Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I must rise in opposition to the amendment.

I appreciate the gentleman's passion for coastal restoration. I know it is a high priority for his district, his State, and, in fact, for the country.

The committee often hears complaints that projects take too long and cost too much to build, in large part attributed to inefficient funding. If that is true, then the only responsible way to allow for new starts is to finish understanding the impacts of the selected new starts on the Corps' future budget requirements and on the expected costs and timelines of ongoing projects. Unfortunately, we do not have that information, and the administration has shown no willingness to provide it.

The fiscal year 2014 act allowed for a limited number of new construction starts, with the requirement that the administration provide information to show that these projects would be affordable at reasonable construction account levels and that these new projects would not unduly delay or increase the cost of ongoing projects.

To say that the so-called analysis from the administration was inadequate would be an understatement. And no information at all was provided for the new start proposed in the fiscal year 2015 budget request.

Additionally, the administration continues to propose budgets with significant cuts to the construction account, including a 32 percent cut for fiscal year 2015. In fact, several individual projects authorized in the recent WRRDA are each estimated to cost more than what the administration requested for the entire nationwide construction program. Clearly, as promising as some new projects may be, it would be fiscally irresponsible to initiate new projects with no information on the impact of doing so.

I understand that some Members with authorized projects in their districts are anxious to get construction underway. I also understand, however, that many Members with projects already under construction in their districts want to see those projects completed and to start realizing the benefits of these Federal, State, and local investments.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment.

First, though, let me assure my colleague that I am sympathetic to the need for increased construction funding. In fact, the underlying bill increases construction funding by almost $50 million above fiscal year 2014 and by almost $600 million, or 52 percent above the budget request.

While I understand there is always more that can be done, we could shift the entire expenses account to construction, and there still would be more that needs to be done.

Although it may seem like an easy offset here on the floor, Members should recognize that a $50 million cut to the expenses account cannot be sustained in conference. Funding for the expenses account in the underlying bill already reflects a 2 percent reduction from fiscal year 2014 and a 4 percent reduction from fiscal year 2012.

For those reasons, I must oppose the amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment. Let me assure my colleague, though, that I agree with him about the importance of making investments in navigation and flood control infrastructure.

In fact, a lot of the problem was trying to find an offset for $47 million, and as the gentleman knows, it is very difficult because there are things in this bill that are very important to at least someone within this body.

Because of the importance of navigation and flood control, that is why the underlying bill increases funding for MR&T by 6 percent above the President's budget request and focuses funding, such that navigation is increased by 21 percent and flood control by 15 percent above the budget request.

While I understand that there is almost always more that can be done, we must balance several competing activities within the Energy and Water bill. The amendment would reduce the EERE account, which is already cut by $113 million below last year's level and $528 million below the President's budget request.

So while we did increase funding for the MR&T account above the President's request, the EERE account is already $528 million below the budget's request by the administration. Within the EERE account, the funding the bill preserves is just as important as the funding it cuts.

The bill focuses funding for three main priorities: helping American manufacturers remain competitive, supporting weatherization assistance programs, and addressing future high gas prices.

This funding supports breakthrough research to reduce what Americans pay at the gas pump and to help our companies compete in the global market, which creates jobs here at home.

For these reasons, while I sympathize with what the gentleman is trying to do with the amendment and tried to help on crafting an amendment that we can find $47 million for, I must oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment, but let me assure my colleagues that I agree with her about the importance of sufficient maintenance of our Nation's water resources infrastructure, including our waterways. It seems like the amendments that Members are offering, I agree with them; however, there are challenges that they face.

I also agree that since the harbor maintenance tax is collected for a specific purpose and since the need for dredging is apparent, we should be using these funds for their intended purpose to the greatest extent possible rather than allowing a balance to accumulate in the trust fund. That is an issue we have been dealing with for the last several years, trying to figure out how we can do that without harming all of the other programs within the budget. Unfortunately, that is what they do. Until we change our budget rules or something, and I don't have the answer to it yet, but we have been trying to work with the Budget Committee and with the Appropriations Committee to try to make sure that those taxes collected for the harbor maintenance trust fund are used for what they are intended to do. And if the account is just growing, then we shouldn't be collecting the tax.

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Mr. SIMPSON. I know that is what it sounds like. In fact, the bill continues to increase funding for harbor maintenance trust fund activities above the previous year and above the budget request, as the committee has repeatedly done over the past few years. The bill includes more than $1.1 billion for these activities, which equates to more than a 20 percent increase over the amount requested by the administration for fiscal year 2015. While I understand that there is almost always more work that can be done, we must balance several competing activities within the Energy and Water bill.

The amendment would reduce the nuclear energy account by $12.8 million, which would bring the account below the fiscal year 2014 level. The underlying bill provides a total of $899 million for nuclear energy programs, only $10 million above last year. That is what seems strange about this, doing what we all think is the right thing to do using the harbor maintenance trust fund to do harbor maintenance. By increasing that, we hurt nuclear energy, which I don't think is the intent of the gentlelady or the gentleman from Louisiana who want to do this.

In addition to protecting the Department of Energy's nuclear energy materials, this funding protects a range of national security programs at the NNSA, Department of Homeland Security, and other Federal agencies. Furthermore, I oppose the reduced funding for nuclear energy research and development, which is a critical part of this bill's support for a balanced energy portfolio. Nuclear power currently generates 20 percent of the Nation's electricity, and it will continue to play a large role in the future.

As I said, I am sympathetic to what the gentlelady is trying to do. In fact, I was cosponsor at one time of a bill by my friend from Louisiana that said you have to use the harbor maintenance trust fund and use it to dredge the harbors. If there is a need out there, we ought to be using that to do it.

We need to work together to try to solve this problem. And believe me, it would help us a lot in crafting this bill if somehow we could do that. Otherwise, we shouldn't be collecting the tax if we have a need and the account is growing. But it is because of our budget rules and so forth that it creates this problem. I understand what the gentlelady is doing. Unfortunately, her amendment would hurt the nuclear account and other accounts within the bill which has been the problem in the past.

I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, while I share my colleague's support for energy efficiency programs, the bill funds EERE, the Energy Efficiency portfolio, at $26 million above last year's level, with targeted increases for weatherization assistance and advanced manufacturing.

What we did in this bill, actually, was refocus some of the administration's requested increases in the renewable energy arena to where we actually use energy. Coal, oil, and natural gas provide 82 percent of the electricity in this country, of the energy used in this Nation's homes and businesses, 82 percent. Reducing the fossil energy research--they are studying things like how heat can more efficiently be converted into electricity in a cross-cutting effort with the nuclear and solar energy programs, how water can be more efficiently used in power plants, and how coal can be used to produce electrical power.

The amendment would also reduce funding for a program that ensures we use our Nation's fossil fuel resources as well and as cleanly as possible. In fact, if we increased the efficiency of our fossil fuel plants by just 1 percent, we could power an additional 2 million households without using a single additional pound of fuel from the ground.

That is the research we are doing in the fossil energy area. That is where we would take the money out of, the area where most of our electricity is produced from, and shift it to an area, while important, doesn't produce nearly as much energy as the other areas in this bill.

So, while I understand what the gentlelady is trying to do, we have actually increased the energy efficiency budget, as I said, by $26 million above last year, and we will continue to work on that.

I would oppose this amendment and ask my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, although I understand what the gentleman is trying to do. The gentleman's amendment would increase appropriated funds to Portsmouth by another $15 million. Because of the overall reductions that were necessary in the Department of Energy's environmental cleanup programs, we balanced these reductions across all cleanup sites so that no one site is targeted.

I certainly understand the gentleman's concerns about the site, and this bill provides strong support for Portsmouth. Despite the fact that funding at most sites is going down, the bill actually boosts funding for the site by $37 million above the fiscal year 2014 and $15 million above the budget request.

However, I can't support further increases to compensate for the Department's off-budget uranium transfers, which our subcommittee has criticized for years. The Department has been transferring stockpiles of uranium to generate cleanup funds for the site, a practice the Government Accountability Office has determined to be illegal and which could be further held up in fiscal year 2015 due to recent litigation.

The Department's reliance on its uranium transfers has inappropriately circumvented the appropriations process, has adversely impacted our domestic uranium mining and conversion industry, and is now creating further problems as the market price of uranium continues to drop.

I am also concerned about the amendment's offsets, particularly the
cut to EERE, which is $113 million below the budget request. The last amendment, by Ms. Castor, proposed increasing EERE by taking money out of fossil energy. I opposed that. It wasn't because I don't like EERE. It was because I didn't like where they were taking the money from. This would take money out of EERE that is already reduced $113 million from last year, which I also oppose.

So I must oppose this gentleman's amendment and urge Members to do the same.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, I agree with the gentlelady's comments.

I should say, it is not Portsmouth's or the gentleman from Ohio's fault that they have been using uranium transfers to fund this. It is not the people who are working there; it is not their fault. It is the Department's fault, and we have raised concerns for years that that is inappropriate and illegal. We knew that it was going to come to this when those uranium transfers couldn't be made anymore because of the price of uranium and other things, and it is the result of the choice of the Department to fund this by using the uranium transfers. Unfortunately, it has come to what we predicted would be a problem when we started raising these concerns with the Department.

So, while I understand what the gentleman is doing and sympathize with what the gentleman is doing and will be willing to work with him to see what could be done as we move this bill forward, I do have to oppose the amendment as it currently exists.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, while I appreciate the gentleman from California's comments, I have to say that you can oppose this amendment and still like renewable energy, in contradiction to the gentleman's statement.

I rise to oppose this amendment that would increase funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy by $112 million using the fossil energy account, again, as an offset.

This year, funding for EERE is $1.789 billion, $113 million below last year and $528 million below the budget request. It is still $1.789 billion. It is not like we are eliminating EERE. They still have a substantial amount of money in that account. They have much more in that account than they have in the fossil energy account or that they have in the nuclear energy account.

This is a modest 6 percent cut from the robust funding level included in last year's omnibus appropriation bill and slightly below the fiscal year 2013 level presequester. Put another way, there is nearly $1 billion more than last year's House bill.

The funding that the recommendation provides is focused on three main priorities, where he is trying to take money out of the fossil energy account: helping America's manufacturers compete in the global marketplace; supporting the Weatherization Assistance Program; and addressing future high gas prices. These are areas with broad bipartisan support. We simply cannot afford to increase funding in this bill by diverting funds from research to fossil energy.

Fossil fuels, as I said during the last couple of amendments, such as coal, oil, and natural gas provide for 82 percent of the energy used by this Nation's homes and businesses and will continue to provide for the majority of energy needs for the foreseeable future. It is folly to believe that renewable energies are going to replace the base load that much of this produces for our energy needs in the future.

But renewable energies are an important part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy that we have in this country. But it is not renewable energies that are going to replace all of the fossil energies that we have. So we need to do research into the fossil energies, too, and what they do.

If we increase the efficiency of our fossil fuel plants, as I said earlier, by just 1 percent, we could power an additional 2 million households without using a single additional pound of fuel from the ground. That is energy efficiency. That is the research we are focusing on with funding this program. Therefore, I must oppose the gentleman's amendment.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I also oppose the amendment. While I opposed increasing EERE funding in previous amendments, I am also opposed to eliminating EERE.

When you look at the traditional energy sources that we use, the government has done research into the fossil fuels, into nuclear energy, into fracking, into other things, and hydrocarbons because they are important.

It is not the companies that we try to pick winners and losers from, but it is the technology that we try to do the research into, to try to advance certain technologies and help technologies become more efficient for the consumers to use.

We are trying to make automobiles more fuel efficient. We are trying to do work to make a SuperTruck that is much more fuel efficient.

I guess it could be argued whether the government should do any research at all. Years and years ago, a lot of those things used to be done by private companies, when you had the Bell Labs and other types of things like that.

Those aren't done anymore by companies because they are much, much too expensive for companies to do, but they are good for our economy.

You could make the argument that we really shouldn't have put any money into space research and putting a man on the Moon--that should have been done by a private company--yet the American economy and the world has benefited greatly from the investment that American taxpayers made into NASA. The same is true with the fuels that we use.

While we have tried in this bill to refocus what the administration had proposed, which was huge increases for renewable energies that produce a minority--a small amount--of energy compared to the others, we have tried to refocus that appropriation to where it more accurately reflects the actual energy used, the percentage of the actual energy used.

That doesn't mean that we can completely eliminate EERE and renewable energies. As I said previously, I like renewable energies. I think they are cute. They provide a small portion of our overall energy demand, and I don't see that increasing a whole lot because they can't address the base load needs of our energy demand in this country, but they are going to be a very important part of an overall energy strategy.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment. The amendment would increase funding for the Office of Electrical Delivery and Energy Reliability by $10 million, using funds from fossil energy as an offset.

We have already had conversations about taking funds out of where we create most of our energy. Some of the things that are done in fossil energy--and while the gentleman speaks passionately about the environment, fossil energy also is doing the research into sequestration and carbon capture technology.

Now, I don't suspect that we are going to stop using fossil energy in the near future. In fact, if you looked at the predictions of the Department of Energy of what the percentage of fossil energy--what percentage of the energy is going to be used by fossil energy--be created by fossil energy 20 years from now, it is pretty close to what it is now.

So it is important that we do some things environmentally, like carbon capture and sequestration, and we need to do some research into that. You are taking money out of an account that would do that. I don't think that is a wise thing for us to do.

While I share my colleague's support for the electrical grid, that is why this bill before us already provides a $13 million increase for the Office of Electrical Delivery and Energy Reliability above last year--or a 9 percent increase over the last year.

That is the largest percentage increase of any of the other applied energy programs within this bill--the largest increase.

The bill prioritizes programs within OE that keep our electrical grid safe and secure, including $47 million for cybersecurity and $16 million for infrastructure security, which will provide $8 million for a strategic operations center to better respond to emergencies.

While I appreciate what the gentleman is trying to do, I have already spoken of the important investments that our fossil energy research does for our economy and our electrical prices; therefore, I oppose the gentleman's amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley).

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Mr. SIMPSON. I rise to oppose the amendment. This year, the committee continues its responsibility to reduce government spending, and we have worked tirelessly to that end. The bill cuts energy efficiency and renewable energy by $113 million below last year's level and $528 million below the budget request.

The fossil and nuclear energy programs received modest increases of $31 million and $10 million, respectively. The increase to fossil energy will support research into how heat can be more efficiently converted into electricity, how water can be more efficiently used in power plants, and how coal can be used to produce electrical power through fuel cells.

The increase to nuclear energy will accommodate a $10 million increase to support base physical and cybersecurity activities at the Idaho National Laboratory to protect the Nation's nuclear energy materials and a range of national security programs at the NNSA, Homeland Security, and other Federal agencies.

Although my colleague asserts that the amendment would keep the government from intervening in the private markets, these applied energy programs are strategic investments for our energy independence.

I appreciate my colleague's desire to reduce the size of government, but this amendment goes too far by eliminating strategic investments we make for our own future.

I, therefore, oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment.

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