Senate Panel to Take Up Nine Energy, Climate Change Bills Today

A Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee is expected to take up nine energy and climate change bills this afternoon, Environment and Energy Daily reported. The bills include legislation that would authorize nearly $3 billion in DOE spending for electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells and other advanced vehicle technologies. One bill (H.R. 3246) would create a full-time position for a director to coordinate DOE research activities and would fund work on fuel-efficient commercial truck technologies. That bill already has cleared the House on a 312-114 vote.

Another bill would authorize more than $2 billion for solar research and development projects and put in place a team of experts to plan research to move solar generation into the mainstream. This bill (H.R. 3585) also cleared the House this year, on a 310-106 vote. A third bill (H.R. 2729) would provide $5 million through 2014 to each of seven National Environmental Research Parks at DOE laboratories. That legislation cleared the House in July by a vote of 330-96.

Funding for DOE's wind energy research program, some $200 million, is included in a fourth bill (H.R. 3165) that also would authorize a collaborative DOE-industry wind energy demonstration program. The bill passed the House in September. A fifth bill (H.R. 957), which passed the House by a vote of 411-6 in April, would authorize DOE to fund National Science Foundation grants to support the training of engineers and architects in green building design.

A Senate bill put forward by Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., to establish monetary prizes to researchers who devise technologies to suck CO2 directly from the air is also up for consideration.

The panel also is expected to take up three Senate drafted bills--S. 737, introduced by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, legislation to expand federal ethanol research to include development of biofuels that would be compatible with small, non-road engines; S. 2773, which would require that DOE provide $50 million over 10 years for offshore wind technologies research at universities and other facilities; and S. 1617, introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, legislation that would give states federal grants if they set up loan funds so that small and mid-sized manufacturers would be able to improve energy efficiency.