afternoon the subcommittee will now come to order pursuant to notice the subcommittee on energy and environment needs to consider the following measures h r three two four six the advanced vehicle technology act of two thousand and nine h r third one sixty five the wind energy research and development act of two thousand and nine h r thirty twenty nine to establish a research development technology demonstration program to improve the efficiency of gas turbines used in combined cycle power generation systems and h r thirty to forty seven to establish social behavioral science research program at the department of energy and for other purposes as i just mentioned this afternoon our committee is considering those four bills go into a bit more detail now h r thirty to forty six is authored by representative peters and co sponsored by rep biggert of our subcommittee this legislation authorizes research and development on different classes of vehicles with the goal of reducing or eliminate petroleum fuel use and their associated emissions h r thirty one sixty five the wind energy research and development act of two thousand and nine is offered by our colleague m this legislation authorizes several areas of research identified in a recent report outlining the needs of explore expanding the use of wind powered electricity generation h r thirty two twenty nine is also offered by the now prolific mr tomko this builds a savage has an r and d program to approve the efficiency of gas turbines using combined cycles power generation systems today fifteen percent of electric power is produced from natural gas this percentage is predicted to double over the next decade the investment cost for new power plants are very high and  operate for many decades it is vital we build them to be as efficient as possible from the outset and this legislation will help achieve that goal final markup h r thirty to forty seven a bill i introduced to authorize a social behavior research program at the department of energy technology development investment are only part of the solution to our energy problem the decisions each one of each of us make every day have a significant impact on energy production and consumption it is important that we understand why some technologies are more readily embraced than others and it is important  know how to communicate effectively about the nature of our energy challenge and know how to improve empower individual citizens to participate in overcoming those challenges the four bills we will consider today address important energy technology needs and the need for more research on the human factors that determine their acceptance and success i look forward to productive markup thank you all for your attendance and participation this afternoon i now recognize mr inglis to present opening remarks thank you mr chairman and i'm looking forward to discussing improving  the four pieces of legislation before us today the advanced vehicle technology act of two thousand and nine will authorize the vehicle technologies program that deal we built realigns a program to approach a wide variety of critical transportation technology research areas with the goal of reducing petroleum use and the related emissions a balanced and robust research programs necessary to expand our mobility options increase our national security and establish united states  world leader in auto and truck design manufacturing transportation fuel development the second bill discussed today is the wind energy research and development act as a department of energy in the american wind energy association of made clear expanding our wind and wind power generating capacity will require significant improvement in turbine technologies forecasting capabilities energy storage and transmission grid strengthening the research effort in wind help us move away from polluting fossil fuel energy while creating jobs and win in g design manufacturing in operation h r three zero two nine will implement a short term research development and demonstration project at diomede to push gas turbine combined cycle generating systems to sixty five percent efficiency natural gas a clean burning fuel produced right here in the united states and is the fastest growing source of new electricity capacity increasing turbine efficiency will reduce fuel usage and corresponding emissions optimize our use of this limited resource and lower electricity cost finally h r three two four seven establishes a social and  sciences research program at the department of energy this research is intended to help us better understand the ways the way individual decisions impact energy markets and energy technology development i'm aware of the national science foundation is work in this area understand the chairman's desire to see this work would come in infosys of dio we look forward to hearing how that cross pollination may work and we'll have some questions about how it would work thank you again for the opportunity to work with you on this legislation mr chairman thank you mr inglis members may place statements in the record at this point will now consider h r thirty to forty six the advanced vehicle technology act of two thousand and nine i will recognize myself for five minutes to describe the bill i am pleased to bring up h r thirty to forty six which was introduced by a colleague from miss from michigan mr gary peters and co sponsored by this english channel eighty from illinois ms bigger congressman peters does not sit on this committee so we'll look forward to hearing from him on his bill in the full committee markup next week the u s transportation sector accounts for over one quarter of the primary energy use and a greenhouse gas emissions domestically and almost a quarter of the total global oil demand american consumers expect the freedom of mobility and availability of products and services that frankly are becoming harder to meet in light of the high economic and environmental costs of our addiction to oil a more sustainable transportation future will require the development of market penetration of a wide variety of vehicles technologies congressman peters bill authorizes authorizes both current and new activities within the department of energy's vehicle technology program the bill highlights critical research needs in areas such as vehicle electrification hydrogen technologies manufacturing technologies lightweight materials combustion optimization and vehicle sensing and communication it also gives important policy guidelines and requiring the program to continue its focus on longer term transformational technologies and to strengthen its outreach to a variety of companies and other government agencies the authorized funding levels are increased over current levels to support the important activities authorized in the bill title two of the bill emphasizes the federal research needs in medium to heavy duty commercial vehicles and seeks to make the deal e led interagency program more robust through better leadership and coordination mr peters and ms biggert have a good bill i encourage its passage and i look forward to working with my colleagues as we take it to full committee i now recognize mr inglis and resent any remarks on the bill legislation calls on do you lead to develop a broader vehicle research portfolio and balance long term breakthroughs with the immediate research needs in the transportation sector with the goal of bringing new technologies and processes to the market that will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil the bill has a broad vision focusing on activities from hydrogen fuel cells to lightweight materials and advanced vehicle designs i'm happy to lend my support to this legislation which will enrich our federal research efforts ultimately deployment of advanced vehicle technologies is an important part of a national energy and environmental strategy with increased our indian demonstration we can deploy technologies and practices that improve the feel efficiency and emissions reductions of all vehicles and equipment produced and used in the united states we can support and encourage domestic manufacturing of advanced vehicles such as caterpillars d seventy the first electric drive bulldozer and we can move more people in good to less energy and emissions so we can enhance consumer choices in vehicles and fuels and most importantly cut down technology development into gratian cycles in the vehicle industry the medium heavy duty and non road provisions in h r at thirty two forty six are particularly important significant efficiency gains can be made in na and off road equipment relative to the way they perform on the job site however a coordinated and comprehensive investment in r and d is necessary to meet this goal performance safety and operational standards i urge my colleagues to support thirty to forty six and  i thank the general a d for her leadership and her strong involvement with this committee she always offers a thoughtful legislation and i appreciate her involvement one slight correction my children have a tiny electro drive bulldozer but it won't push very much and so   are there any other members who wish to speak to the legislation prepare the subcommittee report and make necessary technical and conforming changes to the bill in accordance with the recommendations of the subcommittee the question is on the motion to report the bill favorably those in favor the motion will signify by saying i i oppose no the eyes have of the bill of favorably will have two subsequent calendar days in which we submit supplemental minority or additional views on the measure we will now consider h r thirty twenty nine to establish a research development technology demonstration program to improve the efficiency of gas service used in combined cycle power generation systems again mr taco is at a markup regrettably but we have had a very successful hearing on the these kinds of issues and i applaud him for his leadership on this legislation clearly if we can improve the efficiency creates a competitive program with the aim of identifying in achieving the significant technological and materials breakthroughs that are necessary to boost gas turbine combined cycle efficiency higher gas turbine efficiency will help us get the most out of our domestic natural gas resources generate jobs in engineering and turban design and leverage us technological expertise to keep us competitive in the global market happy to be co sponsor of this important legislation and yield back mr chairman i thank the gentleman from south carolina to sending one else wish to be recognized not i ask unanimous consent that the bill is considered as read and open to amendment at any point without objection so ordered are any and amendments that anyone wishes to offer to this legislation if no the vote is on the bill h r thirty twenty nine all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed will say no in the opinion of the chair the eyes have it i recognize myself to offer a motion i move the subcommittee favorably report h r thirty twenty nine to the full committee furthermore i move the staff be instructed to prepare the subcommittee report and make necessary technical and conforming changes to the bill in accordance with the recommendations of the subcommittee the question is on the motion to report the favor of the bill fairly those in favor of the motion will signify by saying i i oppose no the eyes have it the bill is very favorably reported without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table members will have two subsequent calendar days in which to submit supplemental minority or additional views on the measure finally we will consider h r thirty to forty seven to establish the social and behavioral science research program at the department of energy and for other purposes i reckon the recognize myself to describe the bill as indicated at the opening statement the challenges we face with respect to energy and climate cannot be addressed by changing technologies and fuels alone and technology should be designed with an understanding of how people are likely to use them we must make different choices as consumers and we must change the way we do things every day h r thirty to forty seven is a requires the secretary to establish a social and behavioral research program at the department of energy and to appoint a director to oversee the program the purpose of the program is to support research to improve our understanding of the social and behavioral factors that influence the adoption and use of energy technologies the research funded under this program should be used to inform daley's technology development and deployment programs and to ensure a deal he's communication with the public about the benefits and risks of technologies to make sure that is clear and effective the bill requires the director developer to develop a plan for the research program and for integrating the results of the research into d o d s other programs within nine months and provide this plan to the congress and the public the director is required to develop a plan in consultation with an advisory committee of outside expert secretary to establish the advisory committee in accordance with the federal advisory committee act to ensure transparency and accountability grants awarded under this program are required to undergo peer review and be awarded through a merit based competitive process bill authorizes ten million dollars per year for this program for fiscal year two thousand and ten through twenty five we put this in a little bit of context if i may we've had hearings in which researchers in the social behavior sciences have demonstrated savings in energy consumption of as much as thirty percent simply by changing how we message things such as simple as recycling towels and hotels a thirty percent energy saving translates into millions of dollars for our country tons of carbon reduced and yet it costs in that case virtually nothing relative to some of the extraordinary investments we make in the areas of nuclear fusion wind solar etc etc this is a minor investment which strong well documented research has shown can pay profound dividends and in other areas of our research enterprise i would point out that for example in aviation some years ago people discovered that we can make jets that can turn faster than human beings can tolerate that the information flow that comes in for example in nuclear power plants overwhelm the operators of those power plants so in many other endeavors in our engineering and technological society we've discovered that the human factors can be just as important perhaps more so than the than the technological hardware so we've got evidence that we can save energy reduce emissions by changing behaviors we've got evidence that how we adopt new jesus critical to whether or not they are effective in what they do we've had hearings before this committee on the role of buildings for example in our overall energy consumption and how the operator of the building is at least as important if not more so than the construction of the building per se so with all of that very modest investment of ten million dollars per year as a potential to leverage vastly our other investments and hence the purpose of this bill i would encourage all my colleagues on the subcommittee to join me in this effort and support h r thirty to forty seven and i'm pleased not to recognize mr inglis to present any remarks on the bill thank you mr chairman we had all kinds of agreement here and now and now comes this final bill which is your bill and i've got questions about it which is a terrible way to end a i'm happy to have questions on this topic my friend but i'm not in any event it's like this i was on this health care tour and i was at a hospital to go nameless in this cardiologist came in to pick up the fried chicken and the green beans cooked black and listening to take in the macaroni and cheese on the box and he said i'm taking it back to the cardiology unit because i don't want anybody to see me eating it and so i was sitting to next an older doctor and he said we all know we need to do this we don't do it and so this is a cardiologist taking this the food that he should have been eating he's already overweight back to the cardiology unity aid and so under in the case of energy whether we already know we need to do turn off the lights when you leave the room turn down the thermostat get some more insulation in that roof insulate your pipes we all know we need to do but we don't do it at say that same resort of like th situation with the cardiologist there's no real financial incentive i think that tom friedman is largely right we've found out what causes americans to change their driving behavior it's gas at four dollars a gallon it's the point at which we change and so when we had this discussion at the hearing with one of our witnesses who was very helpful i was making that economic argument she said no it's more deep than that it's human behavior i agree it's about human behavior but it's got to be accompanied by this price signal and i'm excited about some ways we can do that and cooperating together we really can get a price attached to carbon and we might get some action here but so that's sort of a general misgiving then i've got two specific questions mr chairman about this bill and the bill did get to us very late so we're some members of probably not had a chance to look at it and i hope we can have more time to discuss this as we head toward the full committee but two key questions one is this is a cap and trade bill that was narrowly passed by the house already provide funds for research into american energy consumption behavior at the department of energy and if  so first question is this additional legislative language necessary the second is who's the best to do this in two congresses ago i had the opportunity to be chair the research subcommittee and learned some of this committee and learned the science committee and learned about the amazing work the national science foundation it seems to me that they're probably the better home for this brave your  research they have two hundred ten it's two thousand and ten budget request includes two hundred seventy five million for social behavioral and economic sciences research at least eighteen point five million of that p is dedicated to the climate change science program it seems to me a good question this point to ask whether that's the place home for this kind of research i do agree though with the wonder whether this ten million dollars a year is actually going to create that opportunity or is it perhaps too little too small of a effort in order to achieve the intended  result ten million gets gone pretty fast if you're trying to change behavior probably change of behavior comes through significant ad campaigns i would think to cause people change behavior or the fabulous idea th chairman mentioned to me yesterday about the competition with in electrical utility customers some creative ideas like that the question is how do you disseminate that and is ten million dollars a year some questions and hope we can work on as we head toward full committee back next year and i thank the gentleman i welcome the questions and and as always the gentleman is thoughtful and studious and well intentioned in his remarks so i don't find any problem address if i may have a few of the questions you raised first of all this question that plagues the social sciences a little bit and the question is do we in fact know what we need to do it turns out the field where in if you tell people a dinosaur national monument petrified forest national monument there is a sign that says every year so many rocks disappear from here please don't take them or we'll lose this viable resource one might think that you're telling people the right thing to do don't take the rocks turns out that sign increases the amount of theft why because people apparently conclude a everybody else is stealing rocks i might as well too and they then did a study wherein they tried two signs one that said don't take the rocks because everybody else is in they might all be gone soon the other study would say hey you know what most people aren't taken iraq's want to be like most good people and not take rocks either the latter assign decreased consumption of rocks the former sign increased and behavioral economics or some fascinating work wherein if you once people have paid for something they seem to feel entitled to use that something and thereby actually putting a fee on certain things depending on how it's implemented can increase the usage and hence pollution its efforts after a rather than decreasing you know analogy might be behavioral research where we think we know what we're doing and we may not there's some fascinating work on human behavior change where if you if you tell people who are not i haven't really thought about changing that they need to change you may actually get backlash instead of movement for change and so sequencing your intervention can lead to better more effective outcomes so this is the kind of research that we're talking about doing the key point your question about advertising if you if you haven't done this program where they took these kids and they put them in a penitentiary and they had a bunch of convicts yell at him and say you know the various things convicts would say to young kids and the idea you would scare these kids straight this was adopted around the country people say that's what we need in our state as well until some social scientists actually looked at it the recidivism rate among those kids was higher than kids who hadn't been through the program so the point i'm making here in a bunch of that way so that's do we know that we need to do yes we need to turn off the lights but how we get people to turn out the lights is the key question and we're not as effective as we should be the other question had to do with whether or not there's language included in the aces bill yes my understanding is there is i believe mr holt introduced some legislation include some funding in that bill to some extent to be honest it was a bit of an intrusion on the jurisdiction of our committee and i think we need to start that  conduct this research and that and then finally the n s a question i find very fascinating and a perfectly legitimate one we have in this committee on a host of issues we focus on research funding and other aspects energy that you could also find areas in which n s f is looking at if you look at basic energy physics for example we have programs with india we and s f may have programs as well and there's overlap the key in this case for me is the applied nature whereas n s f funding is meant to be basic research and certainly we would hope basic research is conducted here what i hope to achieve with this is it is an integral coordination between the behavioral research and the energy applications so we're not just looking at for example take hydrogen let's say we tell people hydrogen cars are the way to go how do you sell the public on a hydrogen car how do we apply the technology in a way that adapts behavior later where people  make the changes necessary what are their concerns is it refueling are they afraid they'll explode etc etc so it's that integration coordinated with the behavior with the technological research that we is conducting there's just no substitute for having people in the same function the same organization working together and making that part of their mindset so that's that's why we would do it there versus an n s f support where they put out a proposal for grants to review the grants send it out but it may not be clarification a question my experience with a lot of research particularly as it comes out of the congress is that we don't do research that really looks wholly and fully at lots of different kinds of communities in their behavior and i really do i'm very supportive of getting to the sort of social and behavioral aspects of changing behavior as related to our consumption but and i perhaps can work with you offline about this but i am concerned that by not really specifically  the secretary to explore all kinds of communities and the ways in which they consume that we actually may ignore and available avenue of changing behavior and consumption among some communities that have the most need of a change in behavior in consumption and so i wonder if there might be a point at which before we go to full committee that we could actually work on clarifying that language that we actually encourage the secretary to say take into consideration looking at  racially diverse communities culturally diverse communities and their consumption behaviors and how we can how we can explore new technologies and also look at those consumer communities i think it is a suggestion point well taken and i would be happy to work with gentle lady on this there are fascinating studies on how different messaging can have different impacts and even things such as well intended programs like life for example in some areas we actually we subsidize people's energy bill and we find that actually increases energy consumption because people get more afford to spend use more energy so i think that's a brilliant suggestion i'd be happy to work with the gentle lady about adding some language between now and seven number zero two six opera by mr baird of washington i ask unanimous consent to dispense with reading without objection so ordered i recognize myself for five minutes to explain the amendment the manager's amendment makes a series of small changes throughout the bill and section one the amendment strikes the word new as modifier for energy technologies because there are existing energy technologies that have not been adopted widely that could increase energy efficiency in addition to new technologies that may be available in the future the moment also adds policies and programs to the list of items deal you will address through this research program under the duties of the director energy production is included as an area for providing information to consumers solar and wind technologies for example are still relatively new to consumers additional information about these technologies for homeowners and owners of commercial properties can expand people's awareness of improvements that have occurred in recent years in them and inserts a new section to define secretary as the secretary of energy and director is a director created in this legislation finally the amendment adds a new item in section one  four to be addressed in the research plan the plan will now also include research to understand the behavioral effects factors that affect decisions to adopt energy production technologies or fuels would urge support for the amendment and if there are further discussion on this will occur on the bill h r thirty to forty seven as amended all those in favor say aye aye all oppose no in the opinion of the chair the eyes have it i recognize myself to offer a motion i move the subcommittee favorably report report h r thirty to forty seven as amended to the full committee furthermore i move that staff be instructed to prepare the subcommittee report and make necessary technical and conforming changes to the bill in accordance with recommendations of the subcommittee the question is on the motion to report the bill favorably those in favor motion will signify by saying i i oppose no i have it and the bill is favorably reported without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table members will have two subsequent calendar days in which to submit supplemental minority or additional views on the measure i would like to invite my colleagues who have further interest in this