----
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --proprietary and need to be kept very
close hold. Those could be a discussion with the counsel in
terms of----
Chairman Smith. Okay. In regard to this particular subject,
we have not been told any of the documents are proprietary;
it's just the question of----
Secretary Moniz. No, no, it's not proprietary. It's--the
settlements was reached as a settlement between the employee
and the department and----
Chairman Smith. Right. We're looking at communications, as
you may or may not know, and those communications, I don't
think, would be a part of any settlement. So to the extent that
you can, you will give us the documents?
Secretary Moniz. I--absolutely.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Secretary Moniz.
And the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, is
recognized for her questions.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would just note that our staff calculates that your
department has sent over about 8,000 pages of documents in
response to inquiries this year, so I know you'll continue to
work with the Committee, but I wouldn't want people to think
that you haven't delivered boatloads of information to the
Committee.
I also want to talk about fusion energy. As you know, we've
talked about that in the past. I'm particularly concerned about
the National Ignition Facility and its importance. I know
you're aware. We were at the groundbreaking together. And I've
been trying to follow up on this. As you know, I'm sure, Dr.
Holden in 2014 said that we couldn't support inertial fusion
energy R&D activities that weren't relevant to the nuclear
weapons reliability unless ignition was achieved.
Now, subsequent to that, there was a National Academy
report that had some very important proposals. Actually, that
was prior to that. And I felt that Dr. Holden, who I admire a
great deal, that his answer to my questions were not consistent
with the National Academy recommendations.
To follow up, I sent a letter to you in November to try and
clarify the misunderstanding, and there had been statements
made by the co-Chairs of the Academy report explaining their
findings, their intent. And last month, I heard from the NSA
Administrator, not you, indicating that they could not divert
so-called--it's their word--the Fusion Energy Science program
from its primary mission.
Now, my question is this: The primary mission of the
Department of Energy's Fusion Energy Science program is to
steward research in promising fusion energy pathways. And
considering that there's still no ongoing program at the Office
of Science or ARPA-E for the--or the NNSA for proposals to
conduct research in this area to compete for federal funding,
how can we begin implementing the recommendations from the
National Academy's report and establish a program that
directly, officially supports R&D in inertial fusion for energy
applications or at least find a way to allow strong, merit-
reviewed proposals for inertial fusion energy research to be
eligible for federal support? How do we do that?
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. First, context would be
interesting to put out there. And, first of all, the good news
is NIF has become more effective in----
Ms. Lofgren. That is correct.
Secretary Moniz. --and up over 350 shots last year. And the
primary mission unquestionably is the Stockpile Stewardship
Program----
Ms. Lofgren. Of course.
Secretary Moniz. --for which it has made major
contributions. However, almost 20 percent of the shots were
dedicated last year to non-stockpile stewardship activities,
and those range from basic science in astrophysics to
activities relevant to potential fusion.
However, the National Academy's overarching recommendation,
as I understand it, was that a structured program would await
ignition. And as you know, ignition has proved elusive. So we
continue to optimize both beam and target physics to achieve
ignition, which would be the threshold for a more systematic
ICF program.
Ms. Lofgren. I don't think that's correct.
Secretary Moniz. Okay.
Ms. Lofgren. And I don't want to get in a debate here
because our time is limited. Perhaps we can follow up after
this hearing----
Secretary Moniz. Sure.
Ms. Lofgren. --and go through the National Academy report.
Let's talk about the alternative approaches. Now, there
have been several promising alternative approaches to fusion
from small and midsize startups, and we had talked earlier
about ARPA-E doing a three-year program to further explore
potential for some of these concepts called the magnetized
target fusion, but that program is temporary and it doesn't
cover the full range of emerging alternatives that currently
don't have federal support.
What is the Department considering to ensure the full range
of viable options for commercial fusion energy in terms of
vetting and, where appropriate, actively--active pursuit? And
does the Office of Science's current fusion research program
have the flexibility to shift resources to new approaches if
they don't align, for example, the tokamak research pathway? If
not, what flexibility does the Office of Science need to be
provided to do that?
Secretary Moniz. First of all, the ARPA-E program, of
course, like all the ARPA-E programs, are 3-year----
Ms. Lofgren. Of course.
Secretary Moniz. --kind of programs, and I might add, by
the way, that some of the support from the ARPA-E program will
actually be carried out at NIF, so that is part of a fusion
program actually at NIF in terms of those experiments.
In terms of the Office of Science fusion program--well,
first of all, we have to say, you know, the--kind of the
elephant in the room, frankly, is the trajectory for the ITER
project----
Ms. Lofgren. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --and we are due to provide Congress a
report on May 2 following a major project review in April. No
matter which way we and the Congress go, that will have
significant implications obviously for the science fusion
program.
The program certainly has flexibilities within the budget
constraints. I mean, there are discussions about, well, first
of all the MIT--I am past my recusal period. The MIT program is
shut down in this budget. That accounts for much of the drop in
the budget. So General Atomics has the tokamak work. Princeton
has alternative work. The whole stellarator approach is of
interest there. So they have the flexibility. It's a question
of structuring the program within the budget.
Ms. Lofgren. I think my time is expired, Mr. Chairman, so
thank you for yielding to me.
Secretary Moniz. And if I may add, I would be happy to
follow up on that ICF in the next few----
Ms. Lofgren. I would look forward to that, and maybe we can
get to--rather than sending letters back and forth, get to an
understanding on it.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren.
The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Secretary Moniz, for being here.
And before I start my question, I would just like to extend
my heartfelt prayers to the people in Brussels, Belgium, this
morning for the horrific terrorist attacks taken against our
friends and allies and remind people that it's not just the
people of the Belgium that were attacked, but many Americans
who serve at NATO live in that area. And the terrorism is a
real, real-time threat not only overseas but here in the United
States, as we have recently learned.
As part of my responsibility in Congress, I serve as the
Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee, on this honorable
committee. I also sit on the Homeland Security Committee, and
back in May we traveled through the Middle East and even into
Europe, and I went to Brussels as part of a counterterrorism
task force.
And one of the scenarios that we have to look at and one of
the things that frightens me much more than other attacks that
we have seen is a potential of a dirty bomb, release of
radiation on our citizens not necessarily through a nuclear--
traditional nuclear bomb but just a dirty bomb that releases
radioactive material.
And I want to follow up a little bit on what the Chairman
had asked is in the last Congress the committee staff requested
a briefing on low-dose radiation from your department regarding
legislation dealing with low-dose radiation. And it's
important, as we develop legislation, to understand the effects
of and the risks of low-dose radiation either through a dirty
bomb, how do we evacuate, how do we protect the people, as well
as physicians who deal with this type of radiation.
And as was mentioned earlier, and as I was made aware, that
subsequent to that briefing where technical questions were
answered, this employee was fired from your department. And,
again, this briefing was organized through your Congressional
Affairs Office.
And I'm gravely concerned that--how can Congress do our job
if we don't have timely and effective technical information
which we rely on from agencies under the executive branch that
we can effectively do our job not only from an oversight and
investigatory authority that we have through the Constitution
but also good legislation that represents the people, that we
can effectively respond to these type of threats that we face
or just the daily operation of using radiological material?
What have you done in light of this to ensure that your
employees are not intimidated from within to sharing truth and
the information that Congress needs to be able to do our job
that the American people expect us to do for them?
Secretary Moniz. Well, thank you. If I may comment on
Brussels first----
Mr. Loudermilk. Please.
Secretary Moniz. --because of course we all align with your
initial statement. But I just would note that our Deputy
Secretary was actually in Brussels on Friday discussing
precisely these issues offered to our Belgian colleagues, an
opportunity to come to our laboratories to see some of the
technologies that could be used to prevent these things----
Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you for that.
Secretary Moniz. --which they said immediately, yes, and
just days before this terrible, terrible event.
I would also mention that March 31 and April 1, so end of
next week I guess, we will host the Nuclear Security Summit
here in Washington, which will address many of these issues.
With regard to the low-dose radiation issue, first of all,
I am trying my best to make sure that there's a culture of
understanding, that we want to have clear statements of what
are technical facts, as I said, and in this case--that employee
is at work at the Department of Energy so----
Mr. Loudermilk. So she has been rehired----
Secretary Moniz. Correct.
Mr. Loudermilk. --after being fired?
Secretary Moniz. That is correct.
Mr. Loudermilk. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. So----
Mr. Loudermilk. So at least there is some recognition----
Secretary Moniz. Action was taken, correct.
Mr. Loudermilk. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. If I might add, on the substance, just to
conclude on the low-dose radiation, I asked my Secretary of
Energy Advisory Board to look at that. They came back and said
the important issue, we're not the right group to look at this.
We then charged the BER Advisory Committee to look at this.
They will come back with a report this fall on what a
restructured, effective program may look like.
The reality is, as we all know, it's been a frustrating
subject in terms of being unable to reach the conclusions that
we would like to operationalize what is a hugely important and
expensive issue for us, how one treats low-dose radiation. So
we are actively looking at that. In the fall we'll have a
report back.
And I might add the cancer--this is a little bit of a
stretch, but we can discuss it later--the cancer initiative may
provide, through big-data analytics, one of the most effective
ways of addressing the low-dose issue.
Mr. Loudermilk. And thank you for what you're doing. And
again, my concern goes back to--there may be a nuclear engineer
on this committee. I am not one, and so therefore I rely
heavily upon those that you employee to ensure that we do our
job that the American people expect us to do. And things such
as protecting against a dirty bomb, I can't think of anything
that would be more high priority than us being proactive in
that and from a legislative standpoint.
And I hope that you agree that working between the branches
of government is extremely important, that we have the access
to the information, and when we request information, that we
receive honest, true information that's comprehensive and in a
timely matter to our job. Do you agree that----
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. Loudermilk. --we must do that? All right. Thank you. I
yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Loudermilk.
The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome back, Secretary Moniz. It's great to see you again.
I wanted to start out by asking about the Advanced Photon
Source at Argonne National Lab. It's my understanding that the
APS is slated for a major facilities upgrade and is the next
project in line for an upgrade. So could you talk about the
importance of upgrading the Advanced Photon Source and the
importance, more broadly speaking, of maintaining our global
leadership in light sources?
Secretary Moniz. Yes, it is extremely important and, as you
have said, we're on a systematic march towards upgrading our
light sources. Just last year, we completed the Brookhaven
upgrade for very high brightness. Our current project is on the
coherent light source, so-called x-ray laser at SLAC, and we
are in the early engineering phases now of designing the APS
upgrade, which will provide much greater coherence in the
beam--and it'll be an absolutely world-leading tool.
So we're systematically upgrading our light sources, which
are premier tools, the biggest drivers really of our user
communities in this country. And I think, as you know, others
may not, also spending about 40 percent of their time in the
life sciences and making enormous contributions.
Mr. Lipinski. Yes, so thank you for that, and it's
important. As you said, we continue to move forward here.
The second thing, as you know, an interest of mine is
commercialization of DOE-funded research from universities and
national labs. Last year, there were a couple of advancements
on this front. First, the Office of Technology Transitions was
tasked with supporting commercialization activities across the
DOE; and second, the Lab-Corps program was created to
accelerate the transfer of clean energy technologies from
national labs such as Argonne to the commercial marketplace.
Now, Lab-Corps is based on NSF's I-Corps model, and the program
trains researchers on how to turn the discoveries into real-
world technology.
As I mentioned, work going on at Argonne includes
developing energy-efficient material for windows, processes for
deionizing water, and devices for charging electric vehicles.
So Lab-Corps just began the second round of training
sessions. Could you give us an update on the Lab-Corps program
and also on the activities of the Office of Technology
Transitions?
Secretary Moniz. Yes, thank you. And I hope the Committee
recognizes that we apparently can listen to these suggestions
moving forward in these directions. So number one is the
establishment of the Office of Technology Transitions under
Jetta Wong, and I think that is making tremendous progress in
multiple dimensions, including, I might add, implementing the
2005 Energy Policy Act call for a Technology Commercialization
Fund. And that is approximately a $20 million fund specifically
for commercializing laboratory technologies.
I might say there is at least one difficulty that we would
like to see addressed in that, and that is that currently, the
$20 million fund is quite atomized by having the contributions
to it siloed according to the program from which those funds
came. And that leaves very, very small amounts, as opposed to
what we might accomplish by further aggregation, so that's an
issue with the Congress that we would need authorization to
address that.
I might also add in the Office of Technology Transitions,
we just established--and in January hired a person to head--an
energy-investment activity that will provide much greater
transparency for all investors to be able to access our
technologies laboratory and university grants, et cetera.
Lab-CorpE and other specific programs such as a voucher
program, as well we have in the budget, and there's a lot of
enthusiasm at the laboratories for advancing these. We can get
you some statistics then for the record if you'd like. But I'm
very pleased that the focus on technology transfer has been
elevated quite dramatically.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, and I appreciate your
responsiveness and the Department's responsiveness, and these
are things that I think are important for us to work together
on as we move forward, so take a look at----
Secretary Moniz. Great.
Mr. Lipinski. --what you had mentioned.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
And another gentleman from Illinois, Mr. LaHood.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And Secretary Moniz, thank you for being here today and for
your testimony.
And we are proud in Illinois to have two really first-class
national laboratories, the Fermi National Accelerator Lab and
also the Argonne National Lab. And looking at how we--the
research, technology, and innovation that's being done at these
labs and how we ensure that we are getting that technology
transfer information to the private sector, whether that's
entrepreneurs, whether that's mature companies, how we do that
and the potential barriers that are there, Secretary Moniz. Are
you satisfied now we're doing all we can to, you know, engage
in that process and further the private sector, or is there
more to do there?
Secretary Moniz. Oh, I think there's certainly more. I'm
pleased that we are doing more, but there's clearly more to be
done. The Energy Investment Center that I mentioned is part of
that. That's another new step to providing the transparency.
But also what I would say is what's maybe most important in
the end is not a specific program but the clear recognition by
the laboratory directors that technology transition is part of
their responsibility. So I think if it's done at the
laboratories with the commitment of the director, that in the
end may be the most effective step.
Mr. LaHood. And is it your view that that's something that
can be internally done by your department or is there something
you need from us to ensure that we continue to engage in this?
Secretary Moniz. At a high-level we probably have the
authorities that we need, but as I said earlier, something like
the Technology Commercialization Fund--I already mentioned one
problem, which is the atomization of it, the siloed nature, so
that's something we would need Congressional action.
And another issue is there is a--at a minimum I would call
it a lack of clarity on cost-sharing requirements. And our
General Counsel is interpreting them rather narrowly that we
are going to require at least 50/50 cost-sharing. In that kind
of a program it would probably be better to have more
flexibility, as we do in applied energy programs to have, for
example, a 20 percent cost-sharing. So there's a couple of
places where Congressional action could be extremely helpful.
Mr. LaHood. And can you give us a couple examples of
success stories you've had in the last couple years here in
reducing these barriers and success that we've seen in the
private sector?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I think that success means things
actually happening, and if we go to Argonne, to pick an
arbitrary laboratory, for example, the JCESR, the hub on energy
storage, has had results get out into the automotive sector
already. So that's a great example of technology transfer
driven by the dialogue between the companies, including the
companies in the region, obviously, with the Argonne
leadership.
Mr. LaHood. Yes. And I guess I would just say, you know,
highlighting more things like that, reducing those barriers,
you know, is, you know, something that we need more of, and the
public seeing the direct benefits of taxpayer money being spent
at these labs and kind of the fruitful results of that, you
know, is going to benefit us all----
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. LaHood. --and so I would encourage more of that with
the Department.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. And I might add that part of
the communication is that coming up in--what's the date of Lab
Day--I forgot.
Anyway, assume coming up we will have here on the Hill Lab
Day. I forget the exact date. And the focus this time is on
science. We're rotating it, national security, et cetera,
science, and that'll be an important part of the communication.
Mr. LaHood. Thank you.
Those are all my questions, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. LaHood.
The gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. Esty, is recognized.
Ms. Esty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking
Member Lofgren, for holding today's hearing to review the U.S.
Department of Energy's science and technology priorities within
its budget request for 2017.
Secretary Moniz, please first let me allow you to--
congratulate you on your excellent work in securing the
historic climate pact in Paris just in the last few months.
While it's only a first step, we must all work together to take
action on climate change.
There are a couple of topics I'd like to touch on. The
first is on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act which
Congress passed and the President signed into law in late 2014
establishing that it is a policy priority for the United States
to pursue every opportunity to deepen our energy relationship
with Israel. Managed by DOE with strong bipartisan support in
Congress, the U.S.-Israel Energy Cooperation Program has set
the stage for long-term strategic cooperation in the
development of new energy technologies.
Now, we know that Israel is a world leader in technological
research and development with expertise in areas such as
cleantech, water resource management, and cyber protection
technologies that may be applicable to our own critical
infrastructure.
So a couple of questions: As DOE increases its investments
in R&D, does the Department have plans to expand its current
programs with Israel? And second, increased investment in R&D
will also serve to improve cybersecurity in the electric power
and natural gas subsectors. And how do you see this benefiting
the region like the Northeast, as you know well, where the
natural gas supplies are constrained during winter months?
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. If I may, by the way, note
April 20 is the day of Lab Day on the Hill for science.
With regard to Israel, first of all, I'm happy to say that
I will be traveling to Israel April the 2nd for a few days.
I'll be hosted by Minister Steinitz, my corresponding Cabinet
member, and we are definitely talking about increasing our
collaboration in energy.
But I might also mention certainly I'm very interested in
carrying forward the discussions we've already started on
looking at the energy-water nexus. Israel is obviously well-
known as a world leader in water management, all types of
energy-efficient water management. It's going to be a great
area for collaboration. So I'm not saying we have something
mapped out yet, but that's an area that we will certainly be
exploring.
On cybersecurity more broadly--there was, of course, a
discussion about some cyber issues in Israel not so long ago,
but here in our program I want to emphasize we continue to have
a very strong emphasis on cybersecurity. All the risks, frankly
to the grid, cyber among them. I just want to emphasize that
overall our budget is up, but in one program, the Office of
Electricity, it went down. But I want to emphasize it's because
with the fiscal year 2016, we finished four discrete projects,
so kind of the fundamentals are there as well.
We also have expanded dramatically our interaction with
industry. The Deputy Secretary chairs an initiative there, and
in fact we've taken the step of doing things like providing
clearances to key members of that industry to be able to share
information. So this is a huge, huge issue, we know, and we
will continue to focus on that quite strongly.
Natural gas, our Quadrennial Energy Review, both the first
installment on energy infrastructure and the second installment
that we are working on now, which is on electricity end-to-end
has a strong look at this because, as we've seen, there have
been projections, of course, of natural gas growing
dramatically in the energy sector. The growth has been even
faster than anticipated, and indeed, in 2016 for the first time
the EIA at least projects that natural gas will have a higher
market share than coal over the entire year. This is an
incredible change.
Now, in looking at that, the QER analyses, interestingly
enough, say that the scale of build-out of the transmission
infrastructure to manage this growth actually does not have to
be any bigger than the current rate, the current rate of build-
out. Partly, that's because of the geographical diversity now
of the sources.
However, there are localized issues--you mentioned New
England--that's the prime example where we continue to work on
the constraints there. There is some development of increasing
capacity, but that's one where we have to keep an eye out.
Ms. Esty. Thank you. And I'll follow up more on the
desalination efforts in the proposal in the budget on that
and----
Secretary Moniz. Yes, we have a de-sal hub proposed in the
budget, yes.
Ms. Esty. Thank you very much, and I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Esty.
And the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized for
his questions.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Moniz, thank you for being here. I'm glad to hear
about the report of natural gas actually replacing coal in the
marketplace or leading--having more of a market share. As
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, that's important to us.
Do you think, just from a practical standpoint--so natural
gas and nuclear for that matter, I guess, would be labeled as
one of the more cleaner energies, I guess, for lack of a better
term? Would you agree with that?
Secretary Moniz. Absolutely.
Mr. Weber. Good. As you probably know, the Golden Pass LNG
plant is actually in--well, you may not know it's in my
district--and it's waiting to export, waiting on permits. The
first DOE permit was first filed in 2012. Now, this project
represents billions of dollars of private investment and
thousands of jobs in Texas and in the nation, and you've
already said natural gas is coming up in the marketplace. I'm
glad to hear that.
FERC--we want to get that permit expedited. They have to
have a permit from FERC. So all of these LNG plans, I would
argue, are critical. Will you commit to working with me to
advance critical infrastructure projects like this, help DOE to
move those projects along and in fact provide timely updates to
me and my staff on those applications and where they stand?
Secretary Moniz. Oh, certainly. We've been, I think, very
transparent and, quite frankly, processing things quite fast
once they have their FERC EIS because----
Mr. Weber. Do you think we can get that done in 30 days
after their EIS is approved?
Secretary Moniz. Well, yes. So the last two years we've
been getting things out between day timescale to month
timescale. So----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --that's our intent.
Mr. Weber. Well, that's----
Secretary Moniz. And, of course, the FTA license was
granted in 2012. It's the non-FTA that's now on the----
Mr. Weber. Right, so you're going to work with us and we
can get those as quickly as possible because, obviously, we'd
like to take--we would like to take advantage of that market
share increase that you're talking about.
Secretary Moniz. I believe FERC's docket shows the EIS
coming up in the summer for this--
Mr. Weber. Okay. Well, that's what we want to hear.
I'm going to jump over to nuclear here now and put my
nuclear hat on. H.R. 4084 is a bill that we passed out of this
committee. Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson were
cosponsors of it, as myself and many others on the Committee
for that matter. And what it does is it--are you aware of that
bill? It instructs the DOE to focus on the next round of
nuclear generators research--I'm sorry, nuclear reactors
research and to be able to partner with private industry to
have the site developed so that we can actually come up with
the next--are you familiar with 4084?
Secretary Moniz. In general terms, not----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --in specifics.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Right.
Mr. Weber. So on February 29 it passed the House by voice
vote. On January the 28th, the Senate language passed as an
amendment by recorded vote of 87 to 4. Now, I bring those
numbers up because that's a pretty substantial backing
bipartisan bill that we would argue, known as the Nuclear
Energy Innovation Capabilities Act.
So do you know about the bill? And I guess I'll put you on
the spot. Do you support that kind of legislation?
Secretary Moniz. Well, again, I don't know the specifics of
the bill, but generally speaking, yes. I believe that nuclear
and innovation in nuclear fission technologies is very
important.
Mr. Weber. Sure, but you agreed with me earlier or you
actually stated an opinion that natural gas and nuclear is
among the cleaner energies.
Secretary Moniz. Yes, yes--no, so I--yes, I totally support
the general objective----
Mr. Weber. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --for sure, yes.
Mr. Weber. So if we can bring in the next round of
reactors, that would be advantageous to us.
Secretary Moniz. And we did provide up to $80 million for
molten salt and for pebble bed development, for example, in
addition to supporting the ongoing work with the small modular
reactor.
Mr. Weber. Right. Well, the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy
supports civilian nuclear R&D for energy and we would argue
national security needs. Now, based on what happened and what's
been happening around the world--and Representative Loudermilk
brought it up earlier what happened in Brussels. We would argue
that we need to be very intense and focused on our national
security, and this is one way that if we're in the lead,
nuclear speaking, then we can help with nonproliferation. So I
would say that for the DOE's, I hope, point of view this is an
important bill that would get you all's support.
Secretary Moniz. Yes. Again, I don't know the specifics of
everything----
Mr. Weber. Sure.
Secretary Moniz. --in the bill, but generally speaking,
absolutely.
I might also add on Friday in China, we dedicated a Center
of Excellence on Nuclear Security----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --that addresses some of those questions
that----
Mr. Weber. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Let me jump over
real quick to, I think, what one of the other members brought
up, the Iran nuclear deal. And even though I wasn't supportive
of that deal and I would say--I forget the number--70 percent
of Americans were not in supportive of that deal, that deal was
struck. And so it's important that we maintain the parameters
of that deal and maintain a strict oversight on the nuclear
deal. And I understand you were instrumental in negotiating the
deal, is that right?
Secretary Moniz. I was certainly heavily involved, yes.
Mr. Weber. I'm sorry?
Secretary Moniz. I was certainly heavily involved.
Mr. Weber. You were heavily involved so you were heavily
invested?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I did spend 19 days straight in
Vienna to----
Mr. Weber. Okay. Well, we want to make sure that you keep
our committee informed with any information on briefings that
we need when you think that deal has been--that the tenets of
that deal have been broached. Will you commit to do that for
us?
Secretary Moniz. I have to say the State Department leads
this with DOE supporting them in terms of keeping the Congress
informed, including on a classified level.
Mr. Weber. Do you have any oversight purview over that
deal? I mean, you're the ``nuclear expert,'' spent 19 days
there. Are you----
Secretary Moniz. By the way, along with Secretary Kerry.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. We were both there for 19 days. The----
Mr. Weber. Did Secretary Kerry go to MIT? I'm just asking.
Secretary Moniz. Not yet.
Mr. Weber. Okay. You're working on him already?
Secretary Moniz. Yes, we're working on it. Right.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. We did both go to Boston College, however.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. But the----
Mr. Weber. Do you have any kind of oversight on that?
Secretary Moniz. Yes, so, again--so the Department of
Energy is the core team in the implementation phase, so the
answer is yes, and I personally remain engaged.
Mr. Weber. Okay. So you will come back to this--if you see
anything that adversely affects that deal and of course our
national security, you would come back to this committee?
Secretary Moniz. We--again, through the state-led process
we will keep the Congress informed, including providing regular
reports typically through the Foreign Affairs Committee, but I
think it's open to all Members of Congress.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
The gentlewoman from Massachusetts, Ms. Clark, is
recognized.
Ms. Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Secretary Moniz, for your leadership and for being here today.
I want to go back to Mission Innovation. And in Paris, the
United States was one of 20 countries that agreed to double
their support for clean energy research and development
activities over the next five years, as you put it, creating a
highly leveraged opportunity for us. And the President's fiscal
year 2017 budget lays out his plan to do just that, but we have
grave concerns about the ability to get that budget through the
House and Senate this year.
How important is it that we meet that goal of doubling our
clean energy R&D over the next five years, and how important is
it to where we stand with climate change?
Secretary Moniz. I think it's very important on multiple
counts. One, it's important objectively as, again, the American
Energy Innovation Council pointed out. They recommended a
tripling.
Ms. Clark. Yes.
Secretary Moniz. We propose this doubling. Number two is I
would say that, as is in many things, you know, the United
States has a special role in leadership, and if we fall down in
meeting our objective, I think that would have significant
deleterious consequences much more broadly in this highly
leveraged situation with other countries and with the private
investors.
And third, I think that, again, even without going into the
specifics of the Paris agreement, et cetera, it is simply a
fact that essentially every country in the world is committed
to pursuing lower carbon fairly aggressively. That means
multitrillion dollar markets are going to be developing even
faster, and we want to keep our innovation edge to take
advantage of those markets.
Ms. Clark. I think that is a critical point, and also going
back to the end of your second point, with the public
investment we saw with Bill Gates leading an effort but, I
believe, 28 investors from 10 different countries, how--if we
don't meet our goals on the public investment side, what do you
think will happen to that private investment?
Secretary Moniz. Well, again, I think it will be very, very
hard to sustain because this was viewed as two complementary
initiative. They're independent in principle but two
complementary initiatives. We open up the innovation pipeline.
They are prepared to put billions in to take advantage of that
expanded pipeline.
Ms. Clark. And what do you think--thinking of American
leadership abroad, you know, if we don't meet this, what do you
think will happen with the other countries' commitments? Do you
think they will continue on, leaving our markets, our
innovation behind, or do you think we'll have a destabilizing
effect?
Secretary Moniz. I think some will and probably some won't,
but some of the bigger ones, to be perfectly honest, I think if
you look at China's initial publications of its 13th five-year
plan--again, I was just there last week, spoke with many
government officials--the first characteristic, all of them
mentioned about the five-year plan was the emphasis on
innovation. So they are going to be pushing on science and
engineering innovation as a foundation of what they are doing
in the next year. So they're going to go ahead in my view as
one example.
Ms. Clark. Yes.
Secretary Moniz. And that's just an example of why we need
to maintain competitive edge, which is innovation.
Ms. Clark. Yes. Well, we certainly believe that in
Massachusetts, and I thank you for your efforts on this, and we
look forward to working with you and also on the Regional
Innovation Centers. I think that will be a critical piece to
establishing our place in this marketplace not only because
climate change has such a huge effect on our economy and our
resiliency, but also because it is an area where we can lead
and really be--create such a viable market for clean energy
products and technologies.
So thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Clark.
And the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
recognized.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. It's
been a joy over the years actually having this interaction----
Secretary Moniz. Quite a few years.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes, it has been.
Secretary Moniz. Right.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Was your hair gray when it started?
Secretary Moniz. I have no comment. I could--no, I won't
dare to ask the same question.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mine wasn't gray.
Just a couple of thoughts here. The--when several of my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle mentioned clean
energy, let's note that there is a differentiation between
clean energy with a definition that's aimed at stopping global
warming versus clean energy that is based on human health.
CO2, which is the target of global warming-
focused energy reforms, CO2 is not in any way a
threat to human health. However, NOx, SOx, and other things in
the air, trying to get them out of the air is certainly
important to people's health and especially those of us who
live in urban areas, as I do, and have children are very
concerned about those pollution factors. So we do want clean
air.
And I want to mention the nuclear energy issue to you in a
moment, but let us note that when you mentioned earlier in your
testimony about the positive nature of going from coal to
natural gas, which is, I think, a very big step forward for
both health and global warming considerations, let us just note
that that would not have happened if the administration, while
trying to stop the production of CO2, would have had
its way in terms of disrupting the evolution in fracking.
Fracking has given us, has it not, a major increase in the
production of natural gas? And so that's if we get in the way
of fracking and we get in the way of basically having a cleaner
air, both for global warming and for people's health. Would you
like to comment on that?
Secretary Moniz. Well, first of all, of course it's a fact
that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing is what's
opened up tremendous amounts of natural gas and oil production
in this country.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Secretary Moniz. But I guess I don't quite understand the
administration comment you made in the sense that, frankly, the
administration has been supportive of these developments with
natural gas. Obviously, there are environmental issues to
address. A lot of those are being done in the states. For
example, Oklahoma has been very concerned over the seismic
issues, which are not from fracking but from water disposal----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --which is where that is coming. So I
think that is a balance between state and federal----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, we believe someone has looked at
that pipeline decision as being something that was based--
fundamentally opposed to fracking and--because that's where
the--that extra oil was going to be coming from.
Let me ask you about nuclear energy here. It has been of
concern to me that as we move forward with--and, by the way, I
would suggest that's the one area that people on both sides of
the global warming issue should be able to agree upon.
But from the Department of Energy under your leadership I
have not seen the shift away from the light-water reactors,
which I believe are naturally dangerous. And we--I've been told
and correct me if I'm wrong--is we do have the capability of
the building reactors now, especially small modular reactors
that are not based on light-water technology. Why are we not
focused on getting away from light-water technology and putting
our money in building a prototype from--of one of these small
modular reactors that is not light-water reactor?
Secretary Moniz. Well, first of all, of course as you know,
we are supporting a light-water reactor small modular reactor--
--
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --to go to design certification this year
at the NRC. But I do want to add that even though it's a light-
water reactor, the safety characteristics are excellent. So we
believe that is a very viable and safe----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Safer----
Secretary Moniz. --technology.
Mr. Rohrabacher. --but not necessarily safe.
Secretary Moniz. Well, it's basically passively safe. Now,
one of the reasons for that focus, our initial small modular
reactor focus was on light-water reactors for the reason that
those are the ones that could move most rapidly to a deployment
because, frankly, it's also on the regulatory side the NRC has
got all the apparatus for licensing now.
Having said that, we just announced a month ago I think
roughly two awards, two consortia involving companies and labs,
et cetera, one on molten salt, which is a design originated in
Oak Ridge in fact some years ago, and another on pebble beds--
--
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --a pebble bed reactor. So we are moving
out on those two alternative technologies.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I appreciate that, and I would just
suggest that the money that we're spending on light-water
reactors is based on the past and we need to look to the
future, and I think that is not based on light-water reactors.
Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
And the gentleman from California, Mr. Swalwell, is
recognized.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Secretary Moniz, for appearing
before the panel.
And just a question about--in multiple prior fiscal years,
Congress has directed DOE to diversify its bioenergy program
and specifically support the development of technologies that
hold the promise of producing energy from municipally derived
biosolids. I believe your office is familiar with this because
the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, EERE, has
yet to follow through on these directives. And our office and
our constituents in the bay area has found this a little bit
frustrating and troubling.
And my staff has been told that finally a DOE funding
announcement for projects promising to develop energy from
municipally derived biosolids is forthcoming this March or
April. First, is that correct, and can you commit today that
such a funding announcement will be made in late March or
April? And what type of total budget is planned for the funding
announcement?
And also, I did want to separately thank you for the very
hard work you did and the participation with our national
laboratories on the Iran nuclear agreement.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. Thank you for that.
First of all, the question of the biosolids, there have
been solicitations where that has been an option but not
singled out and then not always selected. That is correct that
there will be solicitations coming forward. I don't know the
exact day. We can get back to you on that. That will have
biosolids as the research topic. It will also include some SBIR
solicitation for biosolids.
Mr. Swalwell. Great. And do you have any idea as to what
the total budget for what the funding announcement could be?
Secretary Moniz. I think there are three--I don't have an
exact number. There were going to be three pieces that total
roughly $20 million, but I don't--I think the exact breakout of
that will depend upon the three awards.
Mr. Swalwell. Great. Thank you.
And I yield back.
Mr. Rohrabacher. [Presiding.] Mr. Hultgren.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Secretary, always so good to see you and
honestly do appreciate your work and your passion, especially
in our labs. As you know, that's a special passion of mine.
Secretary Moniz. See you on Lab Day.
Mr. Hultgren. Yes, it's going to be great. And boy, our
labs are excited. I know that's going to be very important, so
thank you.
Along with laboratories, also passionate about basic
scientific research, which the Office of Science is doing to
promote innovation and the energy future where America can
lead. We had a good meeting last year with the Labs Caucus
where you talked about the Breakthrough Energy Coalition and
ways which we might be able to work together with Mission
Innovation. I'd hoped the Office of Science would take the lead
on this.
While I think the gimmicks with the mandatory spending
throughout the President's budget were a disappointing reversal
on his negotiated budget with Congress, I hope there are still
some places we can work together.
The Department is asking for $1.2 billion in new spending
throughout the Science and Energy programs. The Office of
Science, with the requested increase of $225 million, is only
about 18 percent of this requested increase. EERE was 68
percent of your requested increase. Quite honestly, I think
this is shortsighted.
AAAS estimates that across the board the President's budget
cuts basic R&D by 2.3 percent while increasing applied research
by 2.8 percent. Maybe you all managed to save some shortsighted
cuts, but I know you can't speak to your deliberations with
OMB.
So my first question is about how we can make our Office of
Science programs better aligned with the private sector be it
the Breakthrough Energy Coalition or anyone else. If OMB passed
back your budget request and told you to realign your increases
so that EERE and Office of Science were flipped, how would you
propose to handle nearly $829 million in new spending? And what
do you think personally the labs need to do to be more nimble
and accessible to the outside?
Secretary Moniz. Well, first of all, let me just comment.
I'm not aware of the specifics of this AAAS scoring, but--and
there may be also a labeling issue for--I just don't know, but
for example, part of the proposal would be to add--even in its
first year--five new Energy Frontier Research Centers. I would
call that use-inspired basic research. I don't know how that is
scored in there.
But I've said earlier that in our increase, our intent
certainly is to weight more towards the earlier stages of R&D,
and science plays an important role in there. There are many
other proposals besides the EFRCs, but I also want to single--
ARPA-E is also very, very important, and has tremendous
results, I think. So anyway--so we will be having strong focus
there.
I also might add that some of the proposal, for example, on
the regional centers was placed in EREE even though it's across
the board. It's not only efficiency and renewables. So we've
already talked with some in Congress about the need to find a
different budget structure for that to reflect the reality.
As far as the labs being nimble, well, I think for one
thing is----
Mr. Hultgren. Can I ask a quick question real quick? So why
didn't some of the basic energy science programs get similar
increases to EERE?
Secretary Moniz. Well, again, there are complicated
dynamics in there. I think what we did is we put in specific
increases that we thought made a lot of sense, including like
the EFRCs and BES, which was one particular area.
But again, look, obviously we're here to discuss with
Congress what is the right mix there. We do want to increase
energy R&D, and we'd like the increases, as I said, to be
weighted towards the earlier stages.
Mr. Hultgren. I just have about 45 seconds left. Let me get
to one other thing if I could real quick, and we'll keep our
conversation going. So thank you.
I'm not sure if you remember I represent Fermilab. Just
kidding.
Secretary Moniz. Do you?
Mr. Hultgren. I'm just kidding. You hear that a lot for me,
but I'm so proud of the great work that they do and really am
honored to be able to represent them. And I do want to thank
you for the time that you've made available to me over the last
months and years.
But I want to just ask you how do you see the
implementation of P5 going, and how have efforts in creating
international collaboration out of LBNF been going? Are we
meeting, exceeding, or behind your expectations in getting
international commitments?
Secretary Moniz. So, first of all, LBNF and P5 LBNF, strong
emphasis, it's the centerpiece. We're on the ramp up for LBNF
and--which does remind one that we hope we don't end up in CR
land again because things like these new projects--things that
go up and go down don't go up in the CR world, so let's hope we
can get to a budget that has priorities in it.
In terms of international, I think the discussions are very
encouraging. I've had discussions myself with two major
countries in the last month, nothing you sign on the dotted
line yet, but I think it's going well. And of course a critical
piece is going to be the whole work with the EU and CERN----
Mr. Hultgren. Yes.
Secretary Moniz. --as a lead investor. But I'm very
optimistic. There's a lot of excitement about this and this is
going to be a great good.
Mr. Hultgren. Well, thank you. That means a lot to us. I
know it means a lot to the physics community. But any way we
can be helpful, I do know this is something that pulls us
together.
Secretary Moniz. Great.
Mr. Hultgren. Ranking Member Foster, Bill Foster and I and
others obviously have met with you and our delegation about the
importance of this and want to thank you for your role, and any
way we can help with that, we certainly want to do that. My
time is well past expired.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren.
And the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Foster, is recognized.
Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Secretary Moniz, for appearing today to discuss
DOE's science budget. And I look forward also to having
hearings on the Republican budget proposal. But I also would
like to thank Secretary Moniz for his work on the Iran nuclear
deal.
I have personally found the DOE extremely supportive in
responding to Member requests for detailed briefings on this. I
think I had more than a dozen classified briefings on this,
many of them individual briefings, and I found--where I've had
access to the DOE experts in weapons and nonproliferation. And
so I just want to say that we really got our question answered
in whatever detail we ask, and I want to thank you for that.
I'd also like echo the sentiments of my colleague Mr.
Hultgren and take the opportunity to thank you once again for
meeting with the Illinois and South Dakota delegations of both
the House and Senate to reiterate your support for the Long-
Baseline Neutrino Facility. Your support for this is very much
appreciated. I was somewhat disappointed to see that LBNF
received less than they need to to move forward at full
schedule, but I trust that you and DOE are still supportive of
this project?
Secretary Moniz. Oh, yes, and my impression is that the
budget proposal will allow them to move forward quite nicely.
Mr. Foster. Yes, the civil part was, I think, adequately
funded. There was some--I think some of the approval is pending
the international contribution----
Secretary Moniz. Oh, yes, but again, Congressman Foster, no
bones about it, I mean, this is a high-priority project, the
highest-priority project certainly in particle physics.
Mr. Foster. Yes.
Secretary Moniz. And if I may add something----
Mr. Foster. So your comments on the CR, I think, are very
relevant----
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. Foster. --as well.
Secretary Moniz. Yes. And if I may add, I just want to
thank you for the interest you took in the Iran deal. Using
your physics background was really important, and we really are
appreciative.
Mr. Foster. Thank you. I also want to thank you for your
supportive words about Argonne's Advanced Photon Source to Mr.
Lipinski, and I look forward to continuing to work with my
colleagues to make sure that the APS upgrade has the necessary
funds to complete the upgrade on time.
I was pleased to be joined by 11 of my colleagues,
Democrats and Republicans, on a letter to the Appropriations
Committee in support of full funding for the APS upgrade, so
that's on our radar screen as well.
Let's see. One thing having to do with--you know, there's
this report that's due out, I think, in May having to do with a
way forward on ITER. And so I was wondering what sort of plan--
we could find ourselves in one of two places on that, one--a
positive indication of the letter will, I think, cause most
people to think that the amount of money we're spending on ITER
is too low to, you know, complete the project on the proposed
schedule.
On the other hand, if we decide to withdraw, I think that
some money will have--rapidly have to be reprogrammed. And so
in the context of a CR, that could be very painful either way
you have to adjust it. I was wondering if there's contingency
planning underway in DOE to understand how you'd respond to
this?
Secretary Moniz. I am just, in fact, kicking off exactly
that kind of planning for the two possible directions because
frankly, we're going to be quite compressed in time with the
technical report and review in April and then the May 2 report
due to the Congress. So I think we're going to have to stay
close on this and respond appropriately.
Certainly going forward, as you implied, the U.S.
obligation of roughly nine percent of the project for both
capital and operating is likely to require, you know, a
significant increase in the scale of the fusion budget.
Mr. Foster. And now to----
Secretary Moniz. If one goes forward, I mean.
Mr. Foster. And now to change subjects rather
significantly, how much effort is being put into the use--to
the prospect of using naval propulsion systems with, say, 20
percent enriched uranium as a way to really--you know, if that
became the international standard for things like naval
propulsion? It would be very positive for nonproliferation. And
how much effort are we putting into that?
Secretary Moniz. I would say modest. It is being looked at,
but it's in the early stages frankly because there's a major
focus on, first, the new power plants for the Ford-class
aircraft carriers, those are now done. The first one went
critical last year, and the Ford will sail in the next few
months. And now there's also the power plant for the next--the
Ohio-class replacements to submarines----
Mr. Foster. So are there alternative----
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. Foster. --designs being developed for the use of less
enriched uranium or is that not likely to happen?
Secretary Moniz. I would say there's early-stage work for a
future generation potential LEU power plant.
Mr. Foster. Okay. Well, thank you.
I guess my time is expired, and I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Foster.
And the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman, is
recognized for his questions.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Secretary, for being here today.
In the budget request for the Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy, the proposed budget for the bioenergy program
is increased by 24 percent and is largely focused on research
and development on a drop in biofuels and algae feedstocks to
lower the cost of biofuels without increasing the cost of food
or disrupting agriculture.
While the budget mentions the Biomass Research and
Development Board, the collaborative effort with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Environmental
Protection--or the Environmental Protection Agency to make sure
efforts made across the government are coordinated, there is no
mention of collaboration with the Forest Service to assess the
biomass potential for our forests.
So I've got a forestry degree and an engineering degree, so
forestry and energy are two things that I like to talk about.
And if we look just on federal lands last year, we had ten
million acres of forest go up in smoke. If you put that on an
energy equivalent using Forest Service data, that's a lot of
BTUs converted back. And to put it in terms of something we
understand, it's about 26 billion gallons of gasoline is the
equivalent of the energy that went up on our national forests.
That's about 19 percent of all the gasoline used in our country
each year.
So I'm going to go out to the Berkeley Lab and visit it
later this week. I'm looking forward to that, and I hope
they're going to tell me they're doing a lot of research on
forest biomass to drop in fuels. But has the Department
explored working with the Forest Service or our research
universities to incorporate forest biomass into the DOE
research and development portfolio?
Secretary Moniz. Our program does work with the Forest
Service on woody biomass. I'd have to check this, but I think
we are spending something around $20 million in the woody
biomass area. I'll have to check that. A large focus is on
combustion, and I think co-firing and these kinds of things,
some work on conversion to biofuels, but I can get back to you
with a more detailed answer.
But we do work with the Forest Service. We have a woody
biomass program, and I'll get you the details.
Mr. Westerman. And I'm familiar, you know, making pellets
out of wood, which is not the most efficient way to use it----
Secretary Moniz. Right.
Mr. Westerman. --maybe, but if we're doing research on any
kind of biomass, it seems like, you know, just on federal lands
we had ten million acres burn up, and that doesn't even start
to touch the amount of thinning that needs to be done on our
federal forests. If you throw in private lands, the potential
for a fuel source if we could come up with a feasible way to
convert that to--or to a liquid fuel----
Secretary Moniz. Liquid fuels, yes.
Mr. Westerman. --it's tremendous. So it seems to me like it
would be prudent to put more money into research biomass to
biofuels.
Secretary Moniz. Well, I was just told that, yes, $22
million in woody biomass so--but why don't we get back to you
with the program specifics.
Mr. Westerman. Okay. I appreciate that.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Westerman.
And the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is
recognized for her questions.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Moniz, welcome back to the Committee.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
Ms. Bonamici. My State of Oregon is a leader in the effort
to establish a marine renewable energy industry in the United
States, and we're proud to host the Department of Energy-funded
Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center that's co-
managed by Oregon State University, the University of
Washington, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The center
is working with the national labs and private sector technology
developers to provide research and testing capabilities.
In addition, Oregon State University is developing a DOE-
funded offshore wave energy testing facility so innovators in
the United States will have access to a domestic testing
facility rather than going overseas.
Now, I understand that the DOE estimates that up to 20
percent of the electricity requirements of Oregon, along with
California and Washington, could come from marine renewable
energy resources. In places like Alaska and Hawaii, that could
be up to 100 percent.
Over the years, the wind and solar industries have received
substantial and ongoing federal research and demonstration
funding support. That's gone on for decades and it's resulted
in the maturation, cost competitiveness, and rapid development
and deployment of these technologies. The marine energy
industry needs the same kind of sustained federal assistance to
help private companies have that certainty they need to develop
promising technologies that are really on the verge of
commercial viability.
So, Mr. Secretary, I've been an ongoing supporter of water
power and the programs, so I've led appropriations letters and
amendments requesting increase support for research.
The fiscal year 2016 omnibus bill called for the creation
of a new Water Power Technologies Office, so will you please
provide an update on the efforts underway to set up the office
and select a Director?
And then also I wanted you to also address this issue. I
appreciate including in the funding for fiscal year 2017 a
request to continue the construction of an offshore wave energy
test facility, but my understanding is that the amount of
funding proposed by the Administration, along with the cost-
share requirements, is not enough to construct a robust and
sufficiently sized facility.
So will you please also elaborate on the budget proposals
requested funding level? Going forward, will the Department
participate in discussions with interested stakeholders to
develop a plan that will truly ensure successful deployment of
this very promising wave energy test facility?
Secretary Moniz. I think the answer is yes, certainly to
the last question. So, as you indicated, I think the budget for
marine and hydrokinetic is about a 25 percent increase proposed
within the open water test facility as a central piece of that.
Certainly my understanding is that that has been developed in
considerable discussion with industry stakeholders in terms of
what are these test requirements.
In terms of the scale, I think the issue is that this
budget in fiscal year 2017 would support the design phase
leading them to a kind of go/no go decision in terms of actual
construction. That's my understanding, but why don't I clarify
that and will get back to on that?
Ms. Bonamici. I appreciate that. And then was that in
response to the Water Power Technologies Office?
Secretary Moniz. Oh, again, if I may get back to you for
the record on that because----
Ms. Bonamici. Sure.
Secretary Moniz. --to be honest, I'm not quite sure where
that stands.
Ms. Bonamici. All right. Thank you very much, Mr.
Secretary, and I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr.----
Secretary Moniz. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just given a note
from--by my staff, if I may, that an announcement just went out
for a new Director hiring for the water power program.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much.
Secretary Moniz. I wasn't aware that. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Okay. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin,
is recognized.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you, Mr. Secretary, for being here.
My question regards the fossil R&D budget proposal, which
included a $240 million reduction of funds from the Clean Coal
Power Initiative, or the CCPI projects to meet the total budget
requirements for fiscal year 2017. This effectively pulled the
remaining funding for the Texas Clean Energy Project, or TCEP,
a coal gasification project with longstanding bipartisan
support.
At the same time the budget touts Mission Innovation funds
within the fossil R&D program as ``doubling federal clean
energy research and development investments.'' Does the
administration no longer consider CCPI projects like the Summit
Power Group's Texas Clean Energy Project 400 megawatt coal
gasification plant as a ``clean'' energy? Isn't this just the
sort of project that is exactly what the administration
promised would be the result of Mission Innovation?
It is my understanding that the company had every
indication from DOE that they were moving forward, only to be
told as the budget was released that the entirety of the
remaining funding for the project was being repurposed in this
year's proposal.
I'm sure that you're aware that the Texas delegation sent
out a bipartisan letter to you last week asking for specifics
on the Department's interactions with TCEP. And without
objection, Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter this letter into
the record.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears in Appendix II]
Mr. Babin. And can you provide any additional information,
Mr. Secretary, on why this decision was made with practically--
virtually no notice?
Secretary Moniz. Yes, sir. First of all, I want to
emphasize this was a programmatic choice, but you asked several
questions. Number one is, yes, this is a Clean Energy Project,
as are all of the carbon capture utilization and sequestration
projects.
Number two, we remain committed to having a strong program
in this arena. And in fact, there are three large-scale capture
projects that are either operating already or will be operating
two more within a year. That includes the Petra Nova project in
Texas with a coal combustion plant.
The issue with the Summit project, the TCEP project, is
that frankly, after a long time of us trying to support them--
because, by the way, the program and I think this is a good
project. I mean, it's--conceptually, it's a great project. The
trouble is they've been unable to meet many of their key
milestones.
This discussion has been ongoing. They have had, I don't
know, five or so transfers of phase 2 funding to phase 1. The
program has gone out of its way to help. I personally was
recruited to meet with the Chinese Exim Bank head twice. The
program met in December with the CEO of the program. They asked
for a financial plan. It was not forthcoming, and the program
finally decided it was time to move on, giving, however, a no-
cost extension to May to still give some time for the project
to try to reach its milestones.
So I think this has been an ongoing, longstanding
discussion, and the fact of the matter is critical milestones
are way overdue and are still not met.
Mr. Babin. Okay. Well, I hear that, but one concerning
thing is that the Department of Energy continually cites these
failures to secure engineering and performance contracts as one
of the major missed milestones, but in fact these contracts
were publicly signed in December and January, and the December
signing ceremony was in Beijing, even had DOE officials in
attendance at that ceremony.
Secretary Moniz. There has been EPC contract progress;
partial, not complete, and the whole issue of financial close
has certainly not been addressed. Again, we're not happy about
it, but at some point the question was to move on, and in fact
what the program is proposing is to repurpose those funds into
new, innovative technologies at a smaller scale, chemical
looping, oxy-combustion alternative approaches. So that's where
the program has come down.
Mr. Babin. Well, and I appreciate what you're saying.
You're for the concept because the concept here, this project
would store 90 percent of the CO2 emitted. And
carbon capture and storage is something that I think is the
goal of this administration and of your department.
Secretary Moniz. And we do have three large demonstration
projects that will do that as well.
Mr. Babin. Okay. Thank you, and I yield back.
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Babin.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Veasey, is recognized.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I have similar questions that I want to ask
you, but first, let me also take the time to submit a letter to
the record regarding the Texas Clean Energy Project. The Texas
Clean Air Task Force, Natural Resources Defense Council, the
Great Plains Institute, Third Way, the Center for Climate and
Energy Solutions also sent a letter of support praising the
potential for CO2 capture.
And also, Mr. Secretary, I wanted you to know that in
addition to the Texas delegation letter of support that was
just mentioned, the Washington State delegation and other
environmental organizations will also be sending letters of
support asking for DOE's consideration.
Chairman Smith. Okay. And without objection, those letters
will be made a part of the record.
[The information appears on Appendix II]
Mr. Veasey. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Also, Mr. Moniz, let me ask you about just being able to
work with Congress to find a fair and transparent way to
approach this project. And you just kind of--and you kind of
touched on it a little bit but can you delve into that just a
little bit more?
Secretary Moniz. Well, as I said, I mean, the program,
first of all, has taken many, many steps to help the project to
be able to reach its goals. Most especially, financial closure
has not happened. The--so the--but the program, again, gave the
extension into May, the no-cost extension, to provide more
time. If they were to meet milestones in that period,
obviously, we would be going back to work with the project. But
at some point we need performance.
There's no--no one questions the desirability of the
project as a project design, its objectives, its goals. That
isn't the issue. But the program decided it was just time to
move on and to invest in some new innovative technologies
because of the lack of milestones being met.
Chairman Smith. Would the gentleman from Texas yield just
for a minute?
Mr. Veasey. Yes.
Chairman Smith. Secretary Moniz, just a follow-up on your--
on that statement, it seems to me that in a budget of the size
of the Department of Energy and with all the agreement we have
on the necessity for research and development in certain areas,
that the Department might be able to take another look at that
project and find some additional funds. We're just talking
about several million dollars on a yearly basis, and I hope the
Secretary would consider doing that.
Secretary Moniz. We will--okay. We will certainly--I will
certainly go back and----
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --talk with the program about that.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I
appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Veasey.
Mr. Veasey. Oh, absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
Also, most of the questions I wanted to ask, they were
already covered, but I did want to ask you just one more thing
and that is about EOR, enhanced oil recovery. You know, with
carbon capture being a part of the question that I asked you
earlier, what do you think of the future of EOR?
Secretary Moniz. Well, EOR is a--has been extremely
important, as you--I think in--you may know there's a lot of
CO2 flooding right now producing oil. The--a real
issue has been the substantial drop in the oil price has made
the EOR benefit less consequential for the overall economics.
But the potential is dramatic.
There's a report now, it's quite old, it's more than a
decade old that said that, conceivably, the United States could
reach two to three million barrels of oil per day from CO2
flooding, and that would require hundreds of megatons of
CO2 per year that would have to be found from
commercial plants.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Palmer. [Presiding] The Chair now recognizes Mr. Takano
from Hawaii.
Mr. Takano. California.
Mr. Palmer. California, I'm sorry. Hawaii, California.
Mr. Takano. That's the other Mr. Takano.
Mr. Palmer. Sorry.
Mr. Takano. Other Mr. Takei.
Mr. Palmer. Takei. Okay. For five minutes.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for being here.
You know my own home State of California has a 1.3 gigawatt
energy storage mandate, and utilities must procure 50 percent
of their energy from renewables by 2030. As a Californian and
the co-Chair of the bipartisan Battery Energy Storage Caucus, I
am very interested in supporting this technology.
It was recently announced that the Advanced Research Energy
Projects-Energy, ARPA-E, made a big breakthrough in battery
storage technology and have reached some holy grails in
batteries. Can you talk a little bit about this breakthrough
and how research and development dollars are so critical to
fostering this type of high-risk technology?
Secretary Moniz. Well, certainly, the--first of all,
storage is a critical technology and potential game-changer, so
we're all on the same page with that. And in fact in this
budget there is substantial increased support for storage, both
grid storage and mobile vehicle storage. The goals are--include
things like doubling energy density while halving the costs, so
they're pretty aggressive goals. I think we're making excellent
progress towards them.
And there are a variety of technologies being looked at. I
think what you're referring to, I believe, is a flow battery
advance that is still not quite at the holy grail but it's
very, very, very encouraging.
Mr. Takano. Great. I know you've already talked about
renewable energy and the grid, and could you talk a little bit
more about the Department of Energy's Grid Modernization
Initiative, and what about--and what the grid of the future
looks like? And how does the budget request help us get there?
Secretary Moniz. So the Grid Modernization Initiative is
the so-called crosscut that--for which we have the largest
increase proposed because we think it is so central. We have a
lot of infrastructures that depend upon the grid infrastructure
for their operations. So it's absolutely central.
So the Grid Modernization Initiative I would say at high
level it certainly advances the technologies that one needs for
a much more sophisticated set of sensors, IT data integration,
real-time modeling of the grid for reliability and resilience
and for connecting potentially very geographically diverse
sources and loads. It will also go through the distribution
system. We have a strong focus on the systems analysis, how do
you put all of this together in a way that operates, again,
emphasizing resilience and reliability.
I might also add it will address the spectrum of risks from
cyber to physical to geomagnetic disturbances. We have a
program on EMP going on with Oak Ridge and EPRI, so it's a
pretty comprehensive program looking at this grid of the
future, which will need to serve in a very different way,
particularly if distributed generation becomes a large part of
the picture.
Mr. Takano. Distributed generation meaning not so
centralized?
Secretary Moniz. The generation more at the load themselves
like, for example, rooftop solar would be----
Mr. Takano. That's a good example----
Secretary Moniz. --a clear example----
Mr. Takano. --of distributed----
Secretary Moniz. Distributed generation. Right.
Mr. Takano. You know, in light of the events--you mentioned
kind of the different kinds of threats to the grid. In light of
the events in the Ukraine where it appears that a coordinated
cyber attack was successfully carried out on the country's
electric grid, how is DOE prioritizing research in grid
security?
Secretary Moniz. Quite high. I mean, cybersecurity is a
very, very serious threat, and I can say that the energy
infrastructure is a target of many cyber attacks, and those are
increasing year by year. So we have programs looking at new
technology approaches. We have programs looking at working with
the utilities directly in terms of their cyber defenses.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is up. Thank
you.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Grayson from Florida.
Mr. Grayson. Thank you. I'd like to ask you, Mr. Secretary,
some big-picture questions about fusion energy. As it safe to
say that fusion energy is possible? In other words, it's not a
like a perpetual motion machine, it's not like traveling faster
than the speed of light? It's possible that we could have
sustainable fusion energy reactors, right?
Secretary Moniz. Absolutely.
Mr. Grayson. All right. So it's been 50 years since we
started trying and we've spent, oh, probably more than $50
billion trying to accomplish this. Why hasn't it happened yet?
Secretary Moniz. It is extremely difficult. The--certainly
in confined plasma approaches, you know, the kinds of
temperatures and--that are reached are extraordinary and we
have materials issues, we have instability issues, and while
there has been a lot of progress in terms of increasing the
density of plasmas, we're not anywhere near there. We've not
achieved ignition whether it's in confined plasma or in ICF.
Mr. Grayson. So what do we----
Secretary Moniz. And I might add that ARPA-E did put out a
program which tried to open up a new frontier in some sense
intermediate between inertial confined fusion and magnetically
confined plasmas.
Mr. Grayson. And the status of that?
Secretary Moniz. I'm sorry?
Mr. Grayson. The status of that?
Secretary Moniz. The work is--the awards were made last
year, and they're typically three-year awards. The research is
going on right now.
Mr. Grayson. What percentage of the fusion budget is now
being spent on ITER--the ITER project?
Secretary Moniz. Well, the ITER--the appropriation this
year for ITER is $115 million, and the total fusion budget--I
forgot exactly but it's 200 and something. It's probably, I'm
guessing, 40 percent, something like that.
Mr. Grayson. All right. Maybe not putting all of our eggs
in one basket but aren't we putting an awful lot of eggs in
that one basket?
Secretary Moniz. Well, certainly, it's a large fraction of
the budget. It's actually below the nine percent that ITER
calls for. As you know, we have a report due to Congress on May
2 on making a recommendation on what path to take with ITER,
and that will be based in turn, among other things, on a
technical review report due in April. So I think, you know,
obviously the Congress has called for a decision point, and in
May we will be providing a report.
Mr. Grayson. What would be some of the economic and social
impacts if you were able to solve this problem, we had feasible
fusion reaction?
Secretary Moniz. Well, of course, I just want to emphasize
that feasible here in the end does also require an economic
test in terms of its being competitive in the--in a low-carbon
marketplace. Certainly if that's the case, fusion has the
advantage of not having some of the waste challenges that one
has in fission, for example, and it could provide a major
baseload power source.
Mr. Grayson. What do you mean by the issue that you just--
the waste? Be more specific about that, please.
Secretary Moniz. Well, in fission the dominant part of the
waste are the fission products that remain the challenge for a
few hundred years typically. And so it's very, very radioactive
and also very temperature hot as well, at least initially,
whereas in fusion where one is dealing with very light
elements, you do not have anything like the fission products.
You clearly have materials that have been irradiated by
neutrons, you know, that need to be D&D'ed at the end of the
life of the reactor, but it's nothing like the long-term
radioactivity of fission-spent fuel.
Mr. Grayson. Do you picture the operating costs, not the
capital costs but the operating costs of a fusion reactor to be
high, low, or very, very low?
Secretary Moniz. I just don't know until we see what the
technology is. I just--as you said, it's been 50 years but I
think we still can't answer that question.
Mr. Grayson. Well, a couple decades ago NASA was running
into a problem with giant white elephant projects, and they
decided to go by a different route that they refer to as
faster, better, and cheaper. Do you think that that tells us
anything about where we should be going with fusion?
Secretary Moniz. Well, first of all, there's no way around
the fact that in fusion you're going to have to, one way or
another, confine a nuclei in a challenging way.
Now, what is interesting in my view is that there are about
50 companies in the United States pursuing nuclear
technologies, most of them fission but some of them fusion.
Some of them have been prominently displayed on the front cover
of a popular magazine, for example, two months ago.
Mr. Grayson. All right. My time is up. Thank you.
Secretary Moniz. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Palmer. I now recognize myself for questions. Mr.
Moniz, in February of this year a report surfaced that you,
along with other senior department officials, are using private
email accounts to conduct official work-related business. Have
you ever transmitted sensitive or classified information over
your private email?
Secretary Moniz. Certainly not, but I do need to clarify. I
believe there's a little bit of a--just to make sure we're
talking about the same thing. At DOE I have two accounts, one
of which is ``my private account'' that I get emails directly
to and another which is, frankly, the public-facing account,
which gets screened by the Executive Secretary. So--the--but
those are both DOE accounts.
On the occasions when--if I get an email to my personal,
personal account that's relevant to DOE business, I copy it to
the government accounts so that there's a record of all--of
everything.
Mr. Palmer. So you're testifying that you've got two
official accounts----
Secretary Moniz. At DOE----
Mr. Palmer. --at DOE----
Secretary Moniz. --correct.
Mr. Palmer. --and that occasionally you've used your
personal account? Have you ever transmitted classified--
Secretary Moniz. Absolutely not.
Mr. Palmer. --sensitive data over your personal account?
Secretary Moniz. Absolutely not. And everything----
Mr. Palmer. Right.
Secretary Moniz. And everything is--if that comes in--
mostly coming-in mail, then I copy it and any response into my
DOE--in my DOE account----
Mr. Palmer. Do----
Secretary Moniz. --so there'll be a complete government
record.
Mr. Palmer. Do other members of--or officials in the
Department of Energy use personal email accounts to your
knowledge?
Secretary Moniz. To my knowledge, no. Again, with--no, at
least not--if--again, we can't avoid receiving an email----
Mr. Palmer. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --but then the direction is everything has
to be copied to the government account.
Mr. Palmer. Well, that's interesting because the--are you
aware of this report about federal agencies and particularly
DOE and FERC using personal emails for business?
Secretary Moniz. My understanding--I've not seen the
report, but my understanding is that was this confusion over
having the two emails----
Mr. Palmer. Well, it's not just you----
Secretary Moniz. --in DOE.
Mr. Palmer. --it's some of the officials at DOE.
Secretary Moniz. To my knowledge, no one is using personal
email for government business without having it in the
government record.
Mr. Palmer. Without having it in the government record.
Title 44 covers that and requires that if you do use a personal
email account that you've got to copy that to your government
account within 20 days. Do you have a policy to ensure that any
employee who may use a personal email account complies with the
law?
Secretary Moniz. I--well, I assume since it's the law that
it is a policy, but I'd have to check with general counsel in
terms of how explicitly we have that. But I can assure you with
me it's 20 seconds.
Mr. Palmer. That's very reassuring, and we're all grateful
for that.
Secretary Moniz. Right.
Mr. Palmer. I do think, though, that considering the
reports that are out there and considering what's going on in
other agencies and it is going on in other agencies--and the
reason I bring this up is that we've had this come up with--I'm
on the Oversight Committee. It's come up with this. One of the
things that I'm trying to do is ensure that we protect our
information systems and particularly our most sensitive
information systems.
As we've had some discussions here--I think Mr. Grayson
raised this about some of the things--or I think it was you
that says it shows up in some of the Popular Science or
whatever magazines. But there are some things that need to be
protected, and----
Secretary Moniz. And, sir, I'm happy, by the way--I'll go
back and check with the counsel, and we're happy to reinforce
the guidelines to everyone. Again, I don't know of any issue,
but we can reinforce that.
Mr. Palmer. Well, the reason I'm bringing this up is that
the same information that we had made the claim that there was
a FOIA request that the department officials declined to
respond to because it involved information transmitted over
your private email account. Now, private email account, can you
distinguish between the two accounts that you have at the
Department of Energy? Is--one of those might be considered a
private account versus your personal email account?
Secretary Moniz. The--again, the--one account at the
Department of Energy is private in the sense that that----
Mr. Palmer. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. --email address is certainly not available
to the public, but it is a government account. It is completely
a government account.
Mr. Palmer. Are you aware of anyone in your department
refusing to comply with a FOIA request?
Secretary Moniz. I am not aware of it, no. I'd have to
check with the General Counsel.
Mr. Palmer. Can you check with the General Counsel and get
back with us----
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. --and we can submit some very specific
questions that you can respond to. So we would like to know
whether or not there had been a FOIA request that involved any
of your email accounts in which the Department did not respond.
And so if you could do that, we'll get the questions to you,
and we'd like an answer, I think, within 10 days. Would that be
sufficient?
Secretary Moniz. I would think so. I will--again, I'll talk
to my counsel.
Mr. Palmer. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. Well, I'd like to thank the witness for his
testimony and the members for their questions. The record will
remain open for two weeks for additional written comments and
written questions from members.
This hearing is adjourned.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
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