The committee will receive testimony from the Secretary of Defense and
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the fiscal year 2024 budget
request of the Department of Defense.
Witnesses:
Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense,
U.S. Department of Defense
General Mark A. Milley, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
As required by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,
BOEM will hold Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas
Lease Sale
259 on
Wednesday March 29, 2023. The opening and reading of the bids will begin
at 9 a.m. Central Daylight Time.
Deb Haaland, Secretary, U.S. Department of Interior
The Department’s 2024
budget
totals $18.9 billion in current authority ($18.3 billion in net
discretionary authority)—an increase of $2.0 billion, or 12 percent,
from the 2023 enacted budget.
The budget for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management provides $72.3
million for conventional energy programs to support
OCS planning, leasing, and oversight.
The 2024 budget for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
includes $217.1 million for conventional energy programs to support
OCS permit application reviews, regulation and
standard development for offshore activities, verification and
enforcement of operator compliance with all applicable environmental
laws and regulations, technical reviews of planned operations and
emerging technologies to properly identify and mitigate risks, a robust
inspection program employing an annual inspection strategy that includes
risk-based inspections, and incident investigations.
BSEE’s budget also includes $30.0 million to
fund the decommissioning of orphaned offshore oil and gas
infrastructure.
The 2024 budget includes $123.5 million for the Bureau of Land
Management’s Oil and Gas Management program, an increase of $10.6
million from the 2023 enacted amount. The BLM
budget also includes $51.0 million for Oil and Gas Inspection Activities
and proposes to offset the cost of this program through the
establishment of onshore inspection fees.
The 2024 BOEM budget includes $6.6 million in
Conventional Energy and $2.3 million in Environmental Programs to
establish a dedicated team, train existing staff, hire additional
specialized experts, and fund environmental studies, scientific
research, data collection, and other activities critical to the
establishment and implementation of the new program. The 2024
BSEE budget includes $1.5 million to prepare
for regulating and overseeing safe and effective offshore carbon
sequestration activities. The budget includes $3.4 million to start an
onshore carbon sequestration program in BLM.
Senate Appropriations Committee
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
This Commissioner-led
roundtable
will provide an opportunity for the Commissioners and staff to engage
with environmental justice community members, advocates, researchers,
industry representatives, and government leaders on actions the
Commission can take to better incorporate environmental justice and
equity considerations into its decisions.
This discussion will strengthen the Commission’s efforts to identify and
address adverse impacts associated with permitting applications for
hydroelectric, natural gas pipeline, liquified natural gas, and electric
transmission infrastructure subject to FERC
jurisdiction. This roundtable will help further the goals of the
Commission’s Equity Action Plan, which include reducing barriers to
meaningful participation faced by underserved communities and ensuring
that the Commission’s natural gas and hydroelectric policies and
processes are consistent with environmental justice principles.
Time
Details
9:30 am – 9:45 am
Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:45 am – 11:15 am
Panel 1: Priorities for Advancing Environmental Justice and Equity in
Infrastructure Permitting
As the Commission continues to advance its consideration of
environmental justice and equity concerns in its infrastructure
permitting proceedings, this panel will discuss how the Commission can
better integrate and advance environmental justice and equity principles
in its decision-making. The panel may include a discussion of the
following questions:
What should the Commission prioritize as it more fully integrates
environmental justice and equity considerations into its
infrastructure permitting proceedings?
What lessons can the Commission learn from other federal and state
agencies and tribes to better avoid and minimize negative
environmental, health, and socioeconomic impacts to historically
overburdened communities?
How can the Commission better integrate environmental justice and
equity considerations into its efforts to enhance the safety and
reliability of the infrastructure it authorizes?
Panelists:
Shalanda Baker, U.S. Department of Energy, Director of the Office of
Economic Impact and Diversity
Darcie L. Houck, California Public Utilities Commission, Commissioner
Ben Jealous, Sierra Club, Executive Director
Dana Johnson, WE ACT, Senior Director of
Strategy and Federal Policy
Paul Lau, SMUD, CEO and General Manager
Julie Nelson, Cheniere, Senior Vice President, Policy, Government and
Public Affairs
Matthew Tejada, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Environmental Justice, Office of Environmental Justice
and External Civil Rights
11:15 am – 11:30 am
Break
11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Panel 2: From the Front-Line: Impacted Communities and their Challenges
During this panel, Commissioners will engage with members and
representatives of overburdened communities impacted by
FERC-jurisdictional infrastructure about the
environmental justice challenges they face. The panel may include a
discussion of the following questions:
Location-Specific Impacts:
Please describe your community and any environmental injustices you
may have experienced, either directly or indirectly.
When assessing the impacts of
FERC-jurisdictional infrastructure
projects, what topics or areas of concern should the Commission more
fully address or emphasize during our infrastructure permitting
proceedings?
How can the Commission best facilitate engagement between local
communities and industry during the earliest stages of the project
planning process to avoid or reduce negative impacts, develop local
community benefits, and implement community input with respect to
other areas of concern?
What are ways the Commission can strengthen its analysis of local
impacts without placing an undue burden of producing additional
information on environmental justice communities?
Meaningful Engagement:
How can the Commission and industry better assure that stakeholders’
input in infrastructure application proceedings was received,
reviewed, and addressed in environmental review documents and the
Commission’s decisions?
In many cases, the Commission requires infrastructure applicants,
certificate holders, or licensees to develop plans to protect public
safety (such as Emergency Response Plans for liquified natural gas
facilities). What steps should the Commission and industry take to
provide opportunities for public participation targeted at ensuring
community needs are evaluated during the development,
implementation, and modification of such plans?
In addition to project-specific engagement, how else should the
Commission work with local communities to improve the Commission’s
infrastructure permitting processes and help connect communities to
resources that support community participation in our proceedings?
Panelists:
Russell Armstrong, Hip Hop Caucus, Policy Director for Climate and
Environment
John Beard, Port Arthur Community Action Network, Founder, President,
and Executive Director
Amy Cordalis, Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group,
Co-Principal
Kari Fulton, Center for Oil and Gas Organizing, Climate Justice Policy
Advocate and Educator
Roishetta Ozane, The Vessel Project of Louisiana, Founder, Director,
CEO
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Lunch
Lunch will not be provided.
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Panel 3: Identifying, Avoiding, and Addressing Environmental Justice
Impacts
This panel will discuss how infrastructure applicants, the Commission,
and its staff can better identify, avoid, and minimize adverse impacts
on environmental justice communities. The panel may include a discussion
of the following questions:
Cumulative Impacts:
What lessons can the Commission learn from other federal and state
agencies, environmental justice communities, industry, and subject
matter experts on how to better identify, minimize, and avoid
cumulative impacts in environmental justice communities particularly
with respect to human health and climate change?
How can the Commission best consider factors that increase the
intensity of cumulative impacts on environmental justice
communities?
Identifying, Minimizing, and Avoiding Impacts:
How can the Commission better assess and characterize direct and
indirect impacts as well as past, current, and future cumulative
impacts and the vulnerability or resiliency of a community?
What guidance can the Commission provide to infrastructure project
developers to help avoid or reduce negative impacts from new
infrastructure development in environmental justice communities that
are already overburdened? What indicators and thresholds should the
Commission use to appropriately and accurately identify such
communities early in the project development process?
How can Commission staff make better use of local, state, and
region-specific impact information and community knowledge when
conducting an impact assessment and developing methods to avoid and
minimize potential impacts?
Panelists:
Aram Benyamin, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Chief
Operating Officer
Uni Blake, American Petroleum Institute, Senior Policy Advisor
Gina Dorsey, Kinder Morgan, Director,
EHS-Project Permitting, Operations Support
Group
Al Huang, Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU
School of Law, Director of Environmental Justice & Senior Attorney
Dr. Beth Rose Middleton Manning, UC Davis, Professor of Native American
Studies
Carolyn L. Nelson, P.E., U.S. Department of Transportation, Director of
Environmental Policy & Justice Division
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration released the President’s Budget
for fiscal year 2024 to the Congress. The Budget requests over $12
billion in discretionary budget authority for the
EPA in 2024, a $1.9 billion or 19-percent
increase from the fiscal year 2023 enacted level.
EPA will release the full Congressional
Justification and Budget in Brief materials soon.
The President’s Budget makes historic investments to support the
Agency’s ongoing work to tackle the climate crisis, advance
environmental justice, protect air quality across the nation, invest
in critical water infrastructure and increase support for our state
and Tribal partners in their efforts to implement environmental laws,
and continue to rebuild core functions at the Agency.
“EPA is at the center of President Biden’s ambitious environmental
agenda and the FY 2024 Budget will ensure
the Agency delivers bold environmental actions and economic benefits
for all. Coupled with the President’s historic investments in America
through significant legislative accomplishments, the Budget will
advance EPA’s mission across the board,
boosting everything from our efforts to combat climate change, to
delivering clean air, safe water, and healthy lands, to protecting
communities from harmful chemicals, and to the continued restoration
of capacity necessary to effectively implement these programs,” said
EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.
“Importantly, the Budget also supports our work to center
environmental justice across all of the Agency’s programs, ensuring
that no family, especially those living in overburdened and
underserved areas, has to worry about the air they breathe, the water
they drink, or the environmental safety of their communities.”
Highlights of the President’s FY 2024 Budget
include:
Tackling the Climate Crisis with Urgency. The
EPA’s Budget prioritizes combatting climate
change with the urgency that science demands. The Budget includes $5
billion, a $757 million increase over the 2023 enacted level, to
support work reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, building
resilience in the face of climate impacts, and engaging with the
global community to respond to this shared challenge, while also
providing resources to spur economic progress and create good-paying
jobs. The Budget proposes a $64.4 million increase over the 2023
enacted budget to implement the American Innovation and Manufacturing
Act to continue phasing out potent GHGs known as hydrofluorocarbons
(HFCs). It also invests $7 million in wildfire smoke preparedness.
Advancing Environmental Justice. The Budget bolsters the Agency’s
efforts to achieve environmental justice in communities across the
Nation by investing nearly $1.8 billion across numerous programs in
support of environmental justice efforts. This investment supports the
implementation of the President’s Justice40 commitment, which ensures
at least 40 percent of the benefits of Federal investments in climate
and clean energy, as well as infrastructure work such as Superfund,
Brownfields, and SRFs, reach disadvantaged communities, including
rural and Tribal communities. Additionally, this Budget will support
activities creating good-paying jobs, cleaning up pollution, advancing
equity, and securing environmental justice for communities that often
bear the brunt of toxic pollution and impacts of climate change. The
Budget also includes $91 million for technical assistance to support
capacity building for communities to advance equity and justice.
Upgrading Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure and Replacing
Lead Pipes Nationwide. The Budget provides more than $4 billion for
water infrastructure, an increase of $1 billion over the 2023 enacted
level. These resources foster water infrastructure upgrades, with a
focus on underserved and rural communities that have historically been
overlooked. The Budget funds all authorizations in the original
Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 and maintains
funding for EPA’s State Revolving Funds at
the total 2023 enacted level, which complements funds provided for
water infrastructure programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The Budget also provides $219 million for two grant programs dedicated
to reducing lead in drinking water and lead testing in schools (an
increase of $163 million over the 2023 enacted level). It also funds
other grants and loans to advance the goal of replacing all lead
pipes. Ensuring Clean and Healthy Air for All Communities. The Budget
allocates $1.4 billion to improve air quality and reduce localized
pollution, reduce exposure to radiation, and improve indoor air for
communities across the country. This includes $180 million to support
the development and implementation of national emission standards to
reduce air pollution from vehicles, engines and fuels. The Budget also
supports $367 million to assist air pollution control agencies in the
development, implementation, and evaluation of programs for the
National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and to establish
standards for reducing air toxics.
Protecting Communities from Hazardous Waste and Environmental Damage.
The prevention and cleanup of harmful environmental damage that poses
a risk to public health and safety continues to be a top priority for
EPA. In addition to an estimated $2.5
billion in Superfund tax revenue that will be available to
EPA in 2024, the Budget provides over $350
million for the Superfund program to continue cleaning up some of the
Nation’s most contaminated land and respond to environmental
emergencies and natural disasters. The Budget also provides over $215
million for EPA’s Brownfields program to
provide technical assistance and grants to communities, including
overburdened and underserved communities, so they can safely clean up
and reuse contaminated properties, as well as $20 million for the
Alaska Contaminated Lands program. These programs support the
President’s Cancer Moonshot initiative by reducing human exposure to
harmful contaminants that are correlated with an increased risk for
cancer.
Ensuring Safety of Chemicals for People and the Environment. The
Budget provides an investment of $130 million, $49 million more than
the 2023 enacted level to build core capacity to implement the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA). Under TSCA,
EPA has a responsibility to ensure the safety of chemicals in or
entering commerce. In FY 2024, EPA will
focus on evaluating, assessing, and managing risks from exposure to
new and existing industrial chemicals to advance human health
protection in our communities. Another priority is to implement
FIFRA to ensure pesticides pose no
unreasonable risks to human health and the environment.
Tackling Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Pollution. The
Budget provides approximately $170 million to combat
PFAS pollution.
PFAS substances are a group of chemicals
that threaten the health and safety of all communities. This request
allows the EPA to continue working toward
commitments made under EPA’s 2021
PFAS Strategic Roadmap, including:
increasing our knowledge of PFAS impacts to
human health and ecological effects, restricting use to prevent
PFAS from entering the air, land, and water,
and remediating PFAS that have been released
into the environment.
Enforcing and Assuring Compliance with the Nation’s Environmental
Laws. The Budget provides $246 million for civil enforcement efforts,
crucial funding for enforcement in communities with high pollution
exposure, and for preventing the illegal importation and use of
climate super-pollutant HFCs in the United States. The Budget also
includes: $165 million for compliance monitoring efforts, including
funds to conduct inspections in underserved and overburdened
communities, and funds to rebuild the agency’s inspector corps; and
$75 million for criminal enforcement efforts, which includes funding
to increase outreach to victims of environmental crimes and develop a
specialized criminal enforcement task force to address environmental
justice issues in partnership with the Department of Justice.
Restoring Critical Capacity to Carry Out
EPA’s Core Mission. To position the Agency
with the workforce required to address emerging and ongoing
challenges, the Budget added nearly 2,000 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs)
relative to the current level, for a total of more than 17,000 FTEs,
to help rebuild the Agency’s workforce. Developing staffing capacity
across the Agency would enable EPA to better
protect our Nation’s health, while also providing avenues to
strengthen and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and
accessibility. Staffing resources would additionally fund a
significant expansion of EPA’s paid student
internship program to develop a pipeline of qualified staff.
The Budget makes these smart investments to address emerging and
ongoing environmental challenges while creating good-paying jobs and
improving our country’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Building on the President’s strong record of fiscal responsibility,
the Budget more than fully pays for its investments — reducing
deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by asking the
wealthy and big corporations to pay their fair share.
House Appropriations Committee
Senate Appropriations Committee
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
To members: Please submit requests to testify to Elizabeth Markus, at
[email protected], by Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 5:00
p.m. Written testimony will be due to the subcommittee by Friday, March
24, 2023, at 5:00 p.m.
The Department of Commerce’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget proposes $12.3
billion in
discretionary funding and $4 billion in mandatory funding. $6.8 billion
is for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The budget
also includes $97 million for NIST’s
activities on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability
The National Science Foundation FY2024 budget
request is $11.314 billion,
including $1 billion for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, $550.5
million for clean energy research, $30 million for the National
Discovery Cloud for Climate, and $15 million for climate equity
fellowships.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
FY2024 budget request is $27.2
billion,
including $2.5 billion for earth science.
House Appropriations Committee
Senate Appropriations Committee
Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
Analyzing climate change and proposing solutions at the nation-state
level can obscure the path forward, as ambition varies widely across
countries and can change dramatically as soon as the next election.
Furthermore, coordinating the actions of nearly 200 nations (including
more than a dozen major emitters) presents its own challenges. Viewing
climate solutions as sectoral rather than “national,” may be more
productive and give a clearer of how to cut the most emissions in the
fastest manner.
This webinar series,
sponsored by American University’s Center for Environmental Policy (CEP)
and the not-for-profit think tank Energy Innovation, reframes causes and
solutions of climate change as “sectoral” issues.
Among the most evident sectors to most consumers, transportation and
buildings both involve high expenditures on infrastructure to retrofit
extant systems and build new ones. What are the successes and obstacles
to date in these sectors? What is needed in these sectors to generate
more effective climate mitigation?
Speakers:
Sarah Baldwin, Energy Innovation
Chris Busch, Energy Innovation
Discussant: David Levy, Director of Planning and Zoning, Town of
Vienna, VA (confirmed)
Moderator: Danielle Wagner, Center for Environmental Policy, School of
Public Affairs
Sara Baldwin is the Director of Electrification Policy at Energy
Innovation Policy & Technology LLC®, where she
leads the firm’s electrification policy practice area to advance
economy-wide decarbonization through the electrification of buildings,
transportation, and industry. She provides policy analysis and original
research to support policymakers at the state, federal, and local
levels. She previously served as Vice President of Regulatory for the
Interstate Renewable Energy Council and as a Senior Policy Associate for
Utah Clean Energy. Sara is a member of GridLab’s advisory board and
hosts Energy Innovation’s Electrify This! podcast.
Chris Busch is Director, Transportation and Senior Economist at Energy
Innovation, where he leads the firm’s Transportation Program and the
firm’s carbon market analysis for regions including California and
China. Chris previously served as EI’s California lead and in this role,
he led development of the California Energy Policy Simulator to
strengthen policies in all major sectors, accelerating decarbonization
while delivering social and economic benefits worth tens of billions.
Chris is an expert in energy economics and carbon pricing policy, and
his research accurately predicted the buildup in excess tradeable
permits in California’s cap-and-trade program. Chris previously worked
for the BlueGreen Alliance, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
David Levy is Director of Planning and Zoning for the Town of Vienna,
VA. He has extensive experience both in government and the private
sector. Before coming to Vienna, he served as Assistant Director and
Chief of Long-Range Planning for the City of Rockville, MD. Previously,
he served as Assistant Commissioner for Land Resources in Baltimore’s
Department of Housing & Community Development; and as a consultant with
both ICF International (a global consulting
and technology-services company) and PA Consulting (formerly Hagler
Bailly); as Brownfields Project Coordinator for the Baltimore City
Department of Planning; and as Special Assistant to the Mayor of Quito,
Ecuador. He has been Chair of the Planning Director’s Technical Advisory
Committee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and Vice
President of the Maryland Chapter of the American Planning Association.
He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP)
and of the Urban Land Institute.
Danielle Miller Wagner serves as the Program Director of the Center for
Environmental Policy at American University, School of Public Affairs.
She brings more than 20 years of experience working with local
governments, universities, NGOs and federal agencies to facilitate
collaborative solutions to complex environmental challenges. In her
current role, Wagner works across the university as well as with a broad
array of external stakeholders to research and communicate about
data-driven equitable environmental solutions. Prior to joining American
University, Danielle served as Program Director of Smart Cities Week,
Brownfields Program Manager at ICMA and
International Policy Manager at the GLOBE
Program, among other positions.
