House spending bill targets renewable energy programs for cuts

By Associated Press, Published: July 10

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are proposing to slash money for renewable energy research and defy the Obama administration’s decision to close the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in a bare-bones annual spending bill for energy and water programs.

The bill has little support in the Democratic-led Senate and faces a White House veto, but makes clear just how far apart the two parties are on policy and budgetary matters.

The legislation would approve $30.4 billion for Energy Department programs, including nuclear weapons maintenance, almost $3 billion below the amount approved last year. It would cut spending for renewable energy programs by half.

The House could vote late Wednesday on the legislation, which is expected to pass.

The House bill, one of 12 spending bills Congress is supposed to pass every year to pay for the operations of 15 Cabinet departments and other federal agencies, would approve $30.4 billion for energy and water programs, Army Corps of Engineers projects and Energy Department nuclear weapons security programs in the 2014 budget year starting in October. That’s $2.9 billion below what was enacted for 2013, before the automatic cuts or sequestration kicked in, and $4.1 billion below what President Barack Obama asked for in his budget proposal.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a $34.8 billion energy and water bill.

Budget restrictions the Republican House is adhering to, including prospects for a second year of automatic cuts, “made for some very difficult decisions,” said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., chairman of the appropriations panel that determines Energy Department spending levels. He said he expected the private sector to take up some of the slack in applied energy research and development.

Money for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs would be cut to less than $1 billion, while the budget for research into futuristic energy technologies would plummet some $195 million from the pre-sequester 2013 level to $70 million.

The bill provides $450 million for fossil fuel research and $656 million for nuclear energy, down about 16 percent and 14 percent respectively from 2013. The national Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department agency responsible for managing the nuclear weapons stockpile, would get $11.3 billion, down about $236 million from the current year. Frelinghuysen noted that there was no money in the bill to implement Obama’s recent pledge to reduce the nuclear stockpile.

The bill, said Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, top Democrat on the energy and water subcommittee, “abandons America’s quest for energy independence, which has the potential to create millions of new jobs.”

Democrats failed in several attempts to shift money from the nuclear weapons budget to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.

“The priorities that are in this bill are dead wrong,” said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., questioning the $7.6 billion budget for nuclear weapons when he can’t get Army Corps assistance to prevent floods that threaten his northern California district.

The bill would bar the Army Corps and Environmental Protection Agency from updating Clean Water Act regulations on non-navigable waters and on materials, including mining waste, that enter waterways. Democrats tried to remove that provision but failed.

The White House has already issued a blanket veto threat against all House spending bills, saying the House and Senate must work out a budgetary framework that better supports the nation’s needs. Specifically, it said in its veto threat that the energy and water bill “drastically underfunds critical investments that develop American energy sources to build a clean and secure energy future.”

The bill would set aside $25 million to sustain the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project despite attempts by the administration to cut off money for the project. An amendment to redirect that money to another purpose was defeated. Lawmakers who support the project say there is yet no viable alternative for storing nuclear waste.

The energy and water bill would be the third of the 12 appropriations bills that the House has passed. The Senate has yet to pass one. With lawmakers off in August it appears certain Congress will once again have to come up with a stopgap spending measure in September to avoid a government shutdown.

Reaching a budget compromise to keep the government running will not be easy. Senate Democrats passed a budget in March, unacceptable to Republicans, that calls for new taxes and spending cuts to replace sequestration. Democrats and the White House, meanwhile, oppose Republican demands that a higher debt ceiling this autumn be linked to more spending cuts.

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