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AN OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET PROPOSAL 

FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 

Serial No. 114–7 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR. 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

STEVE KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, TEXAS 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

DON S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

MARK TAKANO, California 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

February 25, 2015 

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 ..................... 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ........................................................................................................... 13 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Witnesses: 

The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 40 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy ............... 74 

(1) 

AN OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET PROPOSAL 

FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 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. 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. And we welcome you all to this hearing. 

The subject of the hearing is ‘‘An Overview of the Department of 

Energy’s Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2016.’’ I will recognize 

myself for an opening statement and then the Ranking Member. 

The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology focuses on the 

future. Our jurisdiction includes scientific research, development, 

and demonstration that makes possible America’s technological innovations and industrial competitiveness. 

Today, we will examine the science and energy research, development, and demonstration activities of the Department of Energy. 

This includes the Office of Science, which conducts critical research 

in high-energy physics, advanced scientific computing, biological 

and environmental research, nuclear physics, fusion energy 

sciences, and basic energy sciences, as well as applied energy research and development in fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy. 

These areas comprise approximately 1/3 of the DOE’s budget, or 

over $10 billion in the President’s fiscal year 2016 proposal. 

DOE is the largest federal supporter of basic research and development and sponsors 47 percent of federal basic research in the 

physical sciences. The Department’s science and energy research is 

conducted at over 300 sites nationwide, including our 17 national 

labs. Over 31,000 scientific researchers take advantage of DOE 

user facilities each year. 

However, the President’s budget proposal appears to ignore the 

fiscal realities and constraints facing the nation. The DOE request 

proposes an overall increase of $2.5 billion, or more than nine percent, for the Department in Fiscal Year 2016 for a total of $30 billion. With this request, the Administration continues to prioritize 

short-term, expensive commercialization activities and energy subsidies that result in the government picking winners and losers in 

the energy technology marketplace. 

The Administration claims to be a proponent of a balanced, allof-the-above energy strategy. While I applaud the requested increased investment in basic scientific research and development, I 

am concerned that the President’s true priorities in this budget lie 

elsewhere. For example, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy receives an increase of $809 million, or 42 percent. In 

comparison, the budgets for fossil and nuclear energy research and 

development remain stagnant. The President’s budget does not call 

for the most effective or efficient use of taxpayer dollars nor does 

it support a balanced, all-of-the-above energy strategy. 

That said, I want to thank our witness, Secretary Moniz, for joining us today. While we may disagree on spending and research priorities, we do share an appreciation for the vital role DOE has in 

maintaining American leadership in scientific discovery and technological achievement. 

The robust partnership between DOE scientists, academia, and 

the private sector has produced innovative breakthroughs in research as diverse as supercomputing, genomics, and nuclear 

science. It has helped us create the most reliable, affordable, and 
11 

secure domestic energy portfolio in the world. But we cannot afford 

to let Department of Energy research exist in a vacuum. We must 

do more to provide American entrepreneurs the opportunity to collaborate with DOE researchers and to take technology developed in 

the laboratory and apply it to their designs. 

America’s energy future is increasingly shaped by federal regulations. We must ensure that the Department of Energy provides 

technical expertise on the necessary energy infrastructure, the 

readiness of new energy technology for commercial deployment, 

and the impact new regulations have on the security and reliability 

of our electric grid. Sound science must be the guide, not politics. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than with the Keystone pipeline 

and Yucca Mountain, where the science has consistently pointed to 

the safety of the projects, but politics drives endless delays, sometimes even a veto. Just yesterday, the President vetoed a bipartisan Keystone pipeline bill that an overwhelming majority of 

Americans rightfully support. 

Finally, it is our responsibility in Congress to ensure American 

tax dollars are spent wisely and efficiently. While funding every research project seems like a worthy goal, it is simply unsustainable. 

We will have to make tough choices about how to best use our limited resources. As we shape the future of the Department of Energy, our priority must be to emphasize basic energy research and 

development, not to impose expensive and often inefficient technology on the American people. Instead, the Administration should 

invest in breakthrough discoveries from basic research that will 

continue to provide the foundation for private sector development 

across the energy spectrum. This will create jobs and grow our 

economy, which I think is a goal we all share. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

CHAIRMAN LAMAR SMITH

The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology focuses on the future. Our jurisdiction includes scientific research, development, and demonstration that makes 

possible America’s technological innovations and industrial competitiveness. 

Today we will examine the science and energy research, development and demonstration activities of the Department of Energy (DOE). 

This includes the Office of Science, which conducts critical research in high energy 

physics, advanced scientific computing, biological and environmental research, nuclear physics, fusion energy sciences, and basic energy sciences, as well as applied 

energy research and development in fossil, nuclear and renewable energy. These 

areas comprise approximately one-third of the DOE’s budget, or over 10 billion dollars in the president’s fiscal year 2016 proposal. 

DOE is the largest federal supporter of basic research and development and sponsors 47 percent of federal basic research in the physical sciences. The Department’s 

science and energy research is conducted at over 300 sites nationwide, including our 

17 National Labs. Over 31,000 scientific researchers take advantage of DOE user 

facilities each year. 

However, the president’s budget proposal appears to ignore the fiscal realities and 

constraints facing the nation. The DOE request proposes an overall increase of $2.5 

billion, or more than 9 percent, for the Department in Fiscal Year 2016 for a total 

of $30 billion. 

With this request, the administration continues to prioritize short-term, expensive 

commercialization activities and energy subsidies that result in the government 

picking winners and losers in the energy technology marketplace. 

This administration claims to be a proponent of a balanced, all-of-the-above energy strategy. While I applaud the requested increased investment in basic scientific 
12 

research and development, I am concerned that the president’s true priorities in this 

budget lie elsewhere. For example, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable 

Energy receives an increase of $809 million, or 42 percent. In comparison, the budgets for Fossil and Nuclear energy research and development remain stagnant. 

The President’s budget does not call for the most effective or efficient use of taxpayer dollars nor does it support a balanced, all-of-the-above energy strategy. 

That said, I want to thank our witness, Secretary Moniz, for joining us today. 

While we may disagree on spending and research priorities, we do share an appreciation for the vital role DOE has in maintaining American leadership in scientific 

discovery and technological achievement. 

The robust partnership between DOE scientists, academia, and the private sector 

has produced innovative breakthroughs in research as diverse as supercomputing, 

genomics, and nuclear science. It has helped us create the most reliable, affordable, 

and secure domestic energy portfolio in the world. 

But we cannot afford to let Department of Energy research exist in a vacuum. 

We must do more to provide American entrepreneurs the opportunity to collaborate 

with DOE researchers and to take technology developed in the laboratory and apply 

it to their designs. 

America’s energy future is increasingly shaped by federal regulations. We must 

ensure that the Department of Energy provides technical expertise on the necessary 

energy infrastructure, the readiness of new energy technology for commercial deployment, and the impact new regulations have on the security and reliability of our 

electric grid. Sound science must be the guide, not politics. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than with the Keystone XL pipeline and Yucca 

Mountain, where the science has consistently pointed to the safety of the projects, 

but politics drives endless delays, or sometimes even a veto. Just yesterday, the 

president vetoed a bipartisan Keystone XL pipeline bill that an overwhelming majority of Americans rightfully support. 

Finally, it is our responsibility in Congress to ensure American tax dollars are 

spent wisely and efficiently. While funding every research project seems like a worthy goal, it is simply unsustainable. 

We will have to make tough choices about how to best use our limited resources. 

As we shape the future of the Department of Energy, our priority must be to emphasize basic energy research and development, not to impose expensive and often 

inefficient technology on the American people. 

Instead, the administration should invest in breakthrough discoveries from basic 

research that will continue to provide the foundation for private sector development 

across the energy spectrum. This will create jobs and grow our economy, which is 

a goal I think we all share. 
13 

Chairman SMITH. That concludes my opening statement. And the 

gentlewoman from Texas, Eddie Bernice Johnson, is now recognized for hers. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you for holding this hearing. I would like to thank Secretary Moniz 

for being here today to discuss the proposed DOE budget and for 

his continued service to our nation. 

Let me start by reminding my colleagues that we have seen how 

government-supported research can pay off. When it comes to energy development, DOE-supported research was key to development of high-efficiency gas turbines for coal plants, nuclear reactors, and the directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies and techniques that have led to the shale gas boom of 

today. But we should remember that those achievements required 

decades of federal investment, the overwhelming majority of which 

were focused on fossil energy and the first generations of nuclear 

power reactors. 

I continue to support research to make today’s technologies safer, 

cleaner, and more efficient, but we also have to find the greatest 

value for our investment of taxpayers’ dollars. The reality today is 

that the emerging energy technology sectors can most benefit from 

government support. That is where the priorities set by DOE’s fiscal year 2016 budget request come into play. 

I am pleased with much of the Department’s budget request for 

science and energy research this year. If adopted, the DOE Office 

of Science, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 

ARPA–E, the Office of Electricity, and Nuclear Energy would all 

receive much-needed boosts, to advance the development of fundamental science and clean energy technologies that will be vital to 

our national security, our economy, and the environment in decades to come. For example, the Geothermal and Marine Energy Research programs would establish important new test sites to help 

advance next-generation renewable energy technologies, and the 

Department’s important Advanced Manufacturing Program that 

would expand considerably. 

I am also pleased to see that under the Secretary’s leadership, 

the Department is clearly making progress in coordinating several 

critical research areas that cut across its various programs, including the Water-Energy Nexus, which I personally am very concerned 

about, advanced computing and modernization of our woefully outdated electric grid. 

However, I do have concerns with a few areas of the Department’s proposed budget. The Advanced Reactor Program within the 

Office of Nuclear Energy and the Fusion Energy Program within 

the Office of Science would both receive sizable cuts, some of it in 

Mr. Smith’s district, as an aside, under the proposed DOE budget. 

Over the long-term, both of these types of advanced technologies 

have potential to play a major role in enabling a vibrant low-carbon 

economy. So I hope we can discuss this further and see if perhaps 

these funding levels should be reconsidered. 

In addition, while I certainly appreciate seeing the Department 

place a stronger emphasis on addressing the environmental impacts of developing our coal and natural gas resources, I would like 
14 

to learn more about how the significant shifts you proposed to the 

fossil energy research budget will affect these efforts. 

All that said, I believe that the Department has proposed a serious request worthy of our careful consideration and I look forward 

to working with you, Mr. Secretary, and my colleagues across the 

aisle, to address any remaining concerns we have and to ensure 

that you have the direction, tools, and the resources you need to 

help secure our nation’s energy future. Thank you, and I yield back 

the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you, Chairman Smith for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank 

Secretary Moniz for being here today to discuss the proposed DOE budget and for 

his continued service to our nation. 

Let me start by reminding my colleagues that we have seen how government-supported research can pay off when it comes to energy development. DOE-supported 

research was key to the development of high-efficiency gas turbines for coal plants, 

nuclear reactors, and the directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies 

and techniques that have led to the shale gas boom of today. But we should remember that those achievements required decades of federal investment, the overwhelming majority of which was focused on fossil energy and the first generations 

of nuclear power reactors. I continue to support research to make today’s technologies safer, cleaner, and more efficient, but we also have to find the greatest 

value for our investment of taxpayer dollars. The reality today is that the emerging 

energy technology sectors that can most benefit from government support. That is 

where the priorities set by DOE’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request come into play. 

I am pleased with much of the Department’s budget request for science and energy research this year. If adopted, the DOE Office of Science, the Office of Energy 

Efficiency and Renewable Energy, ARPA-E, the Office of Electricity, and Nuclear 

Energy would all receive much-needed boosts to advance the development of fundamental science and clean energy technologies that will be vital to our national security, our economy, and the environment in the decades to come. For example, the 

geothermal and marine energy research programs would establish important new 

test sites to help advance next generation renewable energy technologies, and the 

Department’s important advanced manufacturing program would expand considerably. I am also pleased to see that, under the Secretary’s leadership, the Department is clearly making progress in coordinating several critical research areas that 

cut across its various programs, including the energy-water nexus—which I personally am very concerned about, advanced computing, and modernization of our woefully outdated electric grid. 

However, I do have concerns with a few areas of the Department’s proposed budget. The advanced reactor program within the Office of Nuclear Energy and the fusion energy program within the Office of Science would both receive sizable cuts 

under the proposed DOE budget. Over the long term, both of these types of advanced technologies have the potential to play a major role in enabling a vibrant 

low-carbon economy, so I hope we can discuss this further and see if, perhaps, these 

funding levels should be reconsidered. In addition, while I certainly appreciate seeing the Department place a stronger emphasis on addressing the environmental impacts of developing our coal and natural gas resources, I would like to learn more 

about how the significant shifts you’ve proposed within the Fossil Energy research 

budget will affect these efforts. 

All that said, I believe that what the Department has proposed a serious request 

and worthy of our careful consideration. I look forward to working with you, Mr. 

Secretary, and my colleagues across the aisle, to address any remaining concerns 

we have and to ensure that you have the direction, tools, and resources you need 

to help secure our nation’s energy future. 

With that I yield back the balance of my time. 
15 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

Our witness today is 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. 

Before I conclude, I would like to recognize—they aren’t here 

today but I am going to recognize them in their absence—Alamo 

Heights High School in my home district of San Antonio Texas who 

recently won their regional competition for the 2015 National 

Science Bowl. DOE’s Office of Science’s National Science Bowl is 

one of the most distinguished science academic competitions in the 

United States for students, and I congratulate the students at 

Alamo Heights High School and I wish them the best as they prepare to travel to Washington, D.C., for the national finals at the 

end of April. These competitions inspire students to work hard and 

help shape America’s future innovators. 

And, Mr. Secretary, I hope you don’t mind my adding that to 

your introduction this morning. And with that, we will recognize 

Secretary Moniz for five minutes or longer, however much time he 

would like to present his testimony. And we welcome you today. 

TESTIMONY OF ERNEST MONIZ, SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking 

Member Johnson and all Members of the Committee. I certainly, 

by the way, never mind an advertisement for the National Science 

Bowl and look forward to working with the Committee. 

If I may, I would also like to introduce behind me Under Secretary for Science and Energy, Franklin Orr, who is here, just to 

say that he was confirmed in December in the lame duck and he 

is someone I urge you to get to know as the new Under Secretary 

looking at the integration of our energy and science programs. 

So, again, I am pleased to be here and to discuss our fiscal year 2016 $29.9 billion request, as the Chairman mentioned, a roughly 

nine percent increase from the current level. 

As you know, again, we have a diverse portfolio from all-of-theabove energy strategy to the backbone for basic research in the 

physical sciences, ensuring nuclear security, and cleaning up the 

Cold War environmental mess. Clearly, the science and energy programs are those of principal interest today. As to the energy mission, again, I do want to emphasize that we are committed to the 

all-of-the-above approach, and I am sure we will discuss that in 

more detail. 

If I look at the science arena fiscal year 2016, $5.34 billion request, or a five percent increase, we are continuing to build this na-
16 

tion’s research infrastructure, the cutting-edge of light sources, 

supercomputers, neutron sources, other facilities the Chairman already mentioned serving 31,000 scientists across the country. I will 

just note that only a few weeks ago I was able to cut the ribbon 

at Brookhaven, now the world’s brightest light source came in on 

budget and under schedule by 6 months. We have commissioned 

major facilities coming on this year, a 12 GeV upgrade at the Jefferson lab in Virginia, a fusion experiment at Princeton, and now 

with this budget we will be building the next x-ray laser at SLAC 

and a rare isotope beam facility at Michigan state, for example. I 

want to emphasize that no matter what the budget is, we have to 

keep moving to the front tier with these facilities to serve our national research community. And in the energy arena, $5.38 billion, or 8.27 percent increase, 

and we have seen a number of accomplishments. This year we will 

hit 10 million tons of CO2 sequestration, for example. Last year, 

through our assistance, first two commercial-scale cellulosic 

biofuels facilities came online in Iowa and in Kansas. We moved 

forward on efficiency standards last year that cumulatively to 2030 

will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 435 million tons and 

save consumers an estimated $78 billion in energy costs. 

Advance manufacturing, as the Ranking Member mentioned, is 

a key priority moving forward with manufacturing institutes. We 

all know that manufacturing has been a great story for our country 

in the last years. Energy developments have been a big part of that 

so I believe, as has been our focus on this, and I can come back 

and describe some extraordinarily interesting development there. 

The budget includes things like going to SuperTruck, doubling 

heavy vehicle Class A truck efficiencies, for example, and a strong 

focus on continuing the dramatic progress in electric vehicles. 

We will continue our program with carbon capture utilization 

and sequestration but I want to emphasize here that, in addition 

to the technology push and demonstrations, that this will go handin-hand with the tax credits proposed this year by the Administration, including $2 billion credit subsidy for carbon capture and sequestration infrastructure and an additional tax credit for carbon 

that is sequestered. 

ARPA–E, we request an increase from 280 to $325 million. We 

are approaching now the 5th anniversary—next month will be the 

5th anniversary of the first signed contract and we have always 

said, you know, that is kind of time frame that we need to see the 

outcomes of these programs and we are seeing those outcomes. We 

are seeing 30 companies formed, we are seeing another 37 that 

have attracted support from other federal agencies, we are seeing 

these products actually getting into the marketplace. So this is a 

great success. And just this week, the American Energy Innovation 

Council composed of major CEOs in our country repeated their call 

of several years ago that ARPA–E deserves a billion a year, so I 

think in that context you can agree we have a very modest request 

with our $45 million increase proposed. 

Crosscutting Electricity Grid Initiative, $356 million. I want to 

emphasize that we will soon, and I hope within weeks, be able to 

come out and talk with you about our Quadrennial Energy Review 

focusing on energy infrastructure revitalization needs. This grid 
17 

initiative frankly is part of that thrust, as are other proposals that 

will be coming out in the QER and are reflected already in our fiscal year 2016 budget such as two new state grant programs we propose for a total of $63 million going to the States for reliability 

planning and energy assurance planning. 

I will just say a word because it is not the main focus, but to complete the picture, in nuclear security we propose $11.6 billion 

for NNSA, a ten percent increase. I will just say that this will, we 

are confident, allow us to continue our safe and reliable stockpile 

without testing. It will allow us to continue to secure materials 

that we need to have secured globally as we did last year, and it 

will continue our nuclear Navy towards being able to deploy the 

next generation aircraft carrier and the next generation strategic 

submarine fleet beyond the Ohio class. 

And finally, management and performance, the biggest budget 

item there was our Environmental Management Program. We have 

proposed $5.8 billion. It is essentially constant with the appropriation although an increase from our traditional request there, and 

that is very important for advancing our very high-priority projects. 

And I will just end by saying in the management arena, in addition to the Environmental Management Program, we have also, for 

example, revamped our whole approach to project management 

taking an enterprise-wide approach. I would be happy to describe 

that in more detail. I believe that this will continue our progress 

in getting control over major projects. I do note that we are off the 

high-risk list for all of the science projects and for all of the other 

projects up to $750 million. Now, we are going to get the last five 

or six off that list and I believe we are making progress. And again, 

that is something I would be happy to discuss now or later with 

the Committee. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, that ends my opening remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Secretary Moniz follows:] 
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

And I will recognize myself for questions. 

And I would like to ask you a series of questions about the Keystone pipeline. Let me acknowledge at the outset, though, that we 

all know the State Department, because of the pipeline being an 

international one in crossing countries’ boundaries, that the State 

Department has jurisdiction or has decision-making powers over 

that particular pipeline. But I know that the Department of Energy 

has been involved as well. The pipeline has been under consideration now for more than six years. The President vetoed the bill 

that was passed by the House and the Senate yesterday and, quite 

frankly, and this is just my opinion, we saw three days after the 

Senate voted to approve the pipeline a letter sent from the EPA to 

the Secretary of State raising additional questions. The timing of 

that letter, coming as it did after the vote by the Senate, raises all 

kinds of suspicions, and frankly makes me wonder if the President 

didn’t run out of reasons to veto it and was trying to conjure one. 

You don’t need to respond to that. That is just my personal opinion. 

But I would like to ask you some questions that I think you can 

answer. I know there are some questions you cannot, for instance, 

you couldn’t answer questions about the content of conversations or 

the details of any advice you might have given either the State Department or the President, but my questions I think will help us, 

and, as I say, I think they are questions you can answer. 

And the first question is this: Did you contribute to the State Department’s report? And as you know, the State Department found 

that there was little environmental impact and it would not significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions if the pipeline were built. 

Without asking you what you contributed, did you contribute to the 

State Department report? 

Secretary MONIZ. As is our custom, the Department provides 

technical assistance when solicited by—actually by any agency on 

energy-relevant activities. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. And in that case, did you contribute in 

any way to the EPA’s letter to the State Department? 

Secretary MONIZ. I don’t believe we did, no. 

Chairman SMITH. So they did not consult you before the letter 

was written? 

Secretary MONIZ. To my knowledge. We can—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Secretary MONIZ. —check that. 

Chairman SMITH. Did the White House ask you for your opinion 

on the Keystone Pipeline? And when I say White House, I distinguish White House from the State Department. 

Secretary MONIZ. No, we have had no—certainly no formal request in that sense, but as you say or suggest, clearly we did submit comments to the Department of State. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. And do you have any knowledge that 

the White House asked to the EPA to write a letter to the Secretary of State? 

Secretary MONIZ. No, sir, I have no—— 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. 

Secretary MONIZ. —knowledge about that. 
41 

Chairman SMITH. And in the report that the State Department 

produced finding little environmental impact, they did consider the 

volatility of prices, and yet that was the subject of the letter that 

the EPA wrote to the Secretary of State. Let me think how to ask 

this next question. Are you convinced that the State Department 

did take into consideration the volatility of prices when it came out 

with its report saying that there would be little environmental impact? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, just to clarify, of course the State Department has not yet acted with regard to environmental impact statement. Again, I cannot be authoritative on what they did or didn’t 

do but I would say that when it was done of course, it was a different price environment for oil. And without—as you suggested, 

without getting into our comments in a deliberative process, I can 

say that our comments did, let’s say, update on various factors in 

terms of current oil markets. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. And speaking of current oil market, is 

it your understanding that most of the time when prices go down 

that production oftentimes goes down as well? 

Secretary MONIZ. With some time lag that happens because we 

know capital expenditures are typically down, say, 30, 35 percent 

right now—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —in the low-price environment. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. I say that because the letter from the 

EPA to the State Department mentioned volatility of prices as a 

reason to take another look and suggested that that would actually 

increase environmental impact. 

The letter ignored two things. It ignored the fact that the State 

Department had found little environmental impact and it ignored 

the fact that, as prices go down, production sometimes decreases 

and therefore, whatever environmental impact there would have 

been would be diminished by lower prices, not increased. And so 

the letter from the EPA seemed to be off the tracks for a couple 

of reasons. 

And again, you don’t have to agree with me on that. That is simply my conclusion, but I am very suspicious of the letter that the 

EPA wrote. It doesn’t seem to have any real grounds or any real 

basis or any new issues that are raised, and—— 

Secretary MONIZ. It—— 

Chairman SMITH. But do you have a comment on that? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes, if I may comment, first of all, the EIA projection for our domestic oil production in 2015 is that it will be 

higher than in 2014. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. So the CAPEX reductions are more future and 

that in turn will depend upon what actually happens. 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. In fact, the prices have come up, as you know, 

since it happened—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —already have come up $10 or so. 

Chairman SMITH. Right, and the point is—— 

Secretary MONIZ. And so—— 
42 

Chairman SMITH. —they are going to—— 

Secretary MONIZ. And the other thing, if I may say, is the other 

factor of course is that, as the prices come down, first of all, it is 

a boon to our consumers—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —across the country and perhaps in other 

places, again, without going into too many things, the lower global 

oil price, may have an effect in terms of helping the European 

economy, which has been extremely soft of course—— 

Chairman SMITH. And, as you say, the consumer benefits. My 

point was only that is taking the volatility of prices into consideration, well, the State Department had already done that, so again, 

the EPA letter didn’t raise any new issues, and that is just my take 

on the letter. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, the State Department issue had just kind 

of not in a deep way talked about—I forget exactly. I think they 

commented on what would happen if the price went down into 

$75—— 

Chairman SMITH. Right. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —or something like that and—— 

Chairman SMITH. Totally—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —which is still high compared to where we are 

today. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And my time is way 

over. 

The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for her 

time. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Moniz, something I think that my colleagues and I on 

both sides of the aisle can agree on is the critical link between energy and water. As you probably know, last year I introduced bipartisan legislation with my good friend and former Chairman of 

this Committee Ralph Hall to help address this issue, so I am very 

interested that in your budget request this is highlighted over and 

over again as a Department-wide priority. Can you provide a general overview to the Committee on the Department’s efforts in this 

area, including the activities of the Energy and Water Tech Team 

you established? 

And the second question is where do you see the potential for the 

biggest payoff for this research in this area? 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you, Ranking Member Johnson. Well, 

first of all, because I was very pleased to discuss the energy-water 

developments with you a year ago, and appreciate your leadership 

in this area. So, as you know, other Members of the Committee 

may not be aware that last year we published, and we have posted 

a significant report—I think it is about 150 pages—in terms of a 

detailed technical analysis about the issues of the energy-water 

nexus. These are becoming increasingly important. 

It is also clear that there are major responsibilities in that area, 

water, and other departments and we do coordinate, but there are 

some areas where we think the energy implications really have a 

strong focus. For example, in answer to your question, one of the 

focuses is on the use of what you might call nontraditional waters 
43 

in energy systems. That would include, for example, the use of 

flow-back waters in other ways. That is just one example. 

Another example is in lower energy water utilities, for example. 

We have quite a bit of energy used in terms of conveyance, for example, of water. Desalinization is another example. So these are 

the areas that we proposed a $38 billion crosscutting budget for 

that. Those are examples of the technology areas that we will explore. 

I may add one other very important point I think, and that is 

we have a number of collaborations with international partners, 

and one of them is through the Clean Energy Ministerial, for example, involves about 20 countries, and others are more bilateral like 

China, for example. So they are—let’s say with China, we have a 

Clean Energy Research Center collaboration. We provide $10 million a year. That is matched threefold for a $40 million issue. Our 

money is spent on American researchers for collaborative projects. 

But my point is that in all of these venues when we say how about 

if we add the energy-water nexus to our collaborative focus, it is 

100 percent yes, very important. So this is a global issue. We had 

our domestic issues but it is also a global issue in terms of the energy-water nexus. 

Ms. JOHNSON. How will these investments impact the resilience 

of our nation’s energy infrastructure? 

Secretary MONIZ. Again, very, very important. We do have a report that we can look at in terms of—not surprisingly, for example, 

much of our critical energy infrastructure is in coastal regions. 

That is one clear example. And as we are seeing with global warming, with warming of our oceans, we are seeing dramatically increased storm surges. That is just one example of how the energywater nexus and our energy infrastructure are tightly linked. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Very quickly, many times we talk about picking winners and losers. Should the Department support all research proposals in areas 

equally or should it prioritize investments based on where we can 

get the most value for our taxpayers’ dollars? 

Secretary MONIZ. No, we clearly have to emphasize priority areas 

and of course we think we do that in a thoughtful way. But then 

within those areas of course when it comes time to making awards, 

then we have to be open to competition to select those. And in some 

cases—I will give you an example—in, let’s say, the—going back to 

ARPA–E, when we have our open solicitations, we end up being 

able to support the order of 1 or two percent of the interest, so we 

have a big opportunity for more innovation support in this country. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. My time is expired. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized for his 

questions. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. 

Secretary Moniz, interesting question, if you had to hazard a 

guess, would you say that a reduction in the funding of research 

in green energy or a reduction in the funding of climate change 

would have the most detrimental effect on national security? 

Secretary MONIZ. They are very tightly linked in my view and I 

really can’t distinguish between the two there. 
44 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Secretary MONIZ. They are both central. 

Mr. WEBER. So would an increase in funding research for nuclear 

energy waste storage, help us with national security? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, in the sense that it advances a very important source and a low-carbon source, yes, and in fact our budget 

request does have a significant increase for waste storage activities. 

Mr. WEBER. Now, let’s contrast those two. Having your druthers, 

increase in research on spent fuel storage for nuclear energy versus 

a reduction, for example, an increase in funding research for climate change, which of those two would you say is the most important to national security? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, again, in our budget we have made a set 

of priority choices within reasonable funding constraints, and obviously we think that it is a good balance and we have a substantial 

increase in the nuclear waste arena and we have a strong program 

in terms of our part of the Administration-wide Global Climate 

Change Research Group. 

Mr. WEBER. Given the current world climate with a lot of terrorism going on, I guess you would probably agree it is kind of 

hard to power a tank with a solar panel, or a jet airplane? 

Secretary MONIZ. Obviously there are different energy sources fit 

to different purpose. That is what a portfolio is all about. But I 

would stress of course that many different kinds of groups have 

supported the idea that climate change has enormous national security implications, and that includes many four-star—retired fourstar generals and admirals. And I fully support that position. 

Mr. WEBER. Sure. In terms of energy and nuclear research and 

having a strong, reliable, affordable energy source, nuclear energy 

will help that right now and we need a lot of good clean energy 

right now. Would that be your assessment? 

Secretary MONIZ. We strongly support nuclear aas a part of the 

portfolio. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Secretary MONIZ. And if I may add, Congressman Weber, that 

not only is having a stronger nuclear industry in this country important for clean energy, but it is also important for national security and that it gives us a stronger platform for advancing our nonproliferation goals. 

Mr. WEBER. So I take it you are a supporter of Yucca Mountain? 

Secretary MONIZ. No, I consistently have said, the Administration has said we don’t think it is workable. This is based upon the 

fact that I think the evidence is very strong. As—the Blue Ribbon 

Commission pointed out that you need a consent-based process to 

get over the finish line. 

Mr. WEBER. Are you familiar with how much money has been 

spent on Yucca Mountain and how much money is in reserve for 

Yucca Mountain? 

Secretary MONIZ. I believe the total spent over the years is something like $15 billion, and the waste fund currently has 32, $33 billion or something like that. 

Mr. WEBER. Billion dollars, that is right. 

Secretary MONIZ. Correct. 
45 

Mr. WEBER. What is the answer for nuclear waste energy storage 

if you are not a proponent of Yucca Mountain? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, first of all, the answer starts with consent-based processes. And there we have strongly supported the 

idea of moving to—at least starting with pilot-scale storage facilities and we need Congressional authorization for that, and of 

course I think you know in Texas there has been a recent proposal 

for a commercial storage facility, which is very interesting, and we 

look forward to talking with the supporters of that project. 

Mr. WEBER. Are you familiar with the Waste Control Specialists 

in Andrews County, the low-level radiation storage facility? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yeah, yeah, the WCS. Yeah, absolutely. And in 

fact, we have stored waste there. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Secretary MONIZ. Yeah. 

Mr. WEBER. How about LNG exports? You know, America’s boom 

in shale gas exploration and production is allowing us to increase 

our supply and enhance our energy independence. We have the 

ability to export LNG gas to customers overseas. I have two LNG 

export facilities in my district. One has broken ground but the 

other is still lingering with the DOE after having filed its application in October 2012. Why has it taken such a long time for the 

DOE—why are they delaying these projects do you think? 

Secretary MONIZ. First of all, let me clarify. We are not delaying 

these projects. Frankly, we have no projects right now to act upon 

because these projects have not had their EIS go through FERC. 

So we have approved several projects for 5.7 BCF per day. There 

are three under construction actually. The first will begin exports 

in roughly a year I expect, maybe a bit less, they say maybe into 

this year. 

But we have made it very clear that, especially with our revised 

process, that when we have the information that we need for a National Interest Determination, and that includes having the Environmental Impact Statement, which we don’t do; that is done at 

FERC. When the last one came to us, we responded to that in less 

than 1 day. So when the EIS’s are ready and we have all of the 

data that we need for a National Interest Determination, we have 

been very, very prompt. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Well, I am sorry but I am out of time. I am 

going to yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary MONIZ. We would be happy to follow up with you on 

that if you would like. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Weber. 

The gentlewoman from Maryland, Ms. Edwards, is recognized for 

her questions. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. 

I want to follow up on the conversation around nuclear energy 

because my understanding is that we held a hearing on the future 

of nuclear energy back in December, and we heard from a number 

of witnesses about cutting edge nuclear reactors and technologies. 

So I was a little surprised that your budget includes a cut to the 

advanced reactor program by 25 percent so I want to ask about 

that. 
46 

But I have mostly been really interested because I—you know, 

for the most part, if you hear me here on this Committee, I wear 

my environmental hat. I share the concerns of a lot of our communities about waste and storage, about access to—you know, to plutonium, et cetera, as we all do, but I have been hearing more about 

small nuclear reactors that—modular reactors that are not plutonium-dependent, which I think if there were some research in that 

area, it actually could potentially help us bridge this gap between 

the—you know, sort of the big opposition and the need for additional energy sources. And so I wonder if you could tell me about 

that and what the Department envisions in terms of ramping up 

the research in that area? 

Secretary MONIZ. So, first of all, you are referring to small modular reactors. We think this is a very important direction, and in 

our budget we have proposed a modest increase from 54 to $62 million. There are two prime things in regard to SMRs. I should emphasize that the ones that are being pursued right now are based 

upon light water technology, so these are not revolutionary 

changes—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —in reactor structure but there are some significant ones, without getting into details, integral reactors. 

We are supporting a company called NuScale that won a competition—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. Um-hum. 

Secretary MONIZ. —and they are expecting to go to the NRC for 

licensing at the end of 2016 and the hope is that they will have 

an operational reactor in, say, 2022, something like that. 

We are also supporting the move towards a siting of a second 

kind of small modular reactor, so we are advancing on that. And 

I think it is very important that we have one or preferably more 

operating in the first half of the next decade because that is when 

the utilities are going to have to start making big capital decisions 

for a next round of nuclear power. So that is one thing. 

With regard to research, there was a fiscal year 2015 one-time 

funding for some industry-led advanced reactors, so we think that 

this is actually going to be a healthy research budget. We have a 

strong focus on nuclear fuel issues, important for safety, and we 

just renewed our innovation hub based out of Oak Ridge, which is 

very successfully developing advanced computational tools for nuclear reactor design and safety. 

Ms. EDWARDS. And so what—part of what I am trying to understand—and I have to tell you I am really not there yet but I am 

curious. And part of what I want to understand is whether it is 

possible that there is—there are research dollars put into advancing technologies that take away the concern that we have about 

proliferation, that take away the concerns that we have about 

waste and disposal, and that take away concerns we have about 

being able to operate in places where you are essentially kind of 

off the grid. And if those things can be true or if that is part of 

the investigation, I think people like me might think a little bit differently of that nuclear technology. 
47 

Secretary MONIZ. First of all, in the budget there is an increase 

proposed for fuel cycle research and development, which is I think 

very relevant to your issue of plutonium—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —management. Clearly, we want to minimize 

that. There are potentially very advanced fuel cycle technologies 

that can ‘‘burn’’ transuranics. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. Those are to be—in my view, those are decades 

away from being credible commercial possibilities. I think it is very 

important to pursue them. I might just link that to our commitment to what is sometimes called interim storage of spent fuel from 

the point of view that I believe that is the most important next 

step for beginning to move the fuel. But importantly, if we have 

that for century scale, it also preserves our options for possible future advanced technologies of that type. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thanks very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, the federal government is currently facing an extreme budget constraint. In light of the current budgetary crisis, 

how should we prioritize energy research and development activities to maximize the impact on technology development and the 

overall energy system? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, again, clearly our Administration request 

we think does reflect an appropriate set of priorities. We do propose a substantial increase in our energy technology development. 

Again, it is convenient for me to refer to this week’s American Energy Innovation Council report, again, very prominent—not energy 

CEOs; these are prominent CEOs from other sectors who repeated 

what was said in a National Academy reported 2005, what they 

said three, four or five years ago, that we are probably under-investing in energy technology overall by as much as a factor of 

three. That is their number. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Specifically though, please compare and contrast the value of basic and early-stage foundational research to 

late-stage deployment and commercialization activities. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, we think we have to work across the entire innovation chain. Because we are looking at the introduction 

of these new technologies at different timescales, some like in this 

decade, some in the next 10, 20 years, and then some way down 

the road, some of the nuclear thing I just mentioned, for example, 

way down the road. So those require work at the different parts of 

the innovation chain. So we have everything from, let’s say, Energy 

Frontier Research Centers, which we think is an incredibly successful program on the basic research side for the enabling science 

for new energy technologies of the future all the way to things like 

our loan program, which are on the deployment side, which by the 

way is a program that is actually in the black and has really stimulated technology deployment that is pushing the technology envelope. 
48 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. The budget requests a 42.3 percent increase in 

the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. That is over 

$800 billion in new spending. This is an enormous increase in an 

office that focuses on late-stage commercial applications, not basic 

research in universities and national labs. By contrast, the budget 

for the Office of Science, which funds basic research, increases by 

only 5.4 percent in the budget request. Are the Office of Science’s 

basic research programs a lower priority for this Administration 

when compared with these renewable programs? 

Secretary MONIZ. No. Our Office of Science request I think is a 

very strong one. As I said earlier, it fully supports, for example, our 

development of the major tools in our national laboratories that 

serve the entire research community. But in addition to the construction, it is a full operation budget. We estimate that it will 

fund 98 percent of the full operation of our entire suite of facilities. 

Partly that is because the Office of Science I think has done an outstanding job over the years in how it phases its projects so that as 

some projects are rolling off, others are coming in. And so with a, 

you know, five percent budget, for example, increase in this case, 

I think it meets those needs. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Well, right along those same lines, if we have 

a 42 percent increase, can you provide additional information on 

the goals the President hopes to accomplish with such a sizable increase to the program budget? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes. And let me if I may, make a couple of 

points. One is that the energy efficiency renewable energy budget 

I showed, first of all it can be thought of as really three budgets. 

There is an Energy Efficiency Program, a Renewable Energy Program, and a Sustainable Transportation Program, and they are not 

so different in their amounts, number one. Number two, we should 

remember that in that category, for example, take energy efficiency, let me highlight two parts. One is that is where we put the 

big focus on assisting advanced manufacturing for the future, 

things like 3–D printing, et cetera. Secondly, not in the R&D space 

we have a $230 million proposal with a substantial increase from 

I think $180 million for weatherization, so that is direct assistance 

to people with fewer resources obviously for weatherization. So, you 

know, I think we have to look at the different things that are happening there. 

Similarly, in fossil energy, for example, part of it is R&D, part 

of it is things like managing and upgrading the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. So these are not all R&D programs. 

Mr. BABIN. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you. 

Mr. BABIN. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Babin. 

And the gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized 

for her questions. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you, Secretary Moniz, for coming back to the Committee and sharing your expertise on these important issues. 

This Committee has had many discussions about our nation’s energy future. It is an important part of what we do. 
49 

Well, the district I represent in Oregon is home to a variety of 

renewable energy companies that are helping lead the way to a 

clean energy economy. I am glad to see strong support for renewables in the President’s budget. 

From solar manufacturers like SolarWorld and wind turbine 

companies like Iberdrola, Oregon companies are really leading the 

way to a renewable future and it is important for us to support 

those efforts. 

I mentioned SolarWorld. It is an important employer in the district. They make a high-quality solar panel and, unfortunately, 

there have been low-cost solar panels that have been flooding this 

country from China. It has made it difficult for the playing field to 

be level for companies like SolarWorld. And they have made some 

progress with trade cases. 

But I wanted to ask you, Mr. Secretary, in your written testimony when you talk about implementing the Department of Energy’s strategic plan, you say ‘‘in remaining committed to the all-ofthe-above energy strategy, encouraging innovation, create jobs, enable economic growth, and contribute to domestic manufacturing 

and net exports.’’ So I would like you to address how the Department of Energy’s budget will support domestic manufacturing of renewable energy products so that it is U.S. companies, not Chinese 

companies, that are building our clean energy future. 

And specifically, how does the Department’s SunShot Initiative 

provide assistance to U.S. solar manufacturing companies and 

what percentage of the dollars are used for domestic manufacturers? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, of course, first of all, the entire amount 

is for domestic activity in manufacturing. And I might add that— 

just in starting that in addition to the funds that are explicitly labeled for solar like SunShot, there are other very important activities that are indirectly supporting this. For example, our very first 

manufacturing institute hub is on wide-bandgap semiconductors, 

power electronics. Power electronics are a very important part of a 

solar PV system, so those aren’t even counted directly as solar that 

support the manufacturing future in this area. 

Indeed, the SunShot program, which works across the whole 

spectrum of requirements for solar systems actually has our most 

substantial increase proposed for what are sometimes called the 

balance of plant and soft costs, and this is because we have had 

so much success. DOE has helped with the private sector in reducing costs that our solar module costs are well below a dollar per 

watt and the Holy Grail has always been 50 cents a watt. I believe 

we will meet that within two or three years domestically. So now, 

ironically, it is no longer the solar module that is driving the cost 

as it is things like the inverters and these other costs. 

So the SunShot program is across the board looking at that, as 

are our other manufacturing programs. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. I would like to get maybe some more 

specific information about—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Be happy to. 

Ms. BONAMICI. —the percentage of dollars—— 

Secretary MONIZ. We would be happy to, yeah. 

Ms. BONAMICI. —that go to domestic companies but—— 
50 

Secretary MONIZ. Yeah. 

Ms. BONAMICI. One of the issues that we have talked about before, a technology that deserves further research and discussion is 

marine hydrokinetic energy. The waves off the coast of Oregon, for 

example, provide a large amount of potential energy, and I know 

that the DOE has estimated that 20 percent of our nation’s power 

by 2050 could come from hydrokinetic systems. So I know your 

agency supported the Pacific Marine Energy Center and the Northwest National Marine Energy Center for which we are grateful, but 

I remain concerned that the federal R&D funding for wave and 

other marine energy sources is not sufficiently supporting the development process for technology. Can you comment on the agency’s work on wave energy and how this year’s budget helps advance 

it to a place where can reach its full potential? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, I believe that we have approximately $40 

million for hydrokinetic activities and a smaller amount for other 

hydro activities. So hydrokinetic is nearly 2/3 I believe of the water 

energy budget. With the fiscal year 2016 budget we will be moving 

towards supporting important open ocean demonstration projects, 

which we think is an important next step to take. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much. And I see my time is just 

about to expire. Thank you. I yield back. 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. 

The gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman, is recognized for 

his questions. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your testimony today. You talked 

about energy portfolio and I agree we need a reliable, diverse, and 

an economical domestic energy portfolio and domestic energy supply. And as we look at the spectrum of energy opportunities out 

there, we have to look for a balance among economics, diversity, reliability, and the domestic supply. 

So when we look at conventional fuels on one end of the spectrum to renewables and our alternative fuels on the other end of 

the spectrum, from an economic standpoint, the conventional fuels 

outperform the renewables and alternative fuels on the economic 

scale. So when we look at priorities and the climate that we are 

in today where we are seeing a decrease in pricing in conventional 

fuels, and you talked about priorities and investing in research. 

Let’s look at a bigger picture in priorities in the whole energy 

spectrum. We invest a lot of money in this country for subsidies to 

make renewables and alternative fuels more competitive on the 

economic scale with conventional fuels, and as the price of conventional fuels gets lower, the cost of those subsidies to make the playing field level between renewables and alternative fuels and conventional fuels, it takes more subsidies and more cost to do that. 

So my question to you is wouldn’t it makes sense to invest less 

to subsidize inefficient and uneconomical demonstration and production technologies and to rely more heavily on conventional fuel 

supplies while at the same time investing more in research so that 

in the future these renewables and alternative fuels would be more 

competitive with the conventional technologies? 
51 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, thank you. First of all, I keep repeating 

and saying that we are committed to the all-of-the-above strategy 

and I am happy to elaborate on that more, number one. And two 

is I would be happy to supply or suggest that you or your staff look 

at our website for a small publication called ‘‘Revolution’’ now that 

provides the facts on where we have come in terms of costs of 

things like wind, solar, LEDs, vehicle batteries; it is hard to keep 

up sometimes with the cost reductions of these areas. They are getting a very, very competitive. 

Third, we should understand that there are subsidies, direct or 

indirect, pretty much across the board. Certainly, there are some 

tax credits for renewables. We are proposing these tax approaches 

on carbon capture, sequestration. There are vehicles such as master limited partnerships which only apply to fossil areas and that 

provide favorable tax treatment. So there are a whole set of approaches that encourage everything from midstream fossil production to renewables and efficiency. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. And I understand the costs are getting lower 

but they are still not as competitive as conventional fuels, and 

hopefully someday we will see those costs as low as conventional 

fuels. But in looking at your budget, you have got a significantly 

higher amount of research dollars for renewables than you do for 

conventional technologies. 

And also there is the FutureGen project where you have recently 

announced you are suspending the development activities and we 

have already spent $200 million on that project. That seems to me 

like it is moving away from, you know, a broad and diverse energy 

portfolio. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, first of all, in terms of the budget facts, the fiscal year 2015 renewable energy budget is $456 million. The 

fossil energy R&D budget is $561 million. So it is actually a larger 

budget in the fossil. 

Secondly, if I look at the FutureGen, let me first of all say right 

off the bat that that was not a very fortunate result. I still believe 

that the technology of FutureGen, including oxy-combustion of coal 

and then sequestration in a saline aquifer is an area that we must 

explore. However, because they were delayed, there was litigation, 

there were various reasons, they were delayed and the hour of 

funding deadline is running out and there was no way that they 

could complete all the activities and so we had to stew with taxpayer dollars. We are going into structured closeout and we will 

protect what we can of that, including the IP for the technology 

and we do own pore space for future—hopefully future CO2 sequestration projects. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. And so let me clarify, on the energy efficiency 

and renewable energy line item, it is significantly higher than the 

other item with those two combined. 

Secretary MONIZ. But if I may again say that the EERE budget 

line is really three budgets. There is an Energy Efficiency Program, 

a Renewable Energy Program, which is quite different, and a Sustainable Transportation Program. And I can give you—the numbers are 642 for efficiency—fiscal year 2015—456 for renewables, 

602 for transportation. Nuclear energy is 833, fossil energy, only 

R&D is 561. So these are frankly basically comparable budgets. 
52 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Westerman. 

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Grayson, is recognized for questions. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In any part of the federal budget, the best indication of what we 

are spending this year is what we spent last year. The correlation 

is extremely high. What you are doing with the fiscal year 2016 request seems to be something fundamentally different. For instance, 

you are making increases as much as 84 percent in your proposal 

for one area, decreases as much is ten percent in a different area. 

I see the numbers but what I don’t see is the concepts. Tell me 

what is leading you to make the decisions that you are making 

here in these proposed amounts. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, first of all, I thank you for pointing out 

that, yeah, we do not do a peanut butter approach. We do a 

prioritization as we propose our budget. There are several factors. 

Of course we are looking as to where it is—where are we ripe in 

some sense for having breakthroughs from basic research to deployment? That is one feature. 

Secondly, we make no bones about it; we are clearly doing a 

prioritization within the all-of-the-above strategy for a low-carbon 

future even as we support areas in transportation and areas in— 

for example, in the budget that you brought forward for fiscal year 

2016 we would start a natural gas plant sequestration approach because while natural gas is carbon light among fossil fuels, eventually we are going to need carbon capture there as well. 

We are doing crosscutting activities such as—I think this is really important—in our fossil energy budget this year is supercritical 

CO2 thermodynamic cycles, which can apply to fossil fuel plants, 

nuclear plants, geothermal plants, so across the board. 

So we have an extensive process. We use our national laboratories as part of our, you know, technology thinking in terms of 

how we prioritize and how we structure programs. 

If I may say another one that crosscuts is our subsurface science 

and technology where the theme is how do we manage the subsurface—fractures, permeability, et cetera—for everything from 

carbon sequestration to hydrocarbon production to engineered geothermal, et cetera? So that is the way we think this through. This 

is—I hope it reflects a thoughtful approach to our prioritization. 

Mr. GRAYSON. I think you have authority, at least limited authority to move money from one category to another. If so, how did 

you use that authority this past year? 

Secretary MONIZ. I could not give you here a detailed accounting. 

We can supply that. But our authorities are fairly limited and 

frankly you won’t be surprised if you sit where I sit I think there 

are often too many control points in the way the budget appropriation is put forward. But I would be happy to respond more—in a 

more detailed way if you would like. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. You mentioned that one of the 

motivators for this kind of proposed budget change is whether an 

area is ripe for breakthroughs. Can you give some examples of 

where you believe that there is a ripeness for breakthrough and 

where you are putting in or would like to put in more money? 
53 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, one place where we did have a strong emphasis already in the budget is in the manufacturing technologies, 

advanced manufacturing technologies that are very ripe. If I may 

give you one example there, 3–D printing. 

So first, we collaborated with the Department of Defense. We 

were the smaller investor, not surprisingly, in a 3–D manufacturing institute in Ohio but we also had more of a research-oriented 3–D printing facility at Oak Ridge. That facility in turn collaborated with a small startup auto company called Local Motors. 

You may have seen this last year. They printed the first car. And 

now, just two weeks ago at the ARPA–E Summit, that small company was there and they are talking about next year allowing you 

to go in, pick the car you want to have printed, and go back 12 

hours later and pick it up. But that is kind of exciting and shows 

a great technology opportunity. 

If I go to basic research, a prime example I would say are the 

Energy Frontier Research Centers. We are funding now over 30 of 

them. Unfortunately, that is down because initially the ARRA 

funding gave us a big leg up. With that gone now, we have gone 

down from 46 to 32 or 33. But those are having great impact. They 

again are looking at the basic science challenges for the next generation energy technologies, and we have strong support for those 

in the budget. 

Mr. GRAYSON. How fast did the car go? 

Secretary MONIZ. I don’t know but I believe it can take you at 

plenty—— 

Mr. WEBER. Let me tell you, it was nice and fast. I rode in it. 

Secretary MONIZ. It—yeah, okay, good. It depends whether you 

choose the electric version or the internal combustion engine 

version. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Did you let Randy drive that car? 

Secretary MONIZ. It wasn’t my car. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Grayson. 

The gentlewoman from Virginia, Ms. Comstock, is recognized. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am from Virginia so, you know, certainly our state is very involved with coal and I am very concerned often about the EPA regulations and how they are impacting us and, you know, universally, you know, hear concerns about that. 

So in light of some of the proposals there and the cutback in 

clean coal technology, I was wondering, are you working with EPA 

so that they aren’t putting onerous burdens on, you know, coal 

companies depending on things that may or may not go forward 

and be invested in and happening? How can we coordinate this better so more science is being used from the Energy Department before the EPA is making their decisions? Because oftentimes, you 

know, then they are coming to us, they are coming to local governments. I know in some cases we had requirements that had to be 

killed at the local level or lawsuits and that requires a lot of economic displacement, anxiety. You know, how can we make sure 

they are coming to you first and having the science before they are 

making these onerous regulations? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, several things to say there. First of all, 

I want to make it clear that we are not backing away from our 
54 

clean coal approaches. Again, we have explicit R&D programs 

there. We have still, despite the FutureGen—which was referred to 

earlier—activity, we still have a very strong portfolio of carbon capture and sequestration projects. We have an $8 billion loan guarantee solicitation for fossil projects that lower emissions, and we 

have, as I already alluded to—not at DOE but in the Administration—the proposal for tax credits for carbon capture and sequestration. So we have a very strong portfolio of programs supporting 

coal. 

With regard to your statement about the EPA regulation, proposed regulation, first off, let me say that we do do technical, you 

know, consultation with the EPA but, you know, I think there is 

sometimes a little apples and oranges. The projects that we advance from the Department of Energy not surprisingly are pushing 

the edge, so when we do a carbon capture utilization sequestration 

project, we are pushing, you know, 90 plus percent capture. If you 

look at the proposed EPA 111(b) rule for new coal plants, if you 

build an ultra-supercritical plant, a very high-efficiency plant 

which exists, the EPA proposed rule requires only 30 percent capture. That is a much lower impact and in fact the impact is significantly lower than the numbers other often talked about because it 

is really a much smaller partial capture requirement. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. I want to submit a few more questions 

on that front—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Sure. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. —but I did want to ask another totally different 

area on fuel cell technology, and can you just give us a little bit 

of update on what is going on there, what are the expectations 

there going forward, and—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. —what particulars do you have—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Right. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. —going on there? 

Secretary MONIZ. Again, I have forgotten the exact number but 

we have a significant increase proposed in our fuel cell program. 

Fuel cells are another technology where the costs have been coming 

down very, very dramatically. I think the Department of Energy 

was certainly part of that. That is true, by the way, both for stationery and for mobile sources. 

And one indication of the success may be, you know, indirect but 

is that if you went last month to the Washington Auto Show, it was 

remarkable. There were four different companies that had fuel cell 

vehicles on the floor and including there is now commercially available a fuel cell car. It is not yet $20,000 but it is only—it is ‘‘only’’ 

$57,000 for a really nice fuel-cell vehicle car. That is a dramatic 

cost reduction. In fact, right now, the way those costs are going, 

again, the fuel cell costs are coming down. 

We have to manage the hydrogen fueling infrastructure, however. And right now, it is really only in California where one sees 

that to a certain extent, although the companies are looking to collaborate to do the same thing next in the Northeast. But fueling 

infrastructure, hydrogen fueling infrastructure is something we 

really have to think about how that goes forward. 

Mrs. COMSTOCK. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
55 

Chairman SMITH. And thank you, Mrs. Comstock. 

The gentlewoman Ms. Esty is recognized for her questions. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Secretary 

Moniz, for your presence here and answering our abundant questions. 

I wanted to return a little bit to the advanced manufacturing institutes. That is something that is of enormous interest in my State 

of Connecticut, which has a tradition there. I just saw a small toy 

company last week that is using 3–D printing for American-made 

toys that meet safety standards, so there is exciting work being 

done. 

Can you expand a little bit on what you have learned so far from 

the four institutes that are out there, what these two additional 

ones are looking to—if that is looking to augment the program 

overall or if they are specific around clean energy that you are hoping to find more information on? 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you. Well, first of all, there are only two 

that are actually established, the wide-bandgap semiconductors 

and the composite materials. That was just announced in January. 

It is not even set up yet actually. There is actually only one that 

is functioning right now. We are in the process of making an award 

hopefully not too far down the road on a smart manufacturing one 

and we have a fourth where we are going through the process of 

deciding, you know, what is the area, consultations, et cetera, what 

will be the focus area. And then we propose two more. So that is 

one point. 

Secondly, given where we are, frankly, the outcomes are not yet 

evident because we only have one that has been operating now for 

less than a year. But if I make an analogy, again, I take ARPA– 

E, that in 2009 with ARRA funding, that program got kick-started, 

and as I said earlier, now five years later we can now judge outcomes. And we didn’t sit around without investing more in that as 

we went forward. It is very important; we have got to stay on top 

of it to identify problems early on if we need and make midcourse 

corrections if needed. With ARPA–E, fortunately, it has been kind 

of clear sailing. As I said, now with the five-year mark, we are seeing very—you know, I think very impressive outcomes. We predict 

the same for the manufacturing institutes. 

Ms. ESTY. And just very briefly because I have got a couple of 

other questions, you talked about the measurement. There is both 

the question of how you judge the metrics and over what time period because if you are looking at more basic research, obviously 

you need a longer time frame in order to judge that. So for something like these manufacturing institutes, how do you handle that 

sort of connection between basic research taking longer and trying 

to decide when you apply those metrics—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Right. 

Ms. ESTY. —for success? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, so I think here we will see some metrics 

that are—we can look at it much earlier. For example, one component of these will in a certain sense be technology transfer to 

small- and intermediate-sized companies. That is something we 

should be able to see within a couple of years there. So again, if 

I take the 3–D printing—I gave an example; I won’t repeat it—on 
56 

the printed car that is an example where we are seeing amazingly 

rapid effects, and that was in collaboration with our Oak Ridge laboratory, I mentioned the little car company but I didn’t say there 

is also supply chain. For example, the printers were developed in 

Cincinnati, et cetera. 

Ms. ESTY. And changing gears, can you talk a little bit more 

about the security of the grid, reliability and resilience? We have 

had a number of hearings here. I am also on the Transportation 

Committee, a great concern there. Looking at—you know, you have 

a relatively small budget allocated for this. Can you explain, you 

know, what role you think you play at the grid level? I know you 

are looking at distributed generation and obviously the battery 

technology that permits more distributed generation will be important for resilience and reliability. But if you can talk about how you 

made those decisions and what we should be looking for, cybersecurity, the attacks on the grid in California. 

Secretary MONIZ. So the grid modernization proposal, first of all, is $356 million, and I said that will be further amplified or justified 

if you like in the Quadrennial Energy Review coming out. We approach this by looking at the spectrum of threats. To address resilience or energy assurance, we look at extreme weather of which we 

expect to see more, including, I mentioned the storm surges with 

warmer waters, et cetera. Cyber threats, physical threats—I think 

you were alluding to the California incident, for example—we look 

at geomagnetic storms, which have impacted our grids. It is kind 

of a low probability, high-risk issue. So we are looking at that resilience in many ways. One way is that we have supported and will 

support now the integrated—to capture the value through data integration and fusion of the kinds of new data that we are collecting 

and supporting, phase data, et cetera. That is one example. 

I could go on with more on that and would be happy to do so, 

but just given the time, let me switch and say but in addition to 

those kinds of significant budgetary requirements to develop the 

technology base, the modeling base, the system integration base, 

all the way from the high-voltage grid to the distribution system, 

but in addition there are other activities we have, very important, 

that are not budgetary items. For example, we run—the Deputy 

Secretary chairs a group of utility CEOs who meet regularly, quarterly, specifically on cyber threats to the system and we have taken 

steps such as selectively giving security clearances, for example, to 

some of those to be able obviously to share very sensitive data. 

So it is kind of a full spectrum approach. This is very serious. 

The attacks are just increasing in frequency and we are very, very 

mindful of our responsibilities there. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you very much. 

Secretary MONIZ. We could give a more—in a different setting a 

more detailed briefing. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Esty. 

The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Newhouse, is recognized 

for his questions. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here with us. 

Hanford is in my district and like many people in the rest of the 

country, we were very proud to be able to contribute to winning 
57 

World War II, winning the Cold War, but as we move forward with 

these exciting new technologies that we have talked about this 

morning, it is very important for us not to forget the federal government’s obligation and responsibility to clean up the legacy of 

those efforts and I am pleased to hear your comments along those 

lines earlier in your statement. 

But having said that, I am concerned about the potential impacts of the Administration’s proposed $100 million cut to the Richland 

Operations Office, particularly on cleanup work along the river corridor. Delays to this work—and I have seen this firsthand—would 

result in a higher total project cost, missed milestones, and loss of 

cleanup momentum. 

The budget, I believe, cites technical reasons for the delays to the 

Columbia River Corridor cleanup. Could you explain those technical reasons why work can’t continue, particularly at the 324 

Building, as well as at the 618–10 site, and barring any technical 

reasons, is the Department of Energy committed to continuing this 

work in fiscal year 2015 with funding appropriated for this purpose 

and in fiscal year 2016 in order to meet existing legal milestones 

along the river corridor? 

Secretary MONIZ. So, first of all, let me just say that in Hanford, 

with the Tri-Cities, it really is a very important and has been a 

very important community for the Department of Energy for a long 

time and it is our responsibility to respond to the cleanup challenge. I might add to that as an aside and also to the science opportunities, for example, like the Pacific Northwest laboratory, which 

today is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Maybe you will be there 

at the celebration. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. I hope to see you there. 

Secretary MONIZ. Okay. I will see you there. 

So going back to the cleanup, as you well know—and I do want 

to start out by emphasizing that, you know, within a pretty constrained budget the overall site budget will be going up $100 million in our proposal as we advance with the WTP project where our 

aim is to be able to start vitrifying at least the low-activity waste 

very early in the next decade like 2021, 2022. 

In terms of the Richland budget, first of all, again, as you know, 

we have made very substantial progress on the river corridor cleanup and in fact are providing now access to a substantial part of 

that corridor. Secondly, with the Richland budget, we will certainly 

be continuing aggressively with things like the groundwater pumping and, you know, chromium treatment, et cetera. We also are 

making tremendous progress. For example, it wasn’t long ago that 

the highest risk facility was viewed as the plutonium finishing 

plant and we are getting that down to grade. So I think overall the 

site will have an increased budget and I think we will make very, 

very creditable progress in both parts of the program. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. So that gives me a good segue into my next 

question, the WTP, the vitrification plant. Certainly, the intention 

is for that classified waste to go to a repository, permanent repository. Yucca Mountain has been in sights for many years. Could you 

tell me the scientific reasoning why Hanford’s waste cannot go to 

Yucca Mountain? And if so, how does the Administration’s budget 

request propose to deal with the waste and by what deadline? 
58 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, that is actually a very interesting question for a reason I will come to. First of all, scientifically there has 

long been the statement that civilian-spent fuel and high-level 

waste such as that from Hanford can certainly go to the same geological repository. That has been the assumption all along and we 

are working on three different geologies for geological repository 

within the framework, as I said earlier, but we just don’t think the 

Yucca Mountain is a workable solution. We just need to have a consent-based approach. So we are working on that. 

But let me note as well something that has not been reached for 

a full decision yet and that is that at the recommendation of the 

Blue Ribbon Commission, the Department carried out and we have 

posted on our website back in October/November a technical report 

on the issue of whether the high-level defense waste should be 

treated separately from commercial spent fuel. There are a variety 

of reasons for that. The report details them. Among them is the 

fact that the high-level waste has many, many different forms and 

might have specialized approaches. 

One which is in our fiscal year 2016 budget is to advance not 

with nuclear waste yet but to advance what is called a deep borehole demonstration project. That ultimately could be very interesting for Hanford because about 1/3 of the activity at the site are 

cesium and strontium capsules, which are very small in diameter 

and could be very well suited perhaps for much earlier disposal 

through a borehole approach. I don’t know. We have to drill—we 

have to do the demonstration project, do the science, which is what 

we want to do in 2016. So that is another interesting direction 

which could be very material for Hanford. I would be—we would 

the happy to discuss them or with you if you would like. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Thank you. I have got more questions but thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. I have gone over my time. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Newhouse. 

The gentleman from Virginia Mr. Beyer is recognized. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Secretary, I have three questions for you. 

First, I am very impressed by your Ph.D. in theoretical physics 

from Stanford. You are my hero. 

Secretary MONIZ. I used to be a practicing physicist. 

Mr. BEYER. But in the budget request the Fusion Energy Program is the only Office of Science program that really gets a cut. 

And I understand part of this is the closeout of the Alcator C–Mod 

program at MIT, but if fusion is still the Holy Grail for economic 

growth, for climate, minimal impact and the like, why cut now? 

Secretary MONIZ. Sir, that is the one area from which I am 

recused. However, my colleague Under Secretary Orr is prepared 

to answer that question. 

Mr. ORR. So the fusion research program of course continues to 

be an important one for us. It is a long-term program. It is one that 

requires us to understand the science of dense plasmas of materials 

that can lead eventually to fusion. It is a tough enough problem 

that a measured approach is appropriate for that. We have a domestic program that involves now three facilities, Princeton, one in 

San Diego, and the facility that is just finishing up at MIT. And 

it also includes an international component, the international reac-
59 

tor ITER in France. And so the budget that you have proposed for 

this year is balanced across those commitments. 

Mr. BEYER. Great. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Secretary, when the EPA rolled out the new power plant limits, it cited carbon capture to storage as the best system for emissions reductions for the coal-fired power plants. I want to point out 

in the budget that we have presented that you have a 32.5 percent 

increase in the budget for carbon capture, 8.8 percent increase for 

carbon storage, 93 percent increase for crosscutting supercritical 

CO2 technologies, so it seems to me that this is not a war on coal 

but rather a very significant commitment to clean coal. 

Secretary MONIZ. Absolutely. And basically we have a 

multipronged approach for having coal be a significant contributor, 

even in a low-carbon world. 

Mr. BEYER. Also I would like to point out that in the reading it 

pointed out that FutureGen is shutting down because the $500 million in private-sector money that was supposed to come didn’t— 

never materialized unlike so many of the other renewable technologies where the private-sector money has come forward. But 

what is next for us with CCS? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, first of all, we will be coming online with 

additional projects. For example, we have broken ground in Texas 

on the PetroNova project. for example. We are already sequestering 

carbon in Texas for a refinery operation, for example, a cement operation. We will be seeing an ethanol plant CCS project starting up 

in Illinois with the deep saline aquifer. 

Oh, and by the way, I should really mention as well across the 

border in Canada the Boundary Dam project is functioning with 

coal and post-combustion capture. 

Another thing we often forget about, by the way—this is not in 

the future but if I may go to the past because we forget—in North 

Dakota there is the Great Plains gasification plant that has been 

gasifying coal lignite for a long time. It is kind of not told a lot but 

they have sent 20 megatons of CO2 across the border to Canada for 

use in enhanced oil recovery. So there is a lot going on, there is 

going to be a lot more going on in demonstration project but also 

in some basic research to look for breakthrough carbon capture 

technologies that can lower costs. 

Mr. BEYER. Let me ask you one more question, please. 

My friends in the energy field have been telling me for years that 

the great challenge is storage. You have the power plants, for example, come online in big step increments and offline that way 

rather than smoothly and efficiently. If there is only $21 million in 

the budget for energy storage, which in the $29.9 billion budget is 

6/100ths of one percent or 1 in every $1,500, why not more for storage? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, I think I will not be able to give you a 

total, a sum here but we will get back to you with it. But the point 

is storage, battery technologies, microhydro pump storage, there is 

storage distributed around many, many parts of the budget, so it 

may not be quite as apparent and maybe we should do a—maybe 

we should do actually a little table of that that brings together all 

those pieces. But in fact we are increasing our emphasis on storage 
60 

both utility-scale storage to things like, in our hydro budget, an increase for microhydro pump storage. 

Today, by far the biggest energy storage in our grid is pump storage and it is big. But it is big only in very select locations where 

you have the right opportunity. So things like micropump storage 

could be much more ubiquitous. That is just one example in addition to the battery work that is going on. 

I might say on battery work also, especially if I go to automotive 

batteries, the cost reductions there again have been very, very impressive. We are now at the place where, with mass production of 

today’s technologies, we are below $300 a kilowatt hour. We were 

at 600 not long ago. Our goal remains $125 by the end of the decade. We have got to push but it is a big drop. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Beyer. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman 

Chairman SMITH. The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie, is 

recognized for his questions. 

Mr. MASSIE. Secretary Moniz, in this Committee we often discuss 

how to leverage the DOE and the labs there to accelerate technological development both for private companies and for the good of 

society. In one area of technology we have seen some stagnation 

and that is in nuclear energy. We are sort of stuck in one reactor 

design right now. Is there a way that you could use the labs at the 

DOE to allow these new types of reactors, at least prototypes of 

them, to be built? Because right now they have to go through a licensing process that sort of crimps the line. The venture capitalists 

don’t want to invest in something that is going to take a ten-year 

licensing process. Is there a way that we could use the labs that 

you have to authorize, host, and oversee privately funded prototype 

reactors? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, I would say in my view not really. There 

is discussion, for example, of using, say, small modular reactors deployed at DOE sites or government sites like the TVA, for example, 

Idaho, other places. But frankly, at least my view is that we really 

need NRC licensing to have the confidence of the public in terms 

of the safety of these reactors, and I would love to discuss this 

longer. You put your finger on a very important issue. The entire 

experience base really of the NRC has been in light water reactor 

technology. It is one reason why the initial small modular reactors 

being advanced are light water reactor technologies. And the question is how do we get beyond that to molten salt reactors, fast reactors, et cetera? And I think the only way in the end is to make investments I think through the appropriations process for having 

NRC now be able to build up an experience base for alternative 

technologies because it is kind of a chicken-and-egg problem otherwise. 

Mr. MASSIE. We are stuck where we are and I am afraid that 

the—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Yeah. 

Mr. MASSIE. —other countries are going to leap-frog us in this if 

we don’t figure out a way to solve that chicken-and-egg problem. 

Secretary MONIZ. And we are seeing a little bit of that already. 

Mr. MASSIE. Yeah, unfortunately. 
61 

Secretary MONIZ. Yeah. 

Mr. MASSIE. You mentioned that 20 megatons of CO2 had been 

transferred to Canada to extract oil. Was that in a pipeline? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes. 

Mr. MASSIE. So we will need more of these pipelines if we use 

CO2 and transfer it for other projects? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yeah. We actually have—I forget the exact 

number—we may have like 1,000 miles of CO2 pipeline already. 

That is mostly to transport natural CO2 to enhanced oil recovery 

sites. We are actually using now about 60 megatons of CO2 per 

year for enhanced oil recovery. 

Mr. MASSIE. Are you worried that we will have as much trouble 

from this Administration in getting pipelines for CO2 as we have 

for tar sands? 

Secretary MONIZ. The CO2 pipelines typically right now are pretty reasonably short runs. For example, the Kemper project in Mississippi built a 60-mile CO2 pipeline for EOR. 

Mr. MASSIE. So you are not advocating—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Texas has a lot of CO2 pipelines. 

Mr. MASSIE. So you think it would be fairly easy to get these approved? 

Secretary MONIZ. I would never say anything is fairly easy 

but—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. Well, I hope it—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —they are typically not—they are certainly not 

international issues. 

Mr. MASSIE. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. May I, if I can just say—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Didn’t the CO2 go from the United States—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —for the future—— 

Mr. MASSIE. —to Canada? 

Secretary MONIZ. Say that again. 

Mr. MASSIE. The CO2 that you talked about, the 20 megatons, 

did it go from the United States to Canada? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yeah, from North Dakota to Canada. 

Mr. MASSIE. Is that not an international pipeline? 

Secretary MONIZ. That is. I am saying for—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. All right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —future build-out—— 

Mr. MASSIE. I answered the question for you then. 

Secretary MONIZ. Future build-out is a different issue. 

Mr. MASSIE. So is it true that a plant that uses carbon capture, 

fossil fuel plant that uses carbon capture versus one that doesn’t 

has to consume more fuel per kilowatt hour? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, if you—certainly if you look at post-combustion capture, obviously it is always cheaper to not capture. 

Mr. MASSIE. But it is going to consume—— 

Secretary MONIZ. But—— 

Mr. MASSIE. —more fossil fuels—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, yes, so not—— 

Mr. MASSIE. —if you capture, correct? 

Secretary MONIZ. So you can do it either way, yes. Yes. 
62 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. So how much more will it cost to run one of 

these and what will that do to the price of electricity for consumers 

since it is going to consume—— 

Secretary MONIZ. The—— 

Mr. MASSIE. You concede it consumes more fuel to run it. 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes, but the—— 

Mr. MASSIE. So it is less efficient? 

Secretary MONIZ. If you use the plant’s energy to do the capture, 

then it will be less efficient; that is clear, right? 

Mr. MASSIE. All the designs that I have seen, I mean unless 

there is a free source of energy, it is going to consume energy— 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, no—— 

Mr. MASSIE. —and cost more, correct? Does it cost more? Can 

you give me a yes-or-no answer? 

Secretary MONIZ. Let me—I am sorry. I have to—if you are talking about post-combustion capture, that logic is clear. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. 

Secretary MONIZ. If you go to a different technology like gasification, it could be a different issue in principle, not in practice 

today but in principle. So clearly capturing carbon is more expensive than not capturing carbon in a post-combustion world, but the 

comparison is that cost, let’s say, in a low-carbon world compared 

to other low-carbon technologies. And as I said earlier, if you look 

at the proposed 111(b) rule, it only requires, if you build an efficient plant, ultra-supercritical, it is only a 30 percent capture. 

Mr. MASSIE. For the record, my question was how much more expensive is it to run one of these theoretical carbon capture plants 

compared to today’s existing science—— 

Secretary MONIZ. With a—— 

Mr. MASSIE. —and what is the effect on consumer price of electricity? 

Secretary MONIZ. With a 30 percent capture it is—I don’t know 

the exact dollar; I will get back to you—but it is probably couple 

cents. 

Mr. MASSIE. Per kilowatt hour? 

Secretary MONIZ. Per kilowatt hour. 

Mr. MASSIE. With—so—— 

Secretary MONIZ. But that is to be compared with alternative 

technologies, and so, you know—I mean I think that is the comparison you have to make. 

Mr. MASSIE. So a couple cents is like at least 30 percent more. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, no, the average retail price is about 11 

cents—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay, 20 percent. 

Secretary MONIZ. —in the United States. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you. I yield back. Right. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Massie. 

The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter, is recognized for 

his questions. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Grayson, I appreciate the opportunity to serve on this Committee so thank you very much. 

Mr. Secretary, good to see you. 
63 

I am running between two committee hearings. The other committee hearing is with Chairwoman Janet Yellen on the Humphrey-Hawkins, you know, ‘‘what is happening in the economy’’ 

kind of discussion with her, and she starts off with this year’s monetary report so I am going to come at it from an economic perspective. You have been getting lots of science questions and kilowatt 

hour questions. 

I want to start with something where Mr. Westerman was asking 

you, about the decline in the price of oil and its effect as you see 

it as the Secretary of the Energy Department on your overall kind 

of portfolio, renewables, efficiency, fossil fuels, nuclear, et cetera. 

We saw in the ’80s—and I will just tee it up this way—we saw in 

the ’80s when the Saudis dropped it from $30 to $10, really a decimation of the energy sector, renewables and fossil fuels particularly 

for about 15 or 20 years. We have now gone from $107 down to about $50 for a variety of 

reasons. And you may expand on those, you know, more production, less use, whatever, how do you see that playing out in terms 

of the economy? Because in Colorado in the ’80s and the early ’90s 

when that happened, it hurt us pretty good, both starting with the 

energy sector and then it flowed out to retail, real estate, banking. 

And so I am just going to throw that to you, sir, and ask for 

your—you know, your thoughts. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, first of all, we always start with the point 

that overall it is very good for the overall national economy, for 

consumers. Indeed, EIA projects just the lower gasoline prices as 

translating to about $750 per year for the average household. So 

we have that. 

Now, clearly, when we go to the producing areas, there is obviously lower prices. The—nevertheless, the EIA does project higher 

production in 2015 than in 2014, but the amount of increase is projected to be, you know, dampened clearly. And if the prices were 

to stay, you know, in the 40s, then presumably in 2016 one might 

see some little—some roll-off, although even then the EIA does not 

project, you know, major roll-off. 

We also know that the prices tend to be somewhat volatile and 

at the Department of Energy—to go to that part of the question, 

the Department of Energy, it frankly does not change our R&D 

portfolio. Our job is to enable the whole range of energy options to 

be developed to drive costs down so that the marketplace in five 

years, in ten years, in twnty years, in thirty years will have a set 

of options. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. All right. So following up on that, what have 

you seen in terms of the cost of wind energy, solar energy, whatever other kinds of renewables, alternatives in terms of their ability just again within the market to withstand this kind of a drop 

or to provide energy sources at competitive rates compared to fossil 

fuels with this price drop? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, certainly if you take solar, we have seen 

no real drop in the deployment at this stage. There may be issues 

down the road with, you know, tax credits issues, how taxes are 

handled, but so far the cost reduction of solar has been so dramatic 

that we are seeing just substantial—very, very substantial deployment. 
64 

I was saying earlier that the cost of a solar module is now significantly lower than a dollar a watt and I expect that we will reach 

the Holy Grail of 50 cents a watt within 2, 3 years. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. What about wind? 

Secretary MONIZ. Wind has also come down dramatically. Mainly 

the issue of—you know, we are getting larger turbines, the longer 

blades, much more efficient in terms of capturing the wind resource. And of course we are working—in terms of the R&D side, 

our D&D, we are also now pushing hard into areas like offshore 

wind where the resource is dramatic. And then there are very substantial—I mean like ARPA–E is also supported and it has now 

gone out to Google, you know, tethered wind—— 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —kites and this kind of a thing. So there are 

some pretty interesting, novel concepts but just taking land-based 

wind, cost reduction has clearly put wind into a very competitive 

range, you know, for good wind sites. 

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WEBER. [Presiding] okay. The gentleman yields back. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Always good to have you here to discuss the important work of the Department of Energy, so thank 

you for your work. 

I also had a very good meeting a couple of weeks ago with Under 

Secretary Orr. We had a very good discussion. As you probably 

guessed, we did talk about DOE’s commitment to P5 as it relates 

to Fermilab in my district. I do think we are in a position as a nation to take a leadership role on an international facility, and I 

really do hope to see that happen. 

Government-wide I am glad the President’s budget does increase 

R&D but I still see it as a problem that has been ongoing with this 

Administration’s choice to value applied R&D over basic scientific 

research. Why does the President’s budget propose a five percent 

increase to applied R&D while only giving a 3.5 percent increase 

to basic research? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, as I said earlier, in terms of the Office 

of Science budget, because the Office of Science has done a very 

good job in terms of how it stages its major facilities in particular, 

and so if you look at the budget request, we continue to have robust development of new capabilities, we support the Long-Baseline Neutrino facility at Fermilab, and the budget also proposes 

like a 98 percent full operation budget of our facilities. So we think 

it is going to be a very, very strong budget and certainly support 

the national user community quite well. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Again, my concern is—I am grateful that R&D 

is increasing but I still feel like there is misapplied priorities where 

we are pushing applied research more than basic research at a 

time where budgets are still difficult. And so to me that just gets 

back to a fundamental concern. 

Let me get on to something else because I want to cover a couple 

different questions. What more can DOE do to be making it easier 

to transition technology out of the labs? Now that Ellen Williams 
65 

is confirmed at ARPA–E, can you tell how you intend to use the 

new Office of Technology Transitions? 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you, and thank you for your interest 

anad leadership in that area. 

So as you said, Ellen Williams has now taken up the ARPA–E 

reigns but she has left us with a great plan which we are implementing, so we have established the Office of Technology Transitions. A very capable person, Jetta Wong, who has run that kind 

of a program in EERE is at least our acting director of that office 

and Technology Transfer Coordinator. But also very importantly 

we have followed now I would say the letter of the 2005 directive 

to establish a Technology Commercialization Fund. So we will be 

in fiscal year 2016 taking 0.9 percent of the applied energy R&D 

budget into a technology—Energy Technology Commercialization 

Fund that will be operated by the Office of Technology Transitions 

as a cost-shared competitive program for labs and companies to 

transition technologies. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Okay. Thank you. 

Let me switch topics in my last minute-and-a-half or so that I 

have got. I would like to discuss, as many others have, nuclear 

power, which certainly is important to my State. Illinois is the nation’s largest producer of nuclear energy. Do you recognize the need 

to keep the existing fleet competitive? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes, I am very concerned about that and in 

particular in the context of low carbon. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Let me put out some questions and then if you 

can respond to any of these that you are able to in time. Why then 

has the Administration requested a nuclear tax via the Uranium 

Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund? Has the 

fund been exhausted? How much remains in that fund? And why 

are you requesting this tax now given the amount of plants currently at risk? And finally, how does the Administration expect the 

United States to meet international climate goals if our nuclear 

fleets continue to face early retirements? 

Secretary MONIZ. A lot of questions. 

Mr. HULTGREN. A lot there, I know. 

Secretary MONIZ. I think the UED&D fund, I am not entirely sure but I think there is something like 3 or $4 billion I think in 

that fund. I can check that— 

Mr. HULTGREN. That would be great—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —precisely— 

Mr. HULTGREN. —if you can let us know, and maybe if we could 

follow up with—— 

Secretary MONIZ. And— 

Mr. HULTGREN. —questions on this. 

Secretary MONIZ. Okay. All right. Fine. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Let me just ask you real quick, as far as nuclear 

fleets continue to face early retirement, is that a concern of yours? 

How does that—how do we mix these I think competing facts? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes. In fact I have convened brainstorming sessions on this issue of current nuclear fleet retirements. One of the 

issues is it turns out we don’t—at the federal level we don’t have 

a lot of levers there so we are convening discussions. The—in fact, 

in Illinois, as you know very well, there is very active consideration 
66 

at the state level as to how one can value what I would say is the 

diversification of supply and the baseload nature, the capacity 

value of nuclear plants. But, again, it is really at the state level 

as opposed to federal. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Again, my time is up. Thank you for being here. 

Thank you again for your voiced support of LBNE and the work 

that is going on there. I think it is so important for us and really 

a chance for us to lead again on an important project in the world, 

so thank you for your help on that. 

Secretary MONIZ. And if I may add an anecdote that when I visited Fermilab a few months back, I was very pleased to have a researcher ask me to sign a paper I wrote in 1971— 

Mr. HULTGREN. Wow. 

Secretary MONIZ. —because they were using it in the analysis 

so— 

Mr. HULTGREN. Very good. 

Secretary MONIZ. —it was a great trip. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Good, good. That is great. Thank you. 

Mr. WEBER. The gentleman from Illinois yields back. Now another one of Illinois’ fine gentlemen is recognized, Mr. Lipinski. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to welcome back Secretary Moniz. It is good to see you 

again. 

Secretary MONIZ. Good to see you. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I always learn a tremendous amount when I talk 

to you and when you testify, so it is good to have you here. 

As you and this Committee know, improving technology transfer 

has been one of my top priorities in Congress, so I want to applaud 

you and the Department for some of the things you have done recently to improve the commercialization potential for DOE-funded 

research at our universities and national labs. 

First is the Office of Technology Transitions, which Mr. Hultgren 

just mentioned you had talked about, which was announced two 

weeks ago to fulfill Congressional requirements for a Technology 

Commercialization Fund. As you know, it has been a big interest 

of mine and it was one of the first matters we spoke about when 

we met in July of 2013, and I appreciated working with you and 

your staff to make this happen. 

Secretary MONIZ. And again, I would like to add to you as well 

my thanks for your leadership and interest in this issue. You have 

obviously been very, very dedicated to it. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. And the second item is the pilot for the 

Lab-Corp program based on NSF’s Innovation Corps, also known as 

the I–Corps program. For labs like Argonne in my district with a 

good deal of use-inspired basic research such as the JCESR, initiatives on battery research, I think a program like Lab-Corp can 

really help by teaching researchers more about how the commercialization process works so that they can more easily identify what 

basic research problems need to be solved to build better batteries. 

And as you have talked about how important that that is. 

And one other thing that you had mentioned I want to thank you 

for is moving forward on the H–Prize for the competition on fueling 

infrastructure for hydrogen as a transportation fuel. The H–Price 

Act was—I believe it was the first bill that I got signed into law. 
67 

It was about seven years ago, and I am happy that the Department 

is now using the H–Prize to help move us to a clean energy future. 

So I thank you for moving forward with that. 

So with all that out of the way I want to ask a couple questions 

on—in the time I have left on these three things that I have 

brought up. First on Lab-Corp, what do you see as the potential 

value of the program given that it is a pilot and what are you going 

to be looking for in terms of impacts when evaluating the effectiveness of the program at the labs? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, once again, thank you for your interest 

and leadership in this area. 

So the LabCorp, as you said, the pilot, I think it is a $2.5 million 

pilot as I recall modeled after the I–Corps. We have NREL as our 

coordinator and Argonne, Idaho, Pacific Northwest, Berkeley, and 

Livermore engaged. I believe this summer 15 teams will go through 

the LabCorp training program and the issue then is we will have 

to go back probably in a couple of years to see if the outcome is 

there that this cadre of researchers has in fact been able to pick 

up the game in terms of tech transfer. That is the outcome we are 

looking for. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. All right. On the Office of Technology Transitions 

and the Tech Commercialization Fund, what types of opportunities 

will the Office be looking to support and will they potentially include support for technology maturation activities at the labs? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes, I think, you know, to be honest, the real 

program design still needs more development and we would be 

happy to work with you on that, but technology maturation is 

clearly important. We are looking for partnerships of the labs with 

industry, with the private sector to be able to mature and move out 

technologies. But again, to be honest, we still have some real program design to do there. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Very well. I look forward to working with you—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Great. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. —on that. And the final one is I had mentioned the 

H–Prize and the competition now that the Department is working 

on. Could you tell me anything about where this is right—where 

exactly this is right now? 

Secretary MONIZ. You know, other than our moving out on it, I 

really would have to get back to you following the hearing in terms 

of exact status. I just don’t know that right now. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Okay. Well, we will follow up on that on—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. —that one then. 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. So I thank you very much again for all your—the 

work that you have done and I think we are making great progress 

despite the—you know, the difficult budgetary times that we are 

in, so I thank you for—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. —what you do and I yield back. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, is recognized. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
68 

Mr. Secretary, the research that you are doing on hydraulic 

fracking right now seems to be focused on the impact on water 

quality. Is the Department of Energy doing any research on improving fracking in the terms of making it more and more economically viable? As the price of oil has come down, obviously it gets 

to a price point where it is not viable. Is DOE trying to do anything 

to make it more economically viable? 

Secretary MONIZ. Again, I will get back to you in detail but my 

understanding at the moment is that we are not, that that is principally in the private sector, and what we are looking at is mostly 

the minimization of environmental footprint. But of course that in 

turn would have— 

Mr. PALMER. But wait—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —economic consequences. 

Mr. PALMER. Wait on that. You are investing enormous amounts 

of money in trying to make renewable energy economically viable. 

You are the Department of Energy; you are not the EPA, so it 

would make sense to me that through the Department of Energy 

we would want to have maximum access to our energy resources 

because it helps our economy and improves our national security. 

So why wouldn’t the Department of Energy be investing in supporting additional research and making fracking more economically 

viable? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, again, I will look into that in detail but, 

you know, as we said earlier, the—I mean the Department has certainly over these last decades contributed substantially to developing the technology and now one has, you know, very large companies who are investing in that research. We wanted to add value 

with the government funding. So our—my view at least is right 

now focusing mainly on things like, for example, reuse of water 

that—— 

Mr. PALMER. Well, let me—I want to stay on—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —it is all very important. 

Mr. PALMER. —this—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Okay. 

Mr. PALMER. —theme a little bit. Have we returned to the preBP spill levels for permitting in the Gulf Coast for oil exploration 

and extraction? Do you—— 

Secretary MONIZ. I don’t know that. That is a Department of Interior issue and I just don’t know that directly. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. The Department of Energy doesn’t do the 

permitting? 

Secretary MONIZ. No, we do not. No. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. Well, I will just say for the record that if we 

got back to the permitting level, it would add 190,000 jobs if we 

cleared the backlog that existed at the time of the Deepwater Horizon. That would add another 400,000 and about $45 billion to our 

gross domestic product. 

I want to switch to something else. There was an article in the 

L.A. Times back in December 2013, about 14 months ago, a little 

over 14 months ago that talked about our power grid and the fact 

that it is not designed for renewables, and that to get it up to grade 

by 2030 is going to cost us about a trillion dollars. Has the Depart-
69 

ment of Energy taken that into account in the headlong push toward renewables? 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes, indeed. We have a very, very large focus 

on the whole question of renewables integration. It is part of our 

grid modernization project. We will be saying more about that in 

our upcoming Quadrennial Energy Review probably in a few 

weeks, I hope at least in a few weeks. And I would also say that 

I am—I would perhaps question that—the scale of that resource. 

Mr. PALMER. Well, it came out of Caltech. I think they are a fairly reputable source. 

But the other thing is the fact that with renewables you don’t 

have consistent energy output. If the wind—right now we are having to dump power because we don’t have viable storage options 

and there is a huge debate over whether or not we can make that 

economically viable. But I want to ask you something else in the 

last few seconds that I have, and it appears that we plan to have 

80 percent of our power, our energy resources coming from renewables within the next two or three decades. Does the Department 

of Energy have any plans for the fossil fuels resources that we have 

that I think represent an enormous economic resource for the country in terms of oil, natural gas, and coal? 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, certainly in terms of the power sector 

where oil does not play such a major role of course in the United 

States, but in terms of the power sector, all of these multibillion 

dollar investments and now proposed tax credits for coal very much 

for having coal—continue to have a major presence even with low 

carbon. Natural gas we see as a very important bridge to low carbon, and in fiscal year 2016 we are proposing to start carbon capture with gas as well. And then of course the nuclear renewables 

and efficiency. Efficiency of course is generally speaking also a fossil program if you like. It is about efficient use of fossil fuels. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WEBER. The gentleman yields back. 

And the gentleman from California Dr. Bera is recognized. 

Mr. BERA. Great. Thank you, Secretary, for being here. Thank 

you to the Chairman and Ranking Member. 

I want to shift a little bit to the Department’s collaboration with 

higher education, some of the funding research particularly in the 

area of ARPA–E as well. You know, my home institution is University of California Davis. It does a lot with the Department in the 

renewable space and recently has received some awards as well. I 

am just curious about the different details and the different roles 

that ARPA–E is playing in terms of collaboration with our institutions of higher education, some of the projects that you are working 

on. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, ARPA–E certainly makes awards to universities, to our labs, and to industry, so it is complete spectrum. 

It is not—— 

Mr. BERA. Right. 

Secretary MONIZ. —only one or the other. In terms of specifics, 

well, if I go back to my previous life in particular, there have been 

strong projects in things like novel storage technologies. One of the 

very first round of awards, for example, was for something called 

liquid metal batteries that are now actually getting into the mar-
70 

ketplace. That is an example. I mean there are so many diverse 

areas. For example, going back to the question earlier, highstrength ways of storing hydrogen, for example, with advanced materials research. That is an example. We could go on and on with 

different technologies. 

Mr. BERA. And, Secretary, in your experience when we make 

these investments in R&D and in advanced research, there is a return on that investment in terms of the new industries that are 

spawned and so forth. Is that—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Major amplification, yeah. 

Mr. BERA. Yeah. Absolutely. So in many ways when we look at 

our economic strength over the past decades and so forth and what 

puts us in—is this investment in innovation and this investment 

in, you know, challenging some of the issues that lay ahead of us, 

maybe not knowing how we are going to address, let’s say, you 

know, carbon sequestration that is already in the atmosphere. We 

may not know how we were going to degrade that carbon, yet we 

do know part of the challenge is certainly capturing carbon that is 

being emitted today but we also—you know, I think when you were 

here last session of Congress talked about the enormous amount of 

carbon that is already trapped in our atmosphere and, you know, 

I would be curious if the Department is looking at and funding 

some of those technologies that—or some of the research that 

would help us think about how we degrade the carbon that is already there. 

Secretary MONIZ. Yes, well, there is work on that. The—of course 

today this issue of getting carbon directly out of the atmosphere is 

very expensive and there is a long, long way to go before having 

that be scalable. And, by the way, success there still then leaves 

you with of course the big sequestration issue if you get all of that 

carbon out of the atmosphere. So that is more in the long-term. I 

would say we do have a much stronger emphasis today on this 

question of capturing current anthropogenic emissions, especially 

from large point sources. 

Mr. BERA. So the focus is actually capturing it at the source right 

now—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Correct, because—— 

Mr. BERA. —and then long-term—— 

Secretary MONIZ. —that is where the lower cost opportunities are 

for the near future. 

Mr. BERA. And I would certainly like us to know and start funding the research thinking about the longer-term sequestration 

issues. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, we have a lot of projects and sometimes 

what is called artificial photosynthesis—— 

Mr. BERA. Okay. 

Secretary MONIZ. A Holy Grail would be to combine CO2 out of 

the atmosphere, water, and light and produce a liquid fuel. So we 

have work ongoing on that. 

Mr. BERA. Absolutely. And again, understanding that right now 

it is not at scale because of the massive amounts of carbon that are 

there—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Right. 
71 

Mr. BERA. —but, you know, that has never stopped us as Americans. I mean we understand that we may not know how to do it 

at a cost and price point today that allows us to do it, but again, 

if we challenge ourselves, if we use our innovation, you know, a 

decade from now, you know, you might have—— 

Secretary MONIZ. We have—— 

Mr. BERA. —that breakthrough technology. 

Secretary MONIZ. I completely agree. We have no bigger edge 

than our research—— 

Mr. BERA. Absolutely. 

Secretary MONIZ. —and innovation enterprise. 

Mr. BERA. Well, and let’s certainly take advantage of that. 

Just following up on some of the questions that Mr. Lipinski had 

asked, my colleague from Illinois, on the Office of Technology 

Transfer and so forth, certainly an area that I am interested in, 

you know, particularly within our public universities, and recognizing that we have limited research dollars. You know, there is 

certainly the private sector institutions that want to partner with 

our academic universities. You know, I would be curious on an update some of the issues that this body—you would like us to focus 

on particularly in the space of technology transfer. 

Secretary MONIZ. Well, the—first of all I might say historically 

that Congress played an enormous role in kick-starting this. Going 

back to Bayh-Dole, for example, absolutely central legislation to do 

this. And I might say I think in my view I see universities, because 

of the whole changing innovation system being if anything closer 

to the marketplace now, the value system I think has evolved to 

value those kinds of activities. 

So anyway—so I think we need to keep working together in 

terms of legislative approaches, incentives in some of our programs, 

DOE for sure but also NSF and NIH, and I think we are seeing 

a very interesting development in terms of being closer to the marketplace. 

Mr. BERA. Absolutely. Well, and again, you can count on this office if there are things that we can do in Congress to set that 

framework—— 

Secretary MONIZ. Great. 

Mr. BERA. —for a closer public-private partnership, that would 

be great. Thank you. 

Secretary MONIZ. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Mr. WEBER. Secretary Moniz, we thank you for your testimony 

and we thank the Members for their questions. The record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and written 

questions from Members. 

Does the gentleman from Oklahoma have any questions? 

Mr. LUCAS. No, sir. I just appreciate your magnificent chairmanship, sir. 

Mr. WEBER. All right. Well, that—— 

Mr. HULTGREN. So say we all. 

Mr. WEBER. —particularly will be recorded in the—without objection. 

Dr. Moniz, thank you. 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. WEBER. This hearing is adjourned. 
72 

Secretary MONIZ. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
(73) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by The Honorable Ernest Moniz 
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