[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 61 (Tuesday, April 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2320-S2321]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY FISCAL YEAR 2020 BUDGET REQUEST
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy
of my opening statement at the Subcommittee on Energy and Water
Development's budget hearing for the Department of Energy's fiscal year
2020 budget request be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Department of Energy Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request
Mr. ALEXANDER. The Subcommittee on Energy and Water
Development will please come to order.
Today's hearing will review the administration's fiscal
year 2020 budget request for the Department of Energy.
This is the Subcommittee's first budget hearing this year.
We will have three additional hearings with the National
Nuclear Security Administration, the Corps of Engineers and
Bureau of Reclamation, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
over the next five weeks. Senator Feinstein and I will each
have an opening statement.
I will then recognize each Senator for up to five minutes
for an opening statement, alternating between the majority
and minority, in the order in which they arrived.
We will then turn to Secretary Perry for his testimony on
behalf of the Department of Energy.
At the conclusion of Secretary Perry's testimony, I will
then recognize Senators for five minutes of questions each,
alternating between the majority and minority in the order in
which they arrived. Earlier this week I proposed a New
Manhattan Project for Clean Energy, a five year project with
Ten Grand Challenges that will use American research and
technology to put our country and the world firmly on a path
toward clean, cheaper energy.
Meeting these Grand Challenges would create breakthroughs
in advanced nuclear reactors, natural gas, carbon capture,
better batteries, greener buildings, electric vehicles,
cheaper solar and fusion. To provide the tools to create
these breakthroughs, the federal government should double its
funding for energy research and keep the United States number
one in the world in advanced computing. This strategy takes
advantage of the United States' secret weapon, our
extraordinary capacity for basic research especially at our
17 national laboratories. It will strengthen our economy and
raise our family incomes.
As we review the Department of Energy's fiscal year 2020
budget request today and work on drafting the Energy and
Water Development Appropriations bill, I will be keeping
these Ten Grand Challenges in mind.
I would like to thank Secretary Perry for being here today.
This is Secretary Perry's third year to testify before the
subcommittee.
I also want to thank Senator Feinstein, with whom I have
the pleasure to work with again this year to draft the Energy
and Water Development Appropriations bill. Our subcommittee
has a good record of being the first of appropriations bills
to be considered by the Committee and by the Senate each
year. For each of the past four years, Senator Feinstein and
I have been able to have our bill signed into law.
Last year, we worked together in a bipartisan way on the
fiscal year 2019 Energy and Water Development Appropriations
bill that was signed into law before the start of the fiscal
year--the first time that happened since 2000.
We provided $6.585 billion for the Department's Office of
Science, the fourth consecutive year of record level funding,
which supports basic science and energy research at our 17
national laboratories and is the nation's largest supporter
of research in the physical sciences.
The bill also provided $366 million for ARPA-E, to continue
the important research and development investments into high-
impact energy technologies--another record funding level in a
regular appropriations bill.
We also provided $1.3 billion for Department's Office of
Nuclear Energy, which is responsible for research and
development of advanced reactors and small modular reactors.
Finally, the bill we passed last year provided $15.2 billion
for the National Nuclear Security Administration, including
record funding levels for our Weapons Program and Naval
Reactors.
This year, the Department of Energy's budget request is
about $3.9 billion below what Congress provided last year.
[[Page S2321]]
I'm pleased that the Department's budget request
prioritizes supercomputing, and includes approximately $809
million to deploy exascale systems in the early 2020's.
Unfortunately, the budget request this year again proposes
to decrease spending on federally funded research and
development, terminates ARPA-E and the loan guarantee
programs, and cuts other funding, specifically:
The Office of Science by $1 billion;
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by $2 billion;
Nuclear Energy by $502 million; and
Fossil Energy by $178 million.
And that is why we are holding this hearing: to give
Secretary Perry an opportunity to discuss the Department's
priorities, so Senator Feinstein and I can make informed
decisions as we begin to write the fiscal year 2020 Energy
and Water Development Appropriations bill over the next few
weeks. Governing is about setting priorities, and we always
have to make some hard decisions to ensure the highest
priorities are funded.
Today, I'd like to focus my questions on five main areas,
all with an eye toward setting priorities: Prioritizing
federal support for science and energy research; Maintaining
a safe and effective nuclear weapons stockpile; Demonstrating
that we can build safe, affordable advanced reactors; Keeping
America first in supercomputing; and Solving the nuclear
waste stalemate. The Department of Energy's research programs
have made the United States a world leader in science and
technology, and these programs will help the United States
maintain its brainpower advantage to remain competitive at a
time when other countries are investing heavily in research.
Demonstrating that We Can Build Safe, Affordable Advanced Reactors
Today, nuclear power accounts for 60% of our carbon-free
electricity and, if we are going to slow the effects of
climate change, nuclear power will be necessary into the
future. However, the cost to build and operate today's large
nuclear reactors is too high. If we don't do something soon,
nuclear power will not have a future in the United States.
Advanced reactors have the potential to be smaller, cheaper,
less wasteful, and safer than today's reactors.
To demonstrate their potential, we need to build some of
these advanced reactors, enable them to get licensed, and
make sure they are available to replace the existing reactors
when they come offline. Secretary Perry, I'd like to hear
your views on this, including whether you think it would be
helpful for the Department of Energy, working with the
private sector and the National Laboratories, to manage a
program that would build and demonstrate current advanced
reactor technologies.
Maintaining a Safe and Effective Nuclear Weapons Stockpile
A key pillar of our national defense is a strong nuclear
deterrent. Last February, the administration issued an
updated nuclear policy, called the Nuclear Posture Review.
The updated Nuclear Posture Review recommends continuing many
of the things Congress has been working on for the last
several years--things that I support, including: continuing
Life Extension Programs to make sure our current nuclear
weapons remain safe and effective; and continuing to invest
in the facilities we need to maintain our nuclear weapons
stockpile. This includes the Uranium Processing Facility, the
Plutonium Facility, and the facilities to process lithium and
tritium.
I'm pleased to know the Department continues to make
progress on construction of the nuclear buildings for the
Uranium Processing Facility, and I'll be asking some
questions about that project today. The Nuclear Posture
Review also calls for two low yield warheads to be added to
the stockpile, largely in response to capabilities being
developed by Russia and other countries, and I know the
Department is working on this important issue.
I'd like to hear more about that today, and look forward to
hearing about the progress being made on the Uranium
Processing Facility.
China, Japan, the U.S. and the European Union all want to
be first in supercomputing. The stakes are high because the
winner has an advantage in advanced manufacturing, simulating
advanced reactors and weapons before they are built, finding
terrorists and saving billions of Medicaid waste, and
simulating the electric grid in a natural disaster, and other
progress.
The U.S. regained the number one spot last year, thanks to
sustained funding by Congress during both the Obama and Trump
administrations. I am pleased that this budget request
proposes to continue development of exascale supercomputers--
the next generation of supercomputers that will develop a
system a thousand times faster than the first supercomputer
the U.S. built in 2008.
To ensure that nuclear power has a strong future in this
country, we must solve the decades' long stalemate over what
to do with used fuel from our nuclear reactors. Senator
Feinstein and I have been working on this problem for years,
and I'd like to take the opportunity to compliment Senator
Feinstein on her leadership and her insistence that we find a
solution to this problem. To solve the stalemate, we need to
find places to build geologic repositories and temporary
storage facilities so the federal government can finally meet
its legal obligation to dispose of nuclear waste safely and
permanently.
This year's budget request for the Department of Energy
includes $110 million to restart work for Yucca Mountain
repository and $6.5 million to study ways to open an interim
storage site or use a private interim storage site. I
strongly believe that Yucca Mountain can and should be part
of the solution to the nuclear waste stalemate. Federal law
designates Yucca Mountain as the nation's repository for used
nuclear fuel, and the Commission's own scientists have told
us that we can safely store nuclear waste there for up to one
million years.
But even if we had Yucca Mountain open today, we would
still need to look for another permanent repository. We have
more than enough used fuel to fill Yucca Mountain to its
legal capacity. So Senator Feinstein and I, working with the
leaders of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Senator Murkowski and then Senators Bingaman, Wyden,
Cantwell, and now Senator Manchin, have a bill to implement
the recommendations of the President's Blue Ribbon Commission
on America's Nuclear Future, which we're working to
reintroduce this year.
The legislation complements Yucca Mountain, and would
create a new federal agency to find additional permanent
repositories and temporary facilities for used nuclear fuel.
But the quickest, and probably the least expensive, way for
the federal government to start to meet its used nuclear fuel
obligations is for the Department of Energy to contract with
a private storage facility for used nuclear fuel.
Two years ago, you told this subcommittee that the
Department of Energy has the authority to take title to used
nuclear fuel, but you were hesitant to agree that it has the
authority to store the used fuel at a private facility
without more direction from Congress. I understand that two
private companies have submitted license applications to the
NRC for private consolidated storage facilities, one in Texas
and one in New Mexico, and that the NRC's review is well
underway.
I look forward to working with Secretary Perry as we begin
putting together our Energy and Water Development
Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2020 and hearing what
Secretary Perry's priorities are. I also expect that the
Department will continue to fund projects consistent with
Congressional intent in the fiscal year 2019 Consolidated
Appropriations Act.
I will now recognize Senator Feinstein for her opening
statement.
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