[Senate Hearing 117-140]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 117-140

                   THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET REQUEST FOR
                        THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
                          FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 15, 2021

                               __________
                               
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                               


                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
44-959                       WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------           
      
        
               COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington           JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             MIKE LEE, Utah
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          STEVE DAINES, Montana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine            JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado       CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
                                     ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas

                      Renae Black, Staff Director
                      Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
                Zahava Urecki, Professional Staff Member
             Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
              Matthew H. Leggett, Republican Chief Counsel
      Justin Memmott, Republican Deputy Staff Director for Energy
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from West 
  Virginia.......................................................     1
Barrasso, Hon. John, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from 
  Wyoming........................................................     2

                                WITNESS

Granholm, Hon. Jennifer, Secretary of Energy.....................     4

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

Barrasso, Hon. John:
    Opening Statement............................................     2
    Wall Street Journal article entitled ``Oil Price Hits 
      Pandemic High as Investors Bet on Green Energy'' by Amrith 
      Ramkumar and Joe Wallace, dated June 14, 2021..............    18
Granholm, Hon. Jennifer:
    Opening Statement............................................     4
    Written Testimony............................................     6
    Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB) executive 
      summary entitled ``National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries 
      2021-2030'' published in June 2021.........................    27
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................    74
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
    Opening Statement............................................     1

 
THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY FOR FISCAL 
                               YEAR 2022

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in 
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin 
III, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III, 
                U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA

    The Chairman. The Committee will come to order.
    Secretary Granholm, thank you for joining us today. It is a 
pleasure to welcome you to your first budget hearing before 
this Committee as the Secretary of Energy, and I also want to 
thank you again for coming to West Virginia just a few weeks 
ago, really not even that long ago, but it was really a great 
visit.
    West Virginia truly is an energy powerhouse--from the 
incredible innovations at the National Energy Technology Lab 
(NETL) and West Virginia University (WVU), which we both were 
able to witness up close and personal, to the coal mines that 
keep the lights on that you were able to go down--what, were we 
1,200 feet under?--that have powered our nation for 
generations. I was pleased that you could experience all of 
that in just a few short days in our beautiful state. You are 
welcome back anytime, and I hope that you will visit us again 
soon.
    As former Governors who served together, we both know that 
a budget should be two things--fiscally responsible and a 
reflection of our values and our priorities. I look forward to 
hearing more about the Administration's priorities when it 
comes to our nation's energy policy. Last year, Congress 
clearly laid out several of our energy priorities when we 
passed the Energy Act of 2020. The Energy Act was the first 
comprehensive update to our nation's energy policy in 13 years. 
It enjoyed broad bipartisan support with nearly 70 senators co-
sponsoring or sponsoring provisions included in the bill. It 
prioritized research, development, demonstration, and 
commercialization of next-generation technologies at the 
Department of Energy (DOE). These are the innovations that will 
be necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings 
and industrial sectors, which accounted for 62 percent of our 
emissions in 2018, while creating jobs and keeping American 
energy affordable and globally competitive. If we are going to 
be able to maintain our energy independence and combat climate 
change, the way to do it is through innovation, not 
elimination. Our bill contained $35.2 billion in authorizations 
for R&D activities across DOE's portfolio over the next five 
years, including over $7.6 billion for FY22 to ensure the 
United States remains on the cutting edge of innovation and can 
lead the world.
    While I am disappointed the President's budget request does 
not appear to include full funding for the Energy Act, it does 
provide strong support in some vitally important areas. For 
example, I was pleased to see $140 million plus, up from FY21-
enacted levels for the Fossil Energy Office, and strong support 
for the National Energy Technology Lab, including $25 million 
for the design and construction of a direct air capture 
facility. While that falls short of what we included in the 
Energy Act, with 1,063 coal-fired power plants planned around 
the world--none in the United States, I might add--it is 
imperative that we lead the world in getting technologies like 
carbon capture utilization and sequestration commercialized. 
And I am encouraged by this showing of support for the Fossil 
Energy Office to do just that.
    The budget request also provides over $400 million to 
develop widely available, cost-competitive technologies for the 
production, storage, and delivery of hydrogen, which is the 
area of great potential to help decarbonize several sectors of 
the economy without increasing our reliance on other countries, 
such as China. It also includes $400 million for weatherization 
assistance programs, which help low-income families, seniors, 
and individuals with disabilities make lasting energy 
efficiency improvements to their homes, freeing up finite 
resources for other essentials like food and medicine. As 
markets and other forces transition our energy mix, we cannot 
leave behind the workers who powered our nation to greatness. 
We must ensure these workers have every opportunity in the 
world to succeed in a clean energy future. So I was also 
pleased to see that the budget request includes support for the 
new Office of Energy Jobs, which is a welcome and much-needed 
addition to the Department.
    Secretary Granholm, I want to thank you again for being 
here today, for all you do at the DOE and for our country, as 
both an authorizer and appropriator. I look forward to hearing 
from you today about the Administration's priorities for the 
Department of Energy.
    With that, I am going to turn it over to Ranking Member 
Barrasso for his opening statement.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING

    Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, thank 
you. Madam Secretary, thanks for your involvement in our 
announcement in Wyoming and for your active role and 
participation. We are very grateful. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, 
for holding the hearing.
    Energy is called the master resource for a reason. It 
powers our nation, our military, our economy, and America has 
the world's largest energy resources. Bad policies, though, are 
creating blackouts and energy shortages and an increasing 
dependence on foreign adversaries. All across our country, 
gasoline prices are spiking, just when families who have been 
shut in for months want to take well-earned vacations. To fill 
up a truck in Wyoming is now about $15 to $20 more for the 
fill-up than it was at the beginning of the Biden 
Administration. Our electric grids are under growing strain as 
wind and solar energy displace reliable coal and nuclear power. 
Where we once worried about OPEC's control over energy 
supplies, we are now witnessing China and Russia dominate 
critical supply chains, and at the rate we are going, America 
may soon face an energy crisis like we did in the mid-
seventies. That energy crisis was so grave that President Jimmy 
Carter said solving it was ``the moral equivalent of war.'' In 
1977, President Carter told Congress that no agency anywhere in 
the Federal Government has the broad authority needed to deal 
with our energy problems in a comprehensive way and the 
Department of Energy was established to do just that.
    So after decades of work, America rose to the challenge, 
turned an economic, national security, and a geopolitical 
liability into an advantage for our country. We became more 
energy efficient. We developed new technologies, like hydraulic 
fracturing, horizontal drilling, and deepwater exploration. 
These unlocked vast new supplies of American energy. The Trump 
Administration unleashed the nation's energy potential because 
of policies like cutting red tape, approving long-delayed 
pipelines, and opening up the Arctic for exploration. The 
United States became energy self-sufficient, self-reliant, for 
the first time in nearly 70 years.
    Yet, as the Wall Street Journal recently warned, the U.S. 
is barreling toward one of the greatest self-inflicted wounds 
in our history. During his first week in office, President 
Biden killed the Keystone XL Pipeline, banned all new federal 
oil, gas, and coal leases, the EPA has promised to impose a 
slew of punishing regulations, the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission (FERC) is making it harder to permit natural gas 
pipelines, and on June 1st, the Biden Administration suspended 
all oil and gas leases in the Alaska Arctic in defiance of a 
2017 law explicitly directing the Federal Government to open 
the territory. Meanwhile, China and Russia continue to open new 
coal mines, build new coal plants, and develop oil and gas 
resources at home and abroad. China and Russia are working to 
gain a commanding share of global resource markets and they are 
succeeding. In March, the United States imported more oil from 
Russia than from any other country but Canada. We now get more 
oil from Russia than we produce in Alaska. Senator Murkowski 
said that the other day at a hearing right in this very room. 
The Biden Administration's energy policies are now having 
predictable effects.
    Gas prices have spiked over 70 cents since inauguration 
day. When adjusted for inflation, gasoline prices are higher 
now than they were during the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Last 
month, a cyberattack on a major oil pipeline led to shortages 
and something we have not seen in decades--long lines at gas 
stations. And California, again, faces imminent power shortages 
and blackouts. The Sacramento Bee reports that the managers of 
California's electricity system cannot promise that they will 
be able to keep the lights on this very summer. America is 
returning to the energy malaise that the Energy Department was 
born to fix in 1977 under Jimmy Carter.
    Today, our Committee is going to examine the Biden 
Administration's budget and priorities for the Department of 
Energy. The American people face a potential energy crisis of 
this Administration's own making. The question is, can the 
Department help turn around the Administration's disastrous 
policies?
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
    And now, we turn to our guest today, Secretary Granholm, 
for her statement.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JENNIFER GRANHOLM, SECRETARY OF 
                             ENERGY

    Secretary Granholm. Thank you very much to the Chairman. 
Chairman Manchin, thank you for having me, and again, for that 
terrific visit to beautiful West Virginia earlier this month.
    Ranking Member Barrasso and members of the Committee, it is 
an honor to be here. It is an honor to serve as the nation's 
16th Secretary of Energy and to join you in discussing the 
President's 2022 discretionary budget for the Department.
    I do want to start by thanking this Committee for their 
leadership in the Energy Act of 2020. It was an amazing example 
of bipartisanship. It is the country's first comprehensive 
energy-focused legislation, as the Chairman noted, since 2007, 
and it really did lay out a roadmap for research and 
development and deployment of advanced nuclear technology, 
carbon capture and geothermal and wind and solar and critical 
materials and so much more, and our budget request would allow 
us to make great progress in these areas. I am proud to report 
that we have actually already taken steps since January 20th--
so we have invested, so far, $1.5 billion to strengthen our 
national security and accelerate progress toward a net-zero 
economy. Much of that has gone toward improving and deploying 
existing market-ready energy solutions, such as our goals to 
cut solar costs in half yet again and to add 30 gigawatts of 
offshore wind capacity by 2030. But at the same time, we are 
supporting projects that can help us unlock game-changing 
breakthroughs, like our new Energy Earthshots Initiative. This 
is going to be a series of ambitious, achievable targets aimed 
at commercializing emerging technology--zero-carbon technology, 
such as hydrogen. That's the first Energy Earthshot, and it 
will take the cost of clean hydrogen to $1 per one kilogram in 
one decade. That's the shot.
    I would also note that we announced today a $12 million 
funding opportunity to advance direct air capture technologies, 
and later this week we are going to be rolling out another 
significant investment around nuclear energy--both top 
priorities outlined in the budget proposal. And of course, as 
was noted, the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline 
really highlighted the urgent need for greater investment in 
cybersecurity. We are really actively engaged with the private 
sector around strategies for hardening the critical 
infrastructure against these evolving 21st century threats, and 
we are working across agencies to address vulnerabilities and 
strengthen domestic supply chains, like for lithium batteries.
    Should Congress make real the American Jobs Plan, we would 
be able to take much bigger steps in all of this work. And in 
the meantime, our budget request would invest $46.2 billion in 
our key priorities, and that includes a 65 percent increase in 
funding for our Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable 
Energy (EERE), which is a record $1.8 billion--excuse me--and a 
record $1.8 billion for our nuclear energy program and that, as 
a base, will help us to deploy clean and cheap power on a 
reliable and resilient grid. Our budget is also going to enable 
our national labs to expand their research in clean energy and 
carbon reduction, while ushering in greater diversity in the 
science, technology, engineering, and math fields.
    So here, let me thank the Senate for passing the U.S. 
Innovation and Competition Act--USICA, I think is how we are 
pronouncing it--which authorizes the Department $17 billion in 
support of our efforts to keep the country competitive in a 
global economy. So that funding, coupled with our budget 
request, is going to help the Department and our 17 national 
labs put America at the forefront of clean energy innovation 
nationwide. And of course, the budget will also strengthen the 
Department's nuclear security mission and our environmental 
management program. We have also asked for one of the highest 
levels of annual funding for our Office of Environmental 
Management to facilitate continued progress on each of the 16 
sites. So all told, these investments will represent a down 
payment on a cleaner and more prosperous future, but truly 
would not be fulfilled without the American Jobs Plan, which 
would not only position the country to compete in the global 
clean energy market and confront the climate crisis, but would 
allow us to lift up our disadvantaged communities, tribal 
nations, and other communities of color that have been 
historically burdened by pollution, and it would help the 
Department in our ongoing work to provide fossil energy workers 
with real opportunities for good-paying jobs throughout the 
clean-energy transition.
    So that is what it would mean to build back better. I am 
humbled by the opportunity to lead the Department of Energy in 
these times, at this moment, and with this Committee. I am 
happy to answer any questions you may have.
    [The prepared statement of Secretary Granholm follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
    I will start the questioning. The Energy Act, which became 
law in December, included provisions that enjoyed broad 
bipartisan support. While the Department of Energy's budget 
request includes a lot of really important investment, it does 
not appear to include full funding for everything that was 
authorized in the Energy Act. For instance, the Advanced 
Reactor Demonstration Program was authorized at $405 million 
for FY22 in the Energy Act, while the budget was $370 million. 
We also authorized $1 billion for CCUS (Carbon Capture, 
Utilization and Storage) and carbon removal. Yet the Fossil 
Energy budget request for FY22 fell short about $110 million by 
providing only $890 million.
    So do you have any thoughts on that, why they would have 
underfunded those?
    Secretary Granholm. Well, first of all, we are committed to 
those technologies, clearly, and it is why those technologies 
are included in a very big way in the American Jobs Plan. But I 
will note that the Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Office 
saw a 19 percent increase. Our Nuclear Energy Office saw a 23 
percent increase from last year. We are completely committed to 
these and we just want to make sure that we are prioritizing 
these within the context of a number which is in the budget, 
the overall number.
    The Chairman. According to the Global Energy Monitor, there 
are approximately 6,600 coal-fired power plants currently 
operating across the globe. Another 1,063 are being developed, 
and the majority are in Asia. China is responsible for 460 of 
those new plants, and 15 countries are planning to more than 
double their current coal fleet. The United States currently 
has 504, with none in development. It is clear as day to me 
that we need to remain focused on getting the cost of CCUS 
technologies down to be able to deploy them on a wide scale 
around the world because fossil, as we can see, is not going 
away, as much as some people would like for that to happen.
    That is a large part of why we authorized six demonstration 
projects in the Energy Act and specified that they would be 
equally divided between coal, natural gas, and industrial 
facilities. And I mentioned in my opening statement, it is 
encouraging to see that the President's budget beefed up 
spending by 61 percent on CCUS. He gets it. He understands. The 
thing I wanted to mention also, in that report, according to 
the IEA (International Energy Agency), 90 percent of the 
emissions growth will come from emerging countries, like those 
in Asia. But those countries that are dispersing more are 
spending only 20 percent on clean energy investments. So it is 
up to us. If the United States does not lead in that technology 
through innovation and technology, these countries will not 
pick up the slack.
    So I guess I would ask this: How do you see us playing that 
leading role to where others can follow?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, 1,000 percent, we need to be 
exporting technologies that can ensure a decarbonized future 
around the world and we need to deploy them here. And this is 
why the American Jobs Plan has such a big commitment on 
demonstration projects, as you and I have discussed, both in 
carbon capture and in hydrogen. If we can bring the costs down, 
we can export this technology in partnership with other 
nations. That is absolutely what the President would like to 
see happen, and that is absolutely what our international team 
is working on.
    The Chairman. As you know, budgets are a reflection of our 
values. When you were putting your budgets together for the 
State of Michigan, and I mine for West Virginia, we always 
looked at the values of what we needed. I was pleased to hear 
that the Department of Energy's request includes funding to 
support the work for new interagency working groups on coal and 
power plant communities that have been shuttered, because they 
have been left behind. There appears to be very little detail 
yet about how much funding has been set aside for these 
activities. So can you give me a little overview of that?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, so first of all, this year, 
obviously, as we are starting up this intergovernmental working 
group, a lot of it is pulling from agencies across the 
government that are already working in this area. We also saw 
increases, for example, as you are aware, of the 
intergovernmental working group on coal and power plant 
communities, which is is headed by the Director of the National 
Energy Technology Lab in West Virginia, Brian Anderson. We see 
an increase in the budget for the labs, including for NETL. 
That is one component. But we also know that the working group 
is going to be pushing the very subject you and I were just 
talking about, which were these demonstration projects in these 
communities. In that working group there are 25 communities 
that have been identified--25 counties that are particularly at 
risk, some in a number of the states who are represented here. 
And we want to be able to have them benefit from these 
demonstration projects. So that really is a priority for this 
Administration.
    The Chairman. I have one final question, and my time is 
about to run out.
    As you know, hydrogen has the potential to decarbonize in 
virtually all carbon-intensive sectors of our economy. I have 
grave concerns. I really do have great concerns about our 
country going to the EV. That is totally dependent on foreign 
supply chains. So that is my concern. And with innovation 
technologies like CCUS, electrolyzers will be able to produce 
it cleanly by using all of our abundant domestic energy 
resources, so we do not have to depend on foreign supply 
chains. Natural gas, renewables, and nuclear will not require 
us to rely at all on supply chains. So what resources does the 
DOE need to put us on the path to a clean hydrogen economy?
    Secretary Granholm. I don't want to sound like a broken 
record, but the American Jobs Plan really is the way because 
there's an investment there in making sure we have the supply 
chain for critical minerals, which will allow us to have 
electrified--where we are not reliant on China or other 
countries who are under China's umbrella to be able to supply 
us with critical minerals. We want to be able to show that we 
can mine in a responsible way. We want to take a look at the 
coal that is mined and break that open and see if there are 
critical minerals there that we can then use to decarbonize. 
There is a whole sort of circular economy around those minerals 
as well, which includes recycling.
    In Nevada, there was just an announcement about a major 
company that is locating near the Tesla Gigafactory that is 
going to be doing recycling and that is another 500 jobs there. 
So the whole notion of us being able to supply our own energy 
future is exactly what the President is--honestly, he's 
obsessed with it. He wants to make America independent of other 
countries for these critical aspects. The DOE and the DOD were 
just helping to do a whole supply chain mapping for critical 
minerals and batteries. It was just released. There's a 
national blueprint on this to make sure that the U.S. has the 
capability to be able to produce those.
    The Chairman. Senator Barrasso.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, 
thank you, Madam Secretary. Thanks again for coming to Wyoming 
virtually with relationship to our announcement of TerraPower 
building their first advanced nuclear reactor in my home State 
of Wyoming. It is big news for Wyoming and I think for the 
country as well and it is important to moving to a future with 
less carbon dioxide.
    You know, beginning in 2024, TerraPower and X-energy will 
need high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). Currently, there 
are only two entities capable of producing high-assay low-
enriched uranium. One is the Department of Energy. The other is 
Russia. What steps are you taking to ensure that TerraPower and 
X-energy do not have to rely on Russia to fuel these initial 
reactor cores?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, we agree that we need to develop 
that supply of HALEU, and the budget requests $33 million in 
that regard to start that process and make sure that we will 
have, on an ongoing basis, access to that critical mineral.
    Senator Barrasso. That is terrific because I do understand 
there are some in the Department who do not share that and do 
not want to make sufficient quantities of high-assay low-
enriched uranium available to the two companies. So that is 
good to hear that you are on the board on this.
    Secretary Granholm. For sure. It goes--and I am sorry, I 
don't want to take your time. Go ahead.
    Senator Barrasso. No, no, go ahead.
    Secretary Granholm. I was just going to----
    Senator Barrasso. Go right ahead.
    Secretary Granholm. It goes right into, again, this notion 
of us being able to make sure that we have the means for our 
own supply chains, for our own energy.
    Senator Barrasso. Yes. Speaking of our own energy, I talked 
about it at the beginning of my opening statement that gasoline 
prices are up. We hear about it as we travel at home. I saw it 
this past weekend in Wyoming. Since President Biden has taken 
office, gas prices have increased about 70 cents a gallon at 
the pump. Should Americans expect gas prices to increase even 
further under the Biden Administration?
    Secretary Granholm. Well, let's be clear about the gas 
prices increasing with demand. They were down last year, 
obviously, because of COVID and that is when this 
Administration took office. I haven't checked within the past 
week, but on average, I think the price of gas is around $3 a 
gallon and it was around $3 a gallon before COVID and it was 
around $3 a gallon in the year before that. So it has actually 
not shot up enormously. But seriously, we are--obviously, we 
don't want to see people pinched at the pump for prices. It is, 
I think, one of the reasons why the President is concerned 
about making sure that there is not an increase in gas tax, 
because there is some sensitivity to that.
    Senator Barrasso. Well, one of the questions I have is 
obviously about a decrease in supply, which are some of the 
policies that are coming out of this Administration. Today's 
Wall Street Journal, front page, Wall Street Journal today, 
``Oil Hits Pandemic High on Bets Green Shift Will Crimp 
Supply.'' So it is supply and demand, as you said, with 
Coronavirus behind us, we are having much more demand and my 
concern is that the supply is going down. So in this story, a 
leading analyst is quoted as saying, ``This is the basis for 
the next oil crisis,'' and says, ``We are in uncharted 
territory.'' The article goes on to explain that demand is 
increasing while new production and investment is being 
constrained based on the Administration's policies.
    [The article referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Barrasso. So my question again is how high are 
prices going to have to go before the Administration will end 
its ban on new federal lease sales so that we can catch up with 
the demand, as you say, which is coming back because of 
Coronavirus?
    Secretary Granholm. Right. As you are aware, the lease 
sales are in the Department of the Interior and not in the 
Department of Energy.
    Senator Barrasso. Fully aware.
    Secretary Granholm. But I do note that the current lease 
holders are able to continue to operate under their current 
leases while the Administration evaluates what it is going to 
do going forward. They haven't made a permanent decision, but I 
will say that I think that the entire world is moving toward 
trying to find solutions to make sure that we have reliable 
power, whether it is for transportation--fuel for 
transportation or fuel for buildings and the built 
environment--and that is the kind of technologies that the 
Department of Energy is really interested in diving in on.
    Senator Barrasso. Yes, because we have seen what Europe has 
done. They have turned to Russia for the pipeline that is 
bringing the gas into Germany and we see what the United States 
has done, which is killing the Keystone XL Pipeline. So it just 
seems to be a tale of two very different cities and approaches 
there.
    Finally, for years, Russia and its satellites have unfairly 
dumped uranium in the U.S. market. As a result, American 
imports--we import over 90 percent of our uranium from other 
countries--almost 50 percent of the uranium comes from Russia, 
Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. For the past two years, America's 
miners produced less than half the uranium needed to fuel a 
single reactor. This is the lowest ever recorded in the United 
States. Employment in this sector is at an all-time low. In 
response, the previous Administration requested and Congress 
appropriated funds to establish a strategic uranium reserve. 
Your budget today eliminates funding for the reserve, even 
though it has already been approved and appropriated. What is 
your plan to ensure that we do not lose America's uranium 
production industry? The question is, why did you not focus and 
request funding for that reserve in the budget?
    Secretary Granholm. Well, I think that it had been 
appropriated for last year, so it is carrying over and so now 
we are about to issue a request for information regarding 
establishing a reserve, agree that we are going to do that and 
we are, I think this month, issuing an RFI on that. So we will 
be taking steps in that regard.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
    Secretary Granholm. You bet.
    The Chairman. Senator Cantwell.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Madam Secretary, great to see you this morning.
    Secretary Granholm. Nice to see you.
    Senator Cantwell. Obviously, Hanford is always the topic 
when it comes to your appearance before the Energy Committee.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Cantwell. So I wanted to ask you, in your testimony 
before the Committee during your nomination process, you 
promised to ensure that the Hanford site would stay on its 
mission, yet the President's budget is about $900 million short 
from what we think will make a commitment to cleaning up 
Hanford during what is the track for the Tri-Party Agreement, 
what people think. And again, we brought this up last week with 
some of the nominees. This is information that came internally 
from DOE people at Hanford. This is what it is going to take.
    And so, that site manager said we needed to spend about 
$3.4 billion. Someday I will get a log for the Committee of 
every Energy Secretary who has come before the Committee who 
said ``Oh, boy, that's a lot of money in the budget. Let's 
figure out how to do it on the cheap.'' They never win. By that 
I mean they are never right and it never gets done that way. 
And we just have to live up to our commitment.
    So what are you going to do to live up to the commitment of 
the Tri-Party Agreement and work to get this budget rectified 
so we know how we are going to stay on track?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, thanks for asking that question. 
As you know better than I do, the DF law--the direct feed low-
activity waste unit--is now under completion and we are going 
to be starting that up hopefully next year or maybe in 2023. 
And I look forward to sort of celebrating that milestone with 
you. That means that there was a reduction in the budget for 
the construction aspect of it. We are still in negotiations on 
the high-level waste with the State of Washington. So when 
those negotiations are finished, I look forward to coming back 
to you and seeing what we also need to add to the budget to 
account for those negotiations.
    Senator Cantwell. Okay, well, I am glad to hear you say 
that you are going to support adding something. So I will take 
that for today, but I will just remind you, again, it was a 
site manager. I am pretty sure that site manager knew the DF 
law was coming online. So I am pretty sure they had taken that 
into consideration. But let's leave that and maybe come back to 
that.
    Many Washingtonians were also quite upset when DOE's budget 
eliminated the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funding for the 
Hanford and Savannah River sites. As many of my colleagues 
know, PILT funding is intended to compensate local governments 
for taxes that they cannot collect from the Federal Government. 
And when you have a site that is over 586 square miles, it is a 
big site. So we have heard a lot. I just do not understand. It 
is just kind of surprising why something--such a small 
percentage of the Hanford budget would be eliminated. So if you 
could help me understand what eliminating the PILT funding is 
about?
    Secretary Granholm. I would just say that I know that 
historically, over time, the budget is always submitted this 
way and I know Congress fills it in. And I just look forward to 
working with you on it.
    Senator Cantwell. Okay. Well just--I am sure my colleagues 
understand PILT so I do not have to go over it with them. We 
definitely will be fighting, but it would be much better if 
DOE, since it is, I think 0.2 percent----
    Secretary Granholm. I get it.
    Senator Cantwell [continuing]. I am pretty sure it did not 
affect your grand scheme from a messaging perspective. And yet, 
it is on the front page of the newspaper--above the fold--which 
sends the message to a community that has worked hard for 
decades to not only produce something, but now clean it up, 
that we do not care about what it takes for them as a region to 
pay for education. So anyway, we will get back to you on that 
point.
    On transmission--I see I have about a minute left--do you 
agree with these recent reports about upgrading existing 
transmission capacity and adding new transmission lines so that 
we can deliver cheaper electricity more cost effectively?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Cantwell. Okay. Would the ability of DOE to take a 
position as an anchor tended on a new upgraded, high-voltage 
transmission project help facilitate private-sector expansion 
of the grid?
    Secretary Granholm. I'm sorry. Would DOE say that----
    Senator Cantwell. Yes.
    Secretary Granholm. One more time?
    Senator Cantwell. So if DOE--there are places where DOE 
could also be part of this solution, and would you think about 
that?
    Secretary Granholm. For sure.
    Senator Cantwell. Okay.
    You mentioned in your testimony about the global market for 
clean energy products, and I know our colleagues are talking 
about these tax incentives that we could keep going. Do you 
believe that these are the kinds of incentives that are going 
to help us on long-haul trucks, especially for things that are 
very important--larger things besides cars? Do you think we 
should be pursuing EVs?
    Secretary Granholm. Absolutely.
    Senator Cantwell. Okay.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Chairman Manchin, thank you. Secretary 
Granholm, good to have you here.
    I first want speak about critical minerals. I know the 
Chairman brought this up already, because without them 
everything we talk about today simply will not happen. It is a 
serious need in our country to increase responsible, domestic 
mineral production. The U.S. is far too reliant on foreign 
countries like China for the minerals and raw materials used 
for energy, defense, healthcare, and more. We are moving in a 
direction where they become the OPEC of the seventies. They 
could become, truly, a single point of failure in the supply 
chain for the United States and for the world if we do not 
start creating more domestic production. By the way, if we 
increase domestic production of critical minerals, we will also 
have better jobs and provide important revenue to our 
communities.
    My question--and the Chairman got to this a little bit--but 
I specifically want to talk about what DOE is going to do to 
promote more domestic critical mineral production. You answered 
him about recycling more, which, again, is a good thing to do. 
What about actually increasing domestic production?
    Secretary Granholm. Totally, totally, I think both have to 
happen. I think it's a wraparound strategy. There has to be 
recycling. There have to be substitutes. But I am holding this 
up because this is the National Blueprint for Lithium 
Batteries, as an example, which was issued last week.
    [The National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Secretary Granholm. I am happy to get a copy to you, but on 
page 18 it talks about increasing domestic supply for these 
critical minerals so that we can be----
    Senator Daines. And that would be mining, right?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, that would be mining----
    Senator Daines. Yes, because we are hearing, you know, what 
we hear from some of these nominees coming through as well as 
others in the Administration is this anti-mining, anti-natural 
resource development philosophy and----
    Secretary Granholm. No, no, that is not the case. I think 
that there--I mean, let me give you an example. DOE just 
funded, or funded in the last year, an extraction program for 
lithium from brine from geothermal in the Salton Sea in 
California. It is totally responsible, if you will. It is a 
sustainable way of mining and of being able to extract 
minerals. You know, this is the United States. We can mine in a 
responsible way, and many places are doing that and there are 
some places where there are more challenges, but we can do 
this.
    Senator Daines. Yes, and the reality, of course, as we 
think about building more renewable as well as traditional 
energy capacity, we are going to have to have these critical 
minerals and we have to make sure they come from the United 
States and not places like China or Russia.
    How do critical minerals, in your opinion, play into DOE's 
plan for new energy production?
    Secretary Granholm. It absolutely is part and parcel of how 
we are going to be able to electrify the vehicle supply. It is 
part and parcel of making sure that we have the means for, I 
would add, the supply chain for polysilicon, for solar panels, 
as well, that we have ceded to other countries that we should 
be producing here. So the full stream of technology products 
for clean energy----
    Senator Daines. Yes, and I just hope you know that one of 
the key words here was responsible mining. And I agree with 
that, but I will tell you that it can be a buzzword from the 
environmental extremists saying it is only the one way we think 
we can do mining, and I just would hope we would be looking at 
ways here to continue to develop these God-given natural 
resources in our country here for our kids and our grandkids.
    I want to move on to CCUS. And I appreciate our 
conversation we have had on that topic, Madam Secretary. This 
Committee and Congress passed bipartisan legislation to 
increase DOE's investment, research, and commercialization for 
carbon capture technology. This bipartisan EFFECT Act--and I 
want to thank my colleague here, Senator Murkowski as well as 
Senator Manchin--it was signed into law, and requires large-
scale demonstration projects for CCUS technology, and putting 
one of these pilot projects in Montana makes a lot of sense. We 
have the infrastructure. We have more recoverable coal than any 
other state, and the jobs that a project would create are 
perfectly fit for the State of Montana.
    My question is, it is my understanding that DOE's budget 
does not include funding for a large-scale pilot project 
created in the EFFECT Act. What is the Department doing to 
implement the new and very bipartisan program created by this 
Committee?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I love the bipartisan program 
created by this Committee and the funding would seed these 
projects in the American Jobs Plan or whatever is being 
negotiated. I mean, that is--we need to do a lot of them. They 
are very large. They are very expensive. But we need to do them 
to be able to take this technology to scale and to do the 
research that is necessary to lower the cost. So I hope we are 
able to do that.
    Senator Daines. Yes, and as we think about going forward 
here, electric demand is going to keep going up. So think about 
this conversion here to more electric vehicles. We have to find 
baseload, and I will tell you what, we have a great example of 
that, frankly, with coal. CCUS, I think, is a great marriage. 
What specific actions should I tell my Montana communities that 
they need to do to help ensure a CCUS project pilot would come 
to a place like Montana?
    Secretary Granholm. Maybe they should contact their Senator 
and have him support the American Jobs Plan.
    [Laughter.]
    Secretary Granholm. I am just saying I think that there is 
a huge opportunity. I really do, and all kidding aside, I just 
think that for many here who care about these technologies, 
these demonstration projects in key communities, I think there 
are a couple of counties in Montana that were part of this 
intergovernmental working group on coal that would qualify for 
being considered as priority investment.
    Senator Daines. Right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Welcome, Secretary.
    If we want to increase critical mineral production, 
wouldn't that be a good opportunity to update the 1872 Mining 
Act, which is now 149 years old, in order to make sure that we 
are actually doing this responsibly?
    Secretary Granholm. I assume so.
    Senator Heinrich. And would electrifying passenger 
transportation, would that help American consumers finally 
break free of the sort of ball and chain of high gasoline 
prices?
    Secretary Granholm. It would. We have to continue to do 
work to break down the cost----
    Senator Heinrich. When you look at a cents-per-mile 
approach to----
    Secretary Granholm. Absolutely.
    Senator Heinrich. Electrifying homes and businesses, I know 
that is something that you are looking at. It is really 
critical in meeting the President's climate goals. But 
historically, we have really over-relied on tax credits to 
create incentives to do that kind of work and a lot of my 
constituents, for example, just do not have tax liability so 
they cannot necessarily take advantage of tax credits. You 
know, one of the ideas that has gained a lot of traction is 
shifting that to a point-of-sale rebate that would open up that 
incentive structure to many low-income Americans. Would you be 
willing to work with myself, with this Committee, on new ways 
to incentivize the electrification of our homes and businesses?
    Secretary Granholm. Absolutely.
    Senator Heinrich. Does the U.S. have a clear blending 
standard for hydrogen transport in our existing infrastructure? 
What is currently largely carrying methane and net fossil gas?
    Secretary Granholm. We are looking at that and researching 
what that blending standard might be and working with other 
agencies and state regulators to see what that might look like 
because I think it is an important strategy.
    Senator Heinrich. I think it would be incredibly helpful to 
have a safe standard set today so that all of this investment 
can be unlocked and can utilize, at least in the early stages, 
the existing gas infrastructure. And as you mentioned, there is 
a huge amount of overlap of potential responsibility for many 
different agencies with respect to permitting natural gas or 
permitting hydrogen, and it is not clear to me even that if you 
were to switch over to transporting hydrogen in the same 
infrastructure, that you might need a brand-new permit. So is 
DOE doing the work to sort of bring all those agencies together 
and figure out what that is going to look like?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, yes. That is part of our Hydrogen 
Shot, you know, we have the research side and we also have the 
deployment side. And so yes, our Hydrogen Technologies Office 
is looking at that.
    Senator Heinrich. Yes, I think the sooner we have that, the 
sooner we will be able to really attract the capital to make 
those changes.
    As you are probably aware, a number of states across the 
Southeast and the West have been--there is a renewed interest 
in really expanding wholesale electricity markets--ISO and RTO 
markets. Organized wholesale electricity markets really help 
bring down costs for consumers, and one of the things that 
there seems to be a real need for is simply specific 
initiatives and increased support and assistance to states to 
be able to thoughtfully expand those markets. Is that something 
that you as Secretary or that the Department would be willing 
to work on with this Committee to really incentivize the 
expansion of those markets?
    Secretary Granholm. Absolutely.
    Senator Heinrich. Great.
    Transmission investment tax credit, that is something that 
the President rolled out in his American Jobs Plan. How 
important is that to really building out a modern grid?
    Secretary Granholm. It's hugely important. As you know, a 
lot of transmission is built on spec--or they don't build on 
spec.
    Senator Heinrich. They build on----
    Secretary Granholm. They want to make sure that they have 
offtake and so we have to absorb some of that risk in order to 
get the level of build-out that is necessary for our needs. 
There's, right now, over 600 gigawatts of request for--backed 
up for--a grid that doesn't exist yet.
    Senator Heinrich. Right.
    I want to thank you for being so succinct because I do not 
think I have ever gotten through this many questions on this 
Committee, and I will just leave you with one last thought in 
my remaining seconds. The NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, is currently assessing whether to give a private 
corporation a 40-year license to construct and operate an 
interim storage facility in New Mexico. And as I have discussed 
with you in the past, unless DOE fulfills its statutory 
responsibility to provide permanent waste disposal, interim 
sites can become permanent sites. That is not something that my 
state has signed up for, and so myself, along with other New 
Mexico elected leaders are going to be sending you a letter 
describing our concerns more in detail and I would just 
appreciate you taking a look at those.
    Secretary Granholm. Will do.
    Senator Heinrich. Thanks.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Hickenlooper has to go preside, and I want to thank 
Senator Lankford for being so gracious and allowing you to have 
your questions.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great, thank you. Thank you, Senator 
Lankford. I will be concise and brief. And Madam Secretary, 
thank you so much for your work and for being willing to 
undertake this grueling interrogation.
    I have to make sure I get to, first, the discussion of the 
National Renewable Energy Laboratories in Golden, Colorado. 
Obviously, the scientists and engineers there have been making 
great contributions to advancing us in all-of-the-above energy 
scenarios. In terms of DOE's budget, I wanted to thank you for 
increasing the funding for the NREL's facilities and 
infrastructure, particularly for the Energy Materials and 
Processing at Scale facility (EMAPS)--the MAPS. And I wanted 
(a) to make sure I invited you to come visit this facility as 
they are looking at this changing scale.
    Secretary Granholm. Great.
    Senator Hickenlooper. And (b) to make sure that we could 
stay in touch with this.
    Secretary Granholm. I would love to.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great. And again, easy, short answer.
    In terms of--and some of this, the previous questions 
addressed--but as we electrify various sectors of our economy 
and we are going to change how we supply and demand 
electricity, many of our current regulations, really for how we 
charge for power--that is more specific--I think, are going to 
prove poorly suited to--as these markets evolve, and do you see 
a role for DOE and the national labs in trying to help resolve 
and inform policymakers as so many of these are done on a state 
level?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I mean, I would say that NREL is 
particularly well-suited to help model out as well as the 
Pacific Northwest National Lab, who work in conjunction with 
NREL. That is what they are so good at doing is that kind of 
modeling, but I agree with you that our electricity sector is 
changing based upon more electrification and we need to take a 
look at how we charge for that, including demand response.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Right, exactly.
    And then also, as an ex-geologist, we always refer to 
making sure that we have multiple working hypotheses as you are 
trying to solve problems doing a number of different research 
and obviously, the direct air capture technologies are 
potentially game-changing scenarios, obviously controversial in 
some ways, but they do set a ceiling on the cost of solving 
climate change because I think every ton of carbon emissions 
that we create now, as the price comes down for actually taking 
carbon out of the air, it makes more sense if, as that price 
comes down, we have a broader array of choices in terms of how 
we generate electricity and I thought I would just check and 
see what your long-term strategy is, specifically around direct 
air capture.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I mentioned in my opening 
statement--I know that you arrived a little bit late--but that 
actually today, we announced a funding opportunity announcement 
for direct air capture, a $15 million opportunity. So we really 
are very much interested in seeing where this goes. $15 million 
is small in the scheme of how much sometimes these big projects 
cost, but it will allow us to identify the best places and the 
best private-sector partners to be able to team with.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Right, exactly, and I think that so 
many of the, of all of our energy sources, we do not face the 
externalities, in other words, the costs down the road we will 
have to--as a society and as a planet--will have to deal with, 
and I think that is part of, when you begin to look at those 
externalities, in certain ways, as we begin to address that, I 
guess that--you know, the IMF estimates $650 billion a year 
between all the various carbon, you know, the fossil fuel 
energy generation. Somehow, we have to really address that as 
well. Do you guys see any way that the IMF--we can begin to 
address that discrepancy to make sure we get the full benefits 
of our investments for the American economy?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, and I think the budget that we are 
presenting plus the President's American Jobs Plan really does 
double down on investing in the clean energy technologies that 
would allow us to arrive at the promised land.
    Senator Hickenlooper. All right, I couldn't agree more. 
Okay, I yield back the time.
    The Chairman. Senator Lankford.
    Thank you, sir.
    Senator Lankford. You bet, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
    It is good to see you again. Let me back up and do a 
philosophical conversation a little bit with you. As I go 
through the budget it is clear--more money. That is a pretty 
clear aspect of the budget is that in almost every area--
increase, increase, increase. Some of them by very, very large 
percentages--300, 400 percent increase from previous time 
periods. So I see all that, but there is also--it seems to be a 
philosophical shift as well on how we are handling carbon. It 
is not reducing it. It is eliminating it and it is a jump 
there. So let me give you a ``for instance.'' It seems to move 
for transportation to electric vehicles--straight from fossil 
fuel to electric vehicles--skipping through the hybrids that 
obviously make an enormous difference. Skipping away from 
natural gas and other things to say ``How do we find something 
to skip over this instead of a transition from home heating 
oil?'' For instance, all my friends in the Northeast use a lot 
of home heating oil that produces a lot more carbon than we do 
in the Midwest using natural gas, but it seems to try to make 
the jump. Is that a philosophical shift? Am I picking up 
something here that it goes from all or nothing without a 
transition in between?
    Secretary Granholm. No, I think that the recognition that 
there needs to be a transition is really quite loud in the 
sense that the technologies that will help us to transition are 
really supported by this Administration, whether it is carbon 
capture, we are not skipping over. What we want to do is to 
assist natural gas, for example, in removing greenhouse gas 
emissions, whether it is carbon dioxide or methane. We want to 
assist the baseload fuel power sector to remove those 
technologies so that they can still function, but in a zero-
carbon environment. So it is not skipping over, it is assisting 
in decarbonizing.
    Senator Lankford. Right, so when I look at your plan, you 
have 2035 for electricity generation to be at zero carbon. Is 
that correct?
    Secretary Granholm. Right.
    Senator Lankford. So the permitting question comes into 
that for me, initially. Fourteen years away, at this point, to 
say we will be at zero carbon within 14 years. I look at the 
TransWest transmission line and the permitting they have gone 
through. The transmission lines that are taking wind power 
through several states in the Northwest. That process started 
in 2007.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Lankford. They have yet to break ground on it. So 
they have been permitting since 2007--permitting, permitting, 
permitting. They hope to break ground on it next year--15, 16 
years in the process from permitting to starting it. You are 
talking about in 14 years being at net zero----
    Secretary Granholm. Net zero by 2050.
    Senator Lankford. So what is the 2035?
    Secretary Granholm. 2035 is 100 percent electric, clean 
electricity.
    Senator Lankford. For transmission?
    Secretary Granholm. For transmission is 2035, yes, 100 
percent clean electric.
    Senator Lankford. Right. So that is what I am getting at.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Lankford. This is a transmission project.
    Secretary Granholm. But you are completely right about the 
permitting issue, completely right that it is way too long and 
it is very frustrating and we have a team internally that is 
working on that. It has to be an intergovernmental strategy, 
obviously, because DOE does not do permitting, but there is a 
recognition that we have to move with alacrity.
    Senator Lankford. Right, but that brings up the 
philosophical issue for me because it seems to be a lot more 
money to be able to do more innovation, more creativity, more 
grants. Let's figure this out. But the practical side of it is, 
okay, if we figure that out, how do we actually implement that?
    Secretary Granholm. Well----
    Senator Lankford. We talk about nuclear power and trying to 
be able to implement nuclear power, putting one in Wyoming. 
That is a very long permitting stream to be able to get there, 
to actually get that on the ground. If you are going to put a 
transmission line in the Northwest United States and it takes 
15 years to do the permitting on it, setting a date of 2035, 
saying we are going to innovate to be able to do that and 
actually implementing it is a very, very different animal.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I agree, but the whole premise of 
the investments is that we create a grid development authority 
inside of the Department of Energy where you have both 
planning, permitting, and paying overseen so that you can make 
sure that the investments are proceeding quickly. That's 
through the American Jobs Plan.
    Senator Lankford. How would that work with Department of 
Interior, BLM, all of those agencies?
    Secretary Granholm. Well, we would work with them. 
Obviously, there are intergovernmental processes----
    Senator Lankford. Right.
    Secretary Granholm [continuing]. To be able to do that and 
we would have to make sure that all of our partners are at the 
table.
    Senator Lankford. Another issue we have talked about 
several times here is about the critical earth, rare earth 
elements as well.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Lankford. To figure out how we actually get that. 
The biggest challenge that we have there is the permitting side 
of that as well. Obviously, those resources are here. They are 
obviously in high demand. But we have lots of issues there. One 
of the things that I have raised is the Title 17 loan guarantee 
program that energy has and to be able to put a greater 
priority on that program on the development of domestic. Would 
you be open to have the Title 17 loan guarantee program be more 
focused on domestic production of critical earth?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I think we may need a statutory 
language change, but absolutely.
    Senator Lankford. Okay, thank you.
    The Chairman. Senator Hirono.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Before I begin, I just wanted to note that yes, there have 
been concerns raised about communities being left behind as we 
move toward a clean energy future and President Biden has 
stated his commitment to target federal investments in 
disadvantaged communities. And I think it is important that we 
ensure that people are not left out of the transition. So on 
June 23rd, I will be chairing an Energy Subcommittee hearing on 
this topic. So I wanted to make note of that.
    Secretary Granholm, the President's budget request supports 
long-term research, but it also recognizes the need for rapid 
demonstration and commercialization of clean energy 
technologies, and renewable power is already the cheapest 
option in many places, but we need to accelerate the use of 
low-carbon energy and cleaner transportation and manufacturing 
if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Can you 
briefly describe the importance of rapidly commercializing 
newer and cheaper low-carbon technologies like battery storage, 
and how would the budget's proposed Office of Clean Energy 
demonstrations help in this effort?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, thank you for that. We have a 
significant increase in our Office of Energy Efficiency and 
Renewable Energy for the purpose of accelerating deployment and 
that is really what we have tasked all of our offices to do is 
to say, ``You have done a fantastic job of exercising the 
muscle of doing research and doing development and now we have 
to deploy--especially technologies that we know are well 
established.'' And so that's why you see that significant 
increase in the budget.
    Senator Hirono. And I am glad you noted that the Office of 
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is being beefed up 
because during the Trump years, that office was cut rather 
significantly.
    Relating to clean energy standards, 30 states plus the 
District of Columbia have renewable electricity standards, 
including Hawaii's standard of 100 percent renewable energy by 
2045, and I have supported a national standard to give a clear 
sign that electric utilities and other power providers need to 
speed up their investments in clean and affordable sources of 
power and help tackle climate change. Can you describe how the 
President's plan for a clean energy standard--well, not how--
but can you describe the plan and how it would benefit people 
in their homes and businesses?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, the President has a goal and would 
like to see it included in the American Jobs Plan of 100 
percent clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions 
by 2050. If there were a national standard, you would see 
states organizing around these goals, which would mean that 
individuals in states would be able to benefit from, say, 
energy efficiency, which on average, with electric light bulbs 
and with efficient appliances, citizens save about $1,000 a 
year, and would be able to install solar panels. Every state is 
a little bit different. So it might mean community solar. It 
might mean net metering. Some states are different than others, 
but the bottom line is energy freedom, if you will. A clean 
energy freedom would occur all across the country if we were 
able to pass a renewable energy standard. And I would say that 
clean energy, as defined in that standard, would include 
energies like nuclear energy, et cetera. It's not just wind and 
solar, but it's other clean energies that would be included 
within that standard.
    Senator Hirono. I am glad you mentioned appliances. That is 
my next question. Under the previous Administration, the DOE 
failed to meet deadlines to update approximately 28 different 
appliance standards, such as for refrigerators and clothes 
dryers. A report by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project 
(ASAP) found that updates to national appliance standards could 
save average households hundreds of dollars in their utility 
bills while significantly cutting carbon pollution emissions. 
What has the DOE done this year--or what does it plan to do 
this year--to address the backlog of appliance energy 
standards?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, we are going back at that. We 
filed, I think, 27 of the 28 notices in the Federal Register to 
indicate that we are reinstating those standards.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I--oh, hello. I yield back my time.
    Senator Kelly [presiding]. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Marshall is recognized for five minutes.
    Senator Marshall. Okay, thank you, Chairman and welcome, 
Madam Secretary to our Committee hearing here.
    Secretary Granholm. Thank you.
    Senator Marshall. Worldwide, if we instituted E15 right 
now, we could decrease tailpipe emissions by almost 50 percent. 
That is technology we have available today. We had it available 
yesterday. In your budget proposal, the 45Q tax credit is 
eliminated in ethanol, natural gas, and ammonia as well. Can 
you kind of explain--walk us through why you are excluding 
specifically ethanol as well as natural gas and ammonia from 
that 45Q tax credit?
    Secretary Granholm. I am going to have to get back to you 
on that. I do not know. I am not read in on that particular 
piece. So I will follow up with you.
    Senator Marshall. Okay, thank you.
    Next, I want to talk about--for small oil and gas 
producers, will the President's budget remove the percentage 
depletion tax credit and the intangible drilling cost 
deduction? And again, this would affect, impact, only small oil 
producers.
    Secretary Granholm. You know, again, I am not familiar with 
that. So I will follow up with you on that as well.
    Senator Marshall. Okay, both of those tax credits would 
allow small producers to stay in business. Without it, we might 
as well just hand our natural oil production over to the big 
companies. It is certainly the difference between a small 
producer being able to stay in business or not.
    Next, let's turn to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). 
Is there any interest in the Department of Energy to enlarge it 
and what are you doing to protect it from cyberattacks?
    Secretary Granholm. Actually, what we have done--I 
appreciate you raising this because it is, obviously, an 
important tool to be able to have at our disposal during 
emergencies. And so, we have put the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve under the Office of CESER--the cybersecurity office--
because we want to connect the two, to make the CESER Office 
more of an emergency response office and elevate it to ensure 
that it has all of the tools necessary to protect us in the 
event of an energy crisis.
    Senator Marshall. Okay, thank you.
    I think you would probably agree with me that energy is a 
national security issue. It is a tool that we can use to help 
or harm our allies or our enemies. I am especially prioritizing 
our relationships with the Quad--Australia, Japan, and India. 
There is certainly an opportunity to help our ally India with 
natural gas and expanding our natural gas to those. How do you 
feel about the Department of Energy's plan to strengthen that 
energy partnership with India specifically as it pertains to 
natural gas exports to them?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I am very interested in continuing 
to ensure that India and the United States have a strong 
partnership and there are a lot of energy tools that can help 
India achieve its own goals, which are very aggressive as well. 
With respect to natural gas and liquefied natural gas as an 
export, which I assume is what you're referring to, obviously, 
the Department of Energy has the authority and the obligation 
under the Natural Gas Act to approve those requests.
    I am really interested though in the technologies--as are 
our global allies--in the technologies that eliminate methane 
and reduce methane from natural gas pipelines, production, and 
combustion. And that strategy is another strategy that we are 
working on inside of the Department of Energy to make sure that 
we can have natural gas that is carbon free.
    Senator Marshall. Yes. We are excited about making 
traditional energies cleaner as well. I think that will be 
technology-driven as well.
    Has your Department considered trying to understand the 
total environmental impact of an electric car from cradle to 
grave and what the impact of making our entire transportation 
industry electric, what impact that would have on the grid? How 
much larger would the grid have to be?
    Secretary Granholm. It would have to be significantly 
larger. There would need to be a lot of additional capacity and 
there already is a need for additional capacity, even without 
that. So this is why investment in the transmission system, 
both for capacity purposes as well as cyber purposes, as well 
as resiliency purposes, is necessary. Our grid is not 
sufficient right now and we absolutely need additional 
investment in it.
    Senator Marshall. Okay. We will come back to the cradle-to-
grave issue on the electric cars and what their environmental 
impact is.
    Right now, I think the Ranking Member emphasized that we 
are importing more oil from Russia than we are from Alaska 
right now. The policies of your Administration have caused the 
price of gasoline to increase at the pump. I am very concerned 
that your policies are going to increase the price of utilities 
for people. Would you agree with me that that creates a social 
injustice? And where does the concept of affordable energy fit 
into your policies going forward?
    Secretary Granholm. Clearly, we want to see affordable 
energy. Clearly, there are communities that are facing energy 
poverty because of the percentage of their income that is tied 
to heating their homes. Often, that happens in poorer 
communities and in communities of color and we really want to 
make sure that that does not happen. It's why we need to really 
propel, for example, energy efficiency in communities that 
won't otherwise be able to afford it so that they don't have 
that energy burden upon them.
    Senator Marshall. Okay, thank you. I yield back.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Senator.
    I now recognize myself for five minutes.
    Secretary Granholm, great to see you today.
    Secretary Granholm. Thank you. Great to be here.
    Senator Kelly. I understand that one of your goals is to 
increase energy efficiency in federal buildings and I believe 
that demand response programs should be part of that effort. 
Last summer, a regional heatwave caused California to implement 
rolling blackouts. That affected Arizona. We often have to go 
to California when we are short on electrical capacity during a 
surge.
    But Arizona was able to keep its lights on and air 
conditioners running because our major utility companies offer 
voluntary programs that remotely dial down thermostats during 
hours of unusually high electricity demand. They used that last 
summer. It is very effective. This week in Tucson, Arizona, 
where I live--where Gabby and I live--every day is going to be 
above 110 degrees. In Phoenix, every day this week above 115. 
We need this technology. It is very helpful.
    So could we work together to expand DOE's energy efficiency 
initiatives to promote demand response programs?
    Secretary Granholm. Absolutely.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you.
    And I understand that the budget--totally different 
subject, tribal energy programs--I understand that the budget 
proposes to electrify roughly 33,000 homes and tribal 
communities. About half of those homes, 15,000 of them, are on 
the Navajo Nation. I want to help achieve that important goal. 
I also want to help DOE bring renewable energy projects to 
tribes. Tribal communities in my state have tremendous solar 
and wind potential that could be scaled up to commercial 
levels. About 10 years ago, Congress and DOE established a $2 
billion tribal energy loan guarantee program for tribally owned 
renewable energy projects, but not a single loan has been 
issued under this program. Not one. Do you have any idea why 
this is?
    Secretary Granholm. Well, I do know this--I know that over 
the past four years no loans were issued under any of the 
programs under the Loan Programs Office (LPO) and I do know we 
are reversing that. This year so far, our Loan Programs Office 
has met with at least 20 interested entities to be able to take 
the tribal loan funding. And so stay tuned, because we really 
want to make sure that this money gets out for the purposes 
that you describe.
    Senator Kelly. Well, great. I am going to have my office 
reach out----
    Secretary Granholm. Great.
    Senator Kelly [continuing]. So we can get the information 
as these loans are approved and I am hopeful that you will be 
willing to work with me and other tribal leaders----
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Kelly [continuing]. So we can get this program 
moving along.
    Secretary Granholm. Great.
    Senator Kelly. And I have two more minutes.
    So Secretary Granholm, I want to discuss hydrogen and 
nuclear energy a bit here. In Arizona, we are home to the 
largest nuclear power plant in the country, the Palo Verde 
Generating Station. Palo Verde runs a pilot program that 
produces hydrogen from water using electrolysis when there is 
excess nuclear power during the day when solar generation is 
occurring. This hydrogen is used to supplement peaking natural 
gas plants important to grid reliability and it can be 
configured to produce hydrogen for fuel cells as well. So are 
you familiar with the hydrogen pilot program at Palo Verde?
    Secretary Granholm. I am. I am very excited about it.
    Senator Kelly. Yes.
    Secretary Granholm. There's one like this in Minnesota and 
in Ohio too.
    Senator Kelly. Yes, very exciting and has great potential.
    Secretary Granholm. And could be in a number of other 
states as well.
    Senator Kelly. Could be and we would like to see that 
expanded----
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Kelly [continuing]. Across the country and we would 
like to continue to work with you and your staff at DOE and 
partner on expanding this program.
    Secretary Granholm. Great. Great.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you.
    And I now recognize Senator Murkowski for five minutes.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Madam Secretary, good to see you.
    Secretary Granholm. Good to see you.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you for being here. I appreciated 
the conversation that several of my colleagues have had on the 
issue of critical minerals. It was raised by the Ranking 
Member, Senator Barrasso and by Senator Daines. I think Senator 
Lankford hit on it. But I really feel very, very strongly that 
in the effort to go in the direction that this Administration 
is clearly taking with the emphasis on renewables, making sure 
that we are paying close attention with a keen eye to this 
issue of critical minerals and where we source this from. You 
cite an IEA report that electric vehicles require six times the 
mineral inputs of a conventional car and an onshore wind plant 
requires nine times the mineral resources than a comparable gas 
plant.
    So we are going to have to get it from somewhere. And I was 
really pleased when Senator Daines, in pressing you a little 
bit further about where we get it, you used the word mining. I 
appreciate the focus on recycling. I know we need to be doing 
more. I am working with several of my colleagues on that, but I 
think we need to remember that before we can recycle, we have 
to cycle it in the first place. So we have to get those 
minerals from somewhere.
    I read an article--this was in March or so--it was just 
before the Administration had convened some meeting with our 
Canadian partners focusing on alliances with mineral resources 
and I was a little disturbed because the Reuters article 
basically said that we are viewing Canada as our 51st state 
when it comes to minerals production and opportunities.
    We come from a state where we are blessed with 
extraordinary natural resources. We have some great mining 
opportunities. We have a facility that we are looking at down 
in the southeastern part of the state that will not only be a 
source of critical minerals, but also heavy rare-earths and we 
are looking to site a processing facility right there in that 
region. It is really quite exciting. But we have to have the 
ability to move forward with these mines. So you recognize the 
issues as they relate to processing. I want to make sure that 
we are focusing on all of the spectrum here when it comes to 
these critical minerals.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, full value chain, for sure, from 
extraction to processing. That is amazing because we process 
nothing in the United States.
    Senator Murkowski. Exactly. Yes.
    Secretary Granholm. We send our stuff to other countries 
to----
    Senator Murkowski. We have one facility in California----
    Secretary Granholm. Right.
    Senator Murkowski [continuing]. And we still send it to 
China. That makes no sense.
    Secretary Granholm. We should be doing the whole thing, 
soup to nuts, the whole chain.
    Senator Murkowski. Well, we have an opportunity for you to 
look at.
    Secretary Granholm. Great, Okay.
    Senator Murkowski. So excited to share that with you.
    You also mentioned in response to Senator Marshall where 
you are with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is something 
that I have focused on for a long period of time. Senator 
Cantwell, when we were teaming at the Committee here, and 
Senator Manchin, we had really focused on a modernization plan 
for the SPR, making sure that in the event that this is needed 
at times of emergency, it is ready to go. You basically just 
push send. We directed a lot of funding, actually, toward the 
modernization plan. Do you have an update on where we are with 
that?
    Secretary Granholm. I don't, but I'll get it to you.
    Senator Murkowski. Okay, I would appreciate that.
    And then with the loan program, the Title 17 loan program. 
You were talking about it with Senator Lankford here. We had, 
in our Energy Act, put in place some required reforms with 
regards to the LPO and loan guarantees. You just said in 
response to him that you think you might need to make some 
statutory changes as we are focusing on domestic programs for 
this loan. So what am I missing here? Is there something that 
we did not do within the Energy Act?
    Secretary Granholm. What I was referring to is that the 
loan program obviously focuses on advanced technologies and 
there's a question about whether mining would fall within the 
definition. We are actually having our general counsel take a 
look at this----
    Senator Murkowski. Okay.
    Secretary Granholm [continuing]. Beause I am concerned that 
we may get a challenge without clarity, but it was just on the 
mining piece of things.
    Senator Murkowski. Okay, okay.
    The last point that I wanted to raise with you, and I have 
some other questions that I will submit to the record.
    You will be receiving, if you have not already received it, 
an invitation to come and see what I think is one of Alaska's 
great, exciting, renewable energy opportunities and this is the 
development of a geothermal facility located down on the 
Aleutian Islands, just outside of the community of Unalaska. It 
is our nation's largest fishing port, the Makushin Volcano. 
This project would be extraordinary in not only being able to 
supply a community that is 100 percent reliant on diesel fuel, 
but also being able to help power up facilities for our 
fishing, for the trade, the commercial opportunities that we 
have there. I think it really is an opportunity to showcase 
some things.
    So we are looking at this. It is a 30-megawatt geothermal 
project, and doesn't come cheap, just because you are out there 
really at the end of the world for some. But I hope that the 
Department can look at projects like this that, while they are 
located in a segment of the country that is beyond description 
when you try to say rural--we are beyond rural--but this is 
something that we look at as an opportunity for national 
importance, and I would like to be able to educate you more on 
this project if you have not already been briefed and of 
course, invite you to Alaska to see not only that but our 
renewable energy opportunities that we have around the state.
    Secretary Granholm. Great, great. I would love it.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Senator.
    I now recognize Senator Cortez Masto for five minutes.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Secretary Granholm, it is great to see you again.
    Secretary Granholm. Great to see you.
    Senator Cortez Masto. I want to start by thanking you for 
your recent visit to southern Nevada. I know everyone was 
excited that you were there. I think we were just as excited 
that you were seeing our solar fields, UNLV's winning Mojave 
Bloom solar home, all the cutting-edge projects that are 
happening.
    Secretary Granholm. So great.
    Senator Cortez Masto. That is why I call it the 
``innovation state.'' Thank you for your shout-out with our 
battery recycling, our critical minerals, and supply chains, 
and I am going to get to that, but the first thing I want to 
also talk about is Yucca Mountain. I was pleased to hear, 
again, your comments about Yucca Mountain and the need to 
incorporate the framing and findings of the 2012 Blue Ribbon 
Commission on America's Nuclear Future. And for my colleagues, 
if we are going to go down a clean energy path--and to the 
Administration--with nuclear power, we have to address the 
issue of the waste that is out there. And Yucca Mountain is not 
the answer. But I do have a solution, and the delegation from 
Nevada has a solution, which is the Nuclear Waste Informed 
Consent Act. That is the first step in making sure everybody is 
on the same page and moving forward in how we address the waste 
in this country.
    So let me ask you this question because in regards to the 
Department's FY22 budget request, DOE will support a consent-
based siting approach and actively work with state, tribal, and 
local governments, as well as other affected federal agencies 
to better understand and consider concerns and challenges 
before making decisions. So Secretary, can you elaborate on 
this----
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Cortez Masto [continuing]. Statement a little bit 
and provide an update on the Department's efforts to carry out 
a consent-based approach?
    Secretary Granholm. Right. In the budget there is a $20 
million hold there for this process because we want to begin 
this process, which will happen next month. We will start the 
process, and hopefully in the fall we will be able to gather 
and see what the interest is. As you're well aware, we are not 
authorized to be able to do a permanent solution, so it would 
be an interim inquiry. But you can't force this on any 
community. There has to be a process of consent and, 
presumably, rewarding the communities that are willing to raise 
their hands. So we will see what comes back, but this 
Administration has made it very clear that Yucca Mountain is 
not the solution.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    And in the spirit of collaboration, let us talk a little 
bit about critical minerals because this is something else 
that--if you are in Nevada--you saw this, and I appreciate your 
comments here because I do think it is important as we go down 
the clean energy future that we are recognizing that there are 
critical minerals within our communities, within this country, 
that we should be looking at for extraction and processing and 
bringing that supply chain here and you talked a little bit 
about that. I think it is important that as we look at a 
critical mineral extraction though, we are also recognizing 
there is a way to still protect the environment and bring in 
all the stakeholders in a collaborative nature so everybody is 
working on the same page. Can you talk a little bit about that?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I mean, you raised this--it's a 
great example because there are a couple of potential 
opportunities in Nevada, as you are well aware. And you know, 
you can do this in a way that includes the community and that 
listens to the concerns that people may have for both the 
environment as well as tribal lands, for example, and do 
something in partnership that includes perhaps a community 
benefit agreement, where you work together on what everybody 
wants to see, which is the ability to create jobs in a 
sustainable and responsible way, powering our future with clean 
technology.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you and that is why, again, I 
will extend an invitation to the Chairman of our Committee here 
to come out to Nevada to see how we have incorporated mining in 
an environmentally responsible way----
    Secretary Granholm. Right.
    Senator Cortez Masto [continuing]. Because I think it can 
be done.
    Let me ask you, for purposes of my colleague Senator 
Kelly's question on tribes, please know, that is a concern of 
mine as well, particularly as we both sit on the Senate Indian 
Affairs Committee. This is something we keep bringing up. It is 
a concern of ours to make sure our tribes have access to the 
tribal energy loan guarantee program and we are doing 
everything we can to promote their economic opportunities as 
well, as we go down the clean energy path.
    One thing I want to bring to your attention though is this 
nexus between energy and water. As you well know, in the West, 
there is a drought situation happening, particularly as we all 
are dealing with how we manage our growth, our economic 
development, and clean energy future, and the water situation 
that we see in the West. So for these reasons, I introduced the 
Energy and Water Research Integration Act last Congress. 
Portions of this legislation were ultimately merged with that 
of former Chairwoman Murkowski, who has really taken the lead 
on the nexus of energy and water sustainability and she has 
introduced legislation around that space.
    Let me ask you this: In the legislation, it established an 
interagency committee led by the Secretaries of Energy and the 
Interior to coordinate and collaborate on energy/water nexus 
activities. Can you speak to the status of this section and how 
it will complement RD&D priorities included throughout DOE's 
Fiscal Year 2022 budget request?
    Secretary Granholm. Can I get back to you on that?
    Senator Cortez Masto. Absolutely.
    Secretary Granholm. Okay.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you very much.
    Secretary Granholm. Thanks, I appreciate it.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator King is recognized for five minutes.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    Governor, welcome.
    Secretary Granholm. Thank you.
    Senator King. I call you Governor because there is only one 
political honorific in this country that is higher than 
Governor, and it ain't Senator or Secretary.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. So I am delighted to have you here.
    Pipeline security. I count we have PHMSA at the Department 
of Transportation. We have TSA at Homeland Security. We have 
FERC and we have the Department of Energy--all have a piece of 
pipeline. This is unacceptable. Do you agree with me that we 
have to rationalize the process of cybersecurity for pipelines 
so that there is one agency that is in charge, that there are 
regulations, that it is not voluntary? This is a part of our 
critical infrastructure.
    Secretary Granholm. It would be wise to do so.
    Senator King. Thank you. That is exactly how I hoped you 
would respond.
    I just want to emphasize--right now we are in danger. I 
mean, the Colonial Pipeline was a wake-up call. We keep not 
waking up. And pipelines in New England, for example, 60 
percent of our electricity comes from natural gas. All of the 
natural gas comes through pipelines. So as far as I am 
concerned, gas pipelines are part of the grid and the grid has 
a great deal of regulation and testing and cybersecurity. It is 
very, very weak in terms of the pipeline system. So I hope we 
can work together with CESER and other agencies to figure out 
where this should reside and to get on it promptly.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I mean, as you know, I am 
encouraged, at least, by the fact that TSA is now requiring 
pipelines to notify us when there is an effort at penetration 
from a ransomware attack, but there are basic standards that 
have been developed by NIST (National Institute of Standards 
and Technology) at the Department of Commerce, which the 
electrical sector uses.
    Senator King. Exactly, and those standards should apply to 
pipelines and pipelines should be pen tested and they should be 
under the strictest structure.
    Secretary Granholm. Agree.
    Senator King. Nuclear waste--we have talked about--Senator 
Cortez Masto. I just want to emphasize that we do have to face 
that issue. This is a broken promise by the Federal Government 
going back to the fifties, where we developed a commercial 
nuclear infrastructure in the country, the commitment was to 
take care of the waste. It has not happened. In my state we 
have--well, in many states--we have what amount to a hundred 
high-level nuclear waste sites scattered around the country, 
including one in Maine. And so I urge you to take this 
seriously because I want to support the development of nuclear 
power as a clean alternative, but I do not feel that I can 
morally if we are shipping the waste problem to our children.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I get it. And that's why we're 
proceeding on it this year.
    Senator King. Okay, CESER, I mentioned--C-E-S-E-R.
    Secretary Granholm. ``CESER,'' we call it.
    Senator King. CESER, okay. ``Render unto CESER.''
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. You have indicated that you want to 
strengthen the agency, but I am concerned about the leadership 
and that it is at the career level rather than a higher-level 
political appointee. Is that something you could consider in 
terms of elevating the status and significance of that agency?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes and I appreciate you writing me the 
letter on that and I know that I have recently responded. And 
here's what we are considering and again, I want to work with 
you on it, but you know, since CESER was established about half 
of its existence has been without leadership because it's been 
a political appointee. And the question is, this is an 
emergency operation, sort of akin to, you know, an emergency 
response entity that is non-
political. It is not partisan. What we would like to do is to 
strengthen CESER by elevating it to be a director position, but 
not subject to who's in and who's out--a professional group 
that is trusted. So the new person that we have appointed to be 
head of CESER, Puesh Kumar--I hope you get a chance to meet 
him. He's a total pro, has experience both in the utility side 
as well as inside of the Federal Government and he is looking 
at all the ways that we can strengthen CESER within the 
Department of Energy. But I tell you, I was, you know, it's 
been--we've worked really hard to try to fill the slots----
    Senator King. Good.
    Secretary Granholm [continuing]. Because once you have a 
political leadership sometimes people aren't sure about whether 
they are in or they are out.
    Senator King. I understand.
    Secretary Granholm. We want to make it a career position.
    Senator King. Well, I just want to be sure that it gets the 
status that it needs and deserves.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, yes.
    Senator King. One final, very brief question. In your 
budget you zero out the heating oil reserve. As the state with 
the highest level of heating oil usage in the nation, that is, 
of course, of grave concern. Are you planning to sell off the 
reserve or does the reserve stay but you are not adding to it? 
What are the contingencies because we keep thinking things are 
not going to happen and then they happen and my state would be 
a catastrophe----
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I get it.
    Senator King [continuing]. If something happened to the 
heating oil supply.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, I understand that and I certainly, 
you know, would want to make sure that we are prepared for 
something like that. I think initially the thought was that the 
reserve has been in place for 20 years and it's never once been 
used. Then when the Colonial Pipeline thing happened, even 
though it wasn't used then, we said, ``Okay, let's . . . ''. So 
we have enough to be able to carry through the middle of 2022. 
Happy to work with you on making sure that it is solid after 
that.
    Senator King. Please do. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Secretary and Governor.
    Secretary Granholm. You bet.
    Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Secretary Granholm. Thank you, Governor.
    Senator Kelly. And Senator Barrasso for five minutes.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Madam Secretary, I am just kind of looking through a number 
of different things here. You know, you are working to convince 
Congress to mandate a carbon-free power sector by 2030 for the 
entire nation and that is the policy of the Administration.
    Secretary Granholm. 2035.
    Senator Barrasso. 2035, Okay.
    California has gone down this path with disastrous results. 
California's goal is actually 10 years later than the Biden 
Administration. So last month the North American Electric 
Reliability Corporation issued its 2021 Summer Reliability 
Assessment. This is what they said. ``California is at risk of 
energy emergencies during periods of normal peak summer demand 
and high risk,'' they said, ``When above-normal demand is 
widespread in the West.'' Well, California is the only state 
determined to be at high risk. It also has among the highest 
electricity prices in our nation.
    Should we expect more blackouts in California this summer?
    Secretary Granholm. I don't know whether there will be but 
I do know that, obviously, the climate impacts of a heated 
planet are really impacting California disproportionately, and 
the West--these other states that are experiencing 117-degree 
temperatures and we have to do something about that as well. 
Clearly, we have to have reliable power. Clearly, we have to 
have reliable baseload power. And so, the question is, from the 
place we call the ``Department of Solutions,'' how do we invest 
in the technologies that will get us there to make sure that we 
have affordable, reliable, baseload power that is clean?
    Senator Barrasso. And it is a global reduction in carbon 
that we are looking for to have the impact that you described--
--
    Secretary Granholm. Of course.
    Senator Barrasso [continuing]. Globally, so last week the 
Wall Street Journal ran an article titled, ``China Slows Bid To 
Cut Emissions.'' That is, ``China slows their bid to cut 
emissions.'' The article explains that China's top economic 
planners have put the brakes on attempts by the environmental 
officials in China to reduce carbon emissions. As they say, 
driving growth takes priority in China over meeting climate 
targets. So meanwhile, our Administration, the Biden 
Administration, has dramatically increased U.S. commitments to 
cut greenhouse emissions--but globally we cut, China adds more, 
helps their economy, hurts us economically. To that end, 
President Biden has already killed thousands of American jobs 
in the oil and gas sector alone. China is prioritizing its own 
economic growth. Madam Secretary, is China just playing us for 
fools?
    Secretary Granholm. Well, I think we are taking a strong 
position as a nation against China's continued increasing of 
their investments in coal. That is what the Biden 
Administration was leading with at the G7, to stop financing 
those kinds of investments to make sure that the G7 is united 
in making that happen. But I would say that, you know, all of 
our G7 allies are--not just the G7--but our global allies all 
want solutions that are cleaner. They all--everybody does.
    And so, the question is, if you are going to get your power 
from a country or your technologies from a country that may be 
where the power may be dirty or where the products were 
produced with, for example, Uyghur labor, then we are missing a 
global market opportunity in this country by not producing 
those products here and exporting them to countries that really 
want to see clean energy. So we want to take advantage of that.
    Senator Barrasso. You say we have a strong position. I just 
want to make sure it is not dangerously naive, as we may be 
being played as fools as China continues with their emissions 
going up as the United States' emissions go down. Global 
emissions are going up as long as China and India continue to 
produce carbon dioxide at the rate and level they are.
    Secretary Granholm. And they have also made pledges and the 
world is pressuring them, not just the United States. So we 
have to continue to work on this and apply whatever pressure we 
can to ensure that they live up to their commitments.
    Senator Barrasso. They are not living up to the pledges 
that they made----
    Secretary Granholm. Right, I get----
    Senator Barrasso [continuing]. Which are less real than the 
pledges and less reliable than what we have seen in the rest of 
the world.
    Secretary Granholm. I hear you.
    Senator Barrasso. So earlier this month the White House--a 
question on critical minerals--as we have discussed critical 
minerals, and this will be my last question, Mr. Chairman. 
Earlier this month, the White House issued a supply chain 
report which addressed critical minerals. The report says the 
United States should only consider mining--this is from the 
White House--where demand cannot be met through alternative 
means and secondary sources. The report also recommends that 
Congress, EPA, and the Department of the Interior impose 
additional regulations on mining. The United States gets about 
80 percent of its rare earth minerals in compounds from China. 
You rightly pointed out that the Uyghurs are being used for 
forced labor. We see some rare-earth minerals coming from the 
Congo where child labor is being used and then those minerals 
are being processed in China. So whether it is forced labor 
with the Uyghurs, whether it is child labor in the Congo, this 
has China's fingerprint all over it. So does President Biden 
believe it is more important to reduce mining in the United 
States or to increase mining in the United States so we can get 
these critical minerals in ways that are more responsibly 
obtained and we are not dependent on these other nations?
    Secretary Granholm. Right. So last week, this National 
Blueprint for Lithium Batteries was issued, and on page 18 it 
says that our near-term objectives--to 2025--include increasing 
U.S. safe and sustainable production capacity of critical 
battery minerals, including lithium, nickel, and cobalt by 
supporting R&D and mining efforts.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Secretary.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Senator.
    I now recognize Senator Hoeven for five minutes.
    Senator Hoeven. Or Senator King?
    Senator King. No, I have already gone.
    Senator Hoeven. Okay, thank you.
    Senator Barrasso. We were waiting for you. We want to 
listen.
    Senator Hoeven. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank 
you, Mr. Ranking Member, and Secretary, great to see you. 
Thanks for being here.
    Secretary Granholm. Great to see you.
    Senator Hoeven. Appreciate it.
    Secretary Granholm. You bet.
    Senator Hoeven. Do you see carbon capture and storage as 
key to reducing emissions while producing low-cost, dependable 
energy for our country?
    Secretary Granholm. I do.
    Senator Hoeven. So tell me how you can help us do it. I 
call it cracking the code. You and I have talked about it, but 
what do you think are the key things that you can do as 
Secretary of Ag--you can tell I was in an Ag hearing--Secretary 
of Energy, to actually do it, you know, to actually make it 
happen on the ground?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Hoeven. What are the keys?
    Secretary Granholm. Well, you know, consistent with what 
you all passed, the Energy Act of 2020, you all said we need 
some demonstration projects. And honestly, we need to have the 
funding for these larger-scale demonstration projects that 
would take carbon capture and prove it out, as well as hydrogen 
and other means of being able to reduce CO2. Those 
demonstration projects are, I know, part of what is being 
negotiated now and it certainly was contemplated by the 
President in the American Jobs Plan. That's what needs to 
happen.
    Senator Hoeven. So there are three things that I would 
suggest--front-end investment, because you have to put--now 
particularly what we are working on, as you well know in North 
Dakota, is cracking the code on carbon capture for coal-fired 
electric. Three keys there: help with the front-end investment, 
things like Project Tundra, which we are already doing--our 
state, our industry, and you--Department of Energy; the loan 
guarantees for the investment they will make and the equipment 
they will put on the plant as well as putting the equipment for 
taking the CO2 down-hole; and then the enhanced tax 
credits--45Q and 48A.
    So would you agree that those are three keys and are you 
willing to help actually advance those three as making this 
happen?
    Secretary Granholm. Yes, yes.
    Senator Hoeven. Great.
    Secretary Granholm. And they are contemplated in the 
American Jobs Plan too, including the increased tax credit.
    Senator Hoeven. Well, yes. Well, actually a lot of them are 
in place. The enhanced tax credit, you know, we are 
appreciative that it is in there and in other proposed 
legislation, including some that I have co-sponsored with other 
members of this Committee. And so I am appreciative that you 
are supportive and that you have expressed that support to me 
before.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator Hoeven. And then we have talked about you coming to 
North Dakota. We would particularly like you to come out in 
August because we would like to get this done. Is that 
something you would look into doing?
    Secretary Granholm. I certainly would look at it.
    Senator Hoeven. And the other thing I would put in front of 
you for just your thoughts is, and again, this is going to be 
different around the country, but it is still, you know, 
cracking the code on CCUS in terms of taking it from 
technological or technical viability to commercial viability, 
making it happen here and then other places will adopt that 
technology.
    But in North Dakota, the other thing we are doing, it is 
not just on fossil--capturing the CO2--but it is 
also on agriculture, biofuels, you know, just CO2 at 
the farm level, looking at programs for farmers and ranchers, 
which they are interested in, as long as they are farmer-
friendly, but then also linking that over to the energy world--
biofuels. For example, North Dakota being one of only two 
states in the country where we are actually set up and EPA-
approved to put that CO2 down-hole. Ethanol plants 
in Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota are joining together to 
build a CO2 pipeline to North Dakota to join with 
our biofuels plants to put that CO2 down-hole. So 
the point I am making is you would also then see the carbon 
capture on the renewable energy side as well and we would like 
to show you that nexus as well as the traditional energy.
    Secretary Granholm. I would love to see that.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
    Secretary Granholm. Thank you.
    The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator King.
    Senator King. Has the Chairman asked his questions yet? I 
am starting a second round.
    The Chairman. I am fine.
    Senator King. Okay, thank you.
    Just one follow-up. In terms of clean power, I have three 
specific suggestions for research and development.
    Secretary Granholm. Great.
    Senator King. The first is storage, the second is storage, 
and the third is storage.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. That is the key to making solar and wind into 
baseload power.
    Secretary Granholm. Yes.
    Senator King. And there are a number of--I have been 
reading recently about the molten salt project out West and of 
course, battery storage, pumped storage in various capacities, 
but that is the key. Once we can do that--in New England, for 
example, we have a lot of renewables, but natural gas is the 
backup, which is the logical one for the current situation. But 
if you, I mean, I know there is a lot of research going on. I 
think that is the highest priority for research that would make 
the biggest difference in the shortest time because the 
renewables are there and ready and very competitive 
economically--very competitive--but they have to have backup 
when the wind does not blow or when the sun is not shining.
    Secretary Granholm. That is exactly right. And I am sure 
that if Senator Cantwell were here, she would invite you to the 
PNNL (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), which has the 
grid-
storage launch pad that they are going to be cutting the ribbon 
on in September to do this exact thing--research on storage, 
storage, storage--all aspects.
    Senator King. Thank you. Thank you very much for being with 
us.
    Secretary Granholm. You bet.
    The Chairman. Secretary Granholm, let me thank you again 
for being here today. I think it was very productive and very 
informative and we appreciate it very much.
    Members are going to have until the close of business 
tomorrow to submit additional questions for the record.
    With that, the Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                      APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

                              ----------                              


[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                   [all]