Over the past several decades, sustainable energy and environmental issues have gained an increasing level of attention in international humanitarian and development assistance, as countries have tried to integrate poverty reduction and economic growth initiatives with a shared concern for the global environment. This integration is reflected in several international conventions including the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (the Stockholm Convention), the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio Convention), the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (the Johannesburg Summit), among others. Donor countries, including the United States, that provide financial assistance to lower-income countries to aid in their economic development, have increasingly targeted projects that address the full range of economic growth indicators. These indicators include financial viability, social inclusivity, and environmental sustainability at both the local and the global level. The World Bank Group (WBG), as the world's largest multilateral lending institution for development assistance, sits at the nexus of these efforts. As an international organization, the WBG is generally exempt from U.S. law. However, the United States—through its role as a financial contributor to the WBG and as a member on the various WBG governing boards—has influence on WBG policy. This influence manifests itself through voting power on the Board, general advocacy, reporting requirements, and financial leverage. Through these efforts, various U.S. Administrations have focused on the institution's lending practices as a means to induce greater environmental sustainability in multilateral development assistance. Similarly, the U.S. Congress—through its role in WBG appointments, appropriations, and legislative guidance—has significant input on these issues. Congressional debate over the WBG's environmental practices is long-running. As early as 1983, a campaign to call attention to environmental problems caused by WBG projects was undertaken by several U.S. environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others. The U.S. Congress subsequently held hearings on the issues documented by these groups, and began a process that saw annual investigations by a wide range of committees, including those on banking, foreign affairs and foreign relations, appropriations, environment, and others. Witnesses included environmental groups from the United States and affected countries and the U.S. officials charged with directing U.S. participation in the WBG institutions. When asked by Congress to look into the problems identified by environmental groups, U.S. Treasury officials also became concerned about possible negative environmental impacts of WBG projects—a subject that had received little or no official attention at that time. Beginning in the mid-1980s and continuing to the present, Congress has passed a succession of laws that aim to influence environmental practices at the WBG. Legislative guidance to help direct the U.S. officials in encouraging and promoting sustainability goals at WBG institutions has been included in many authorizing legislations and annual foreign operations appropriations bills. The primary legislative vehicle for U.S. interaction with the WBG has been the International Financial Institutions Act of 1977, as amended ( P.L. 95-118 ), as well as various annual appropriations acts, provisions of which are found in the U.S. Code, Title 22, Chapter 7. The U.S. Code has several sections related to energy and environmental issues at the WBG, including guidance for the sustainable use of natural resources and the protection of the environment, public health, and the status of indigenous peoples in developing countries; requirements for environmental impact assessments and the identification of proposals likely to have adverse impacts; mandates for the creation of information exchange systems among countries and civil society organizations related to the environment; promotions for loans supporting environmentally beneficial policies, projects, and project components; and directives to adopt and implement greenhouse gas accounting in analyzing the benefits and costs of individual projects and ensure the expansion of activities supporting climate change mitigation. Through the years, the WBG has incorporated guidance provided by the U.S. Congress via the U.S. Executive Directors in various lending reforms and operational policies. In 2009, U.S. environmental guidance—as well as other internal and external pressures—led to the WBG reporting its intentions to revise its decade-old strategy for energy and infrastructure lending. After releasing an Energy Strategy Approach Paper in October 2009, and consulting with government and civil society stakeholders from January 2010 to July 2010, a strategy document, Energizing Sustainable Development: Energy Sector Strategy of the World Bank Group (ESS), dated March 16, 2011, was presented to the WBG Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE) on April 11, 2011, for consent and subsequent delivery to the WBG Board of Executive Directors for a vote during the summer of 2011. The ESS, however, stalled during debate in CODE. With the appointment of Jim Yong Kim as the 12th President of the World Bank Group on July 1, 2012, the ESS process was discontinued. Efforts to revise energy and infrastructure lending have since been incorporated into the broader initiatives of the new administration. This report summarizes the provisions of the proposed Energy Sector Strategy of the World Bank Group. It situates the strategy within current WBG lending practices and in response to various stakeholder critiques. A final section outlines issues for Congress. The core mission of the World Bank Group, as stated in its literature and outreach, is poverty alleviation and environmentally sustainable development. Research shows an estimated 1.4 billion people worldwide (i.e., 20% of the world population) are without access to electricity or modern energy resources, and many more face recurrent supply disruptions. Demand for primary energy is estimated to increase by 80% in lower-income countries by 2035, and achieving universal access to electricity is estimated to require an additional annual average investment of $36 billion. Also, approximately 3 billion people continue to rely on traditional solid fuels for heating and cooking, with estimates that nearly 2 million die annually, and many more fall ill, from indoor air pollution caused by this practice. Further, it is speculated that lower-income countries may bear up to 80% of the cost of future damages caused by global climate change. Research suggests that energy-saving policies and low-emission technologies could be ways for meeting future energy needs in a globally sustainable manner as well as for mitigating local environmental problems associated with energy production and use. The WBG claims that achieving these goals could contribute significantly to eradicating poverty and hunger, supporting primary education, promoting gender equity, combating disease, and ensuring environmental stability, as well as increasing entrepreneurial business activities and economic development in lower-income countries. But World Bank environmental strategies are not without their critics. Throughout the years, many of the WBG's lending practices have supported projects with potentially negative environmental implications. Road construction, large dams, fossil-fuel power generation, mining and extractive industries, and agricultural and forestry projects sponsored by WBG lending have been criticized by many who believe they are not only environmentally destructive, but are often harmful to large segments of the population in the societies they are intended to help (e.g., farm fertility may be harmed by unsustainable agriculture practices, soil may be contaminated by adjacent energy or mining industries, fisheries may be affected by pollution from excess fertilizer use or industrial runoff). World Bank Group lending for energy infrastructure projects totaled $13 billion in 2010. Projects included investment in upstream exploration, new and retrofitted facilities for power generation, transmission and distribution systems, demand side management and energy efficiency programs, and policy and technical advice. Energy lending currently accounts for 17% of the WBG's investment portfolio (see Figure 1 ), and has grown steadily over the past decade (e.g., energy sector lending averaged approximately $2.4 billion annually from 2000-2004, and accounted for roughly 4%-6% of the WBG's investment portfolio during those years). In 2003, at the request of the Board of Executive Directors, WBG management established an Infrastructure Action Plan to revitalize the WBG's engagement with the energy sector. Further, in response to the global financial and economic crisis, the WBG launched the Infrastructure Recovery and Assets Platform in April 2009 (to support counter-cyclical spending on infrastructure) and the Infrastructure Crisis Facility in December 2009 (to ensure the availability of long-term debt to support private infrastructure projects affected by capital shortages). Due in part to these initiatives, total commitments in the sector have grown significantly. Figure 2 presents recent lending figures by energy sector. See also Appendix B for numerical data related to lending by sector, by financing institution, and by geographic region. The WBG reported that 2010 marked an all-time record in renewable energy and energy efficiency financing, as well as a new record in low carbon financing. Figures for new investment showed a 62% increase in low carbon commitments to $5.5 billion compared to 2009, and low carbon energy financing accounted for 42% of all 2010 commitments. Additionally, 30 out of 34 country assistance and partnership strategies prepared in 2010 addressed climate change and sustainable development. However, critics noted that the WBG's "low carbon financing" category funded fossil fuel projects that supported increased use of "cleaner" fuels to displace more carbon intensive ones. Similarly, focusing solely on the categories for "renewable energy" and "energy efficiency," rather than the broader category for "low carbon," showed a decrease in these sectors' shares of total energy investment, from 39% in 2009 to 26% in 2010. Likewise, while renewable energy and energy efficiency financing established all-time highs in 2010, at $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion respectively, so did new fossil fuel thermal power generation, up to $4.3 billion, a fourfold increase over 2009. The WBG promoted additional initiatives during 2010 as having supported increased energy access and environmentally sustainable development.