$1.42 billion for Climate Change and Environment Funds
$0.122 billion for Food Security
$0.332 billion for Treasury’s Departmental Offices, which includes
$8.2 million to support 27 staff positions for Treasury’s Climate Hub
and a climate-related technical support center to conduct assessments
of climate-related risks across Government programs
$0.031 billion for capital investments, including $5 million for
electric vehicle leasing and charging infrastructure
Staffing to Support Climate Initiatives +$3,184,000 / +11
FTE
The Administration is targeting cuts to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
by 50% – 52% from 2005 levels by 2030 and has outlined an ambitious plan
to double international climate finance and triple international
adaptation finance by 2024, to support communities transitioning away
from coal and to encourage the private sector to disclose climate risk.
The Administration has tasked Treasury with playing a key role in these
efforts, but as currently staffed, Treasury is limited in its ability to
contribute to crucial elements of the climate agenda. Treasury’s unique
responsibilities on a range of programs related to climate change –
including economic, financial sector, and climate-related government
policies – are reflected in an ambitious climate strategy program. This
request would build policy strength in key climate functions, including
international economists who can support bilateral and multilateral
efforts outlined in the International Climate Finance Strategy, domestic
finance experts responsible for understanding climate risks on the
financial system, and economists responsible for conducting economic
analyses related to the impacts of domestic and international climate
policies on US energy markets.
House Appropriations Committee
Senate Appropriations Committee
State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee
Claudio Galimberti, Senior Vice President & North America Research
Director, Rystad Energy
Dr. Gregor Semieniuk, Assistant Research Professor, Political Economy
Research Institute & Department of Economics, University of
Massachusetts Amherst
Daniel Raimi, Fellow & Director, Equity in the Energy Transition
Initiative, Resources for the Future
Dr. Benjamin Zycher, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Lucian Pugliaresi, President, Energy Policy Research Foundation
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
