Hill Heat

On Thursday, May 12, 2022, at 10:00 A.M. EDT, in room 1324 Longworth Hearing Room and online via Cisco Webex, the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources will hold a hybrid legislative hearing titled, “Reforming the Mining Law of 1872” and will consider the following legislation:

• H.R. 7580 (Grijalva): The Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act

The purpose of this hearing is to hear from members of the Surface Transportation Board on their ideas to improve the efficiency and authority of the Board to better resolve freight rail conflicts.

Hearing page

FTX US is requesting the ability to use a new kind of ‘non-intermediated’ model of crypto derivatives trading, meaning there is no intermediary used to hold customer’s funds. FTX intends to offer its products to retail participants, and its financial and operational requirements for participants only require that the participant be able to post the margin required for a given position.

The proposal was a topic of discussion at the March 31st CFTC hearing.

Witnesses

• Terrence A. Duffy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Chicago, IL
• Sam Bankman-Fried, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, FTX US Derivatives, Chicago, IL
• Walt Lukken, President and Chief Executive Officer, Futures Industry Association, Washington, D.C.
• Christopher Edmonds, Chief Development Officer, Intercontinental Exchange, Atlanta, GA
• Christopher Perkins, President, CoinFund, New York, NY

Hearing page

Chair Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.)

Rep. Hoyer will discuss the AMAZON21 Act (H.R 5830), which would authorize a trust fund of $9 billion for the State Department to enter long-term bilateral agreements with developing countries to assist them in ending deforestation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Witnesses:

Panel I:

• Steny Hoyer, Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
• Rep. Bruce Westerman, Ranking Member, House Committee on Natural Resources

Panel II:

• M. Sanjayan, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, Conservation International
• Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President, Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT)
• Romina Bandura, Senior Fellow, Project on Prosperity and Development, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Hearing page

Chair Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.)

Witness

• Gina M. Raimondo, Secretary, United States Department of Commerce

The budget requests $11.7 billion in discretionary funding to support key Commerce Department priorities, including $372 million for the National Institutes of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) manufacturing programs, more than $150 million in new funding to the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to create jobs and drive growth in economically distressed communities, $110 million to increase services for minority-owned enterprises at the Minority Business Development Agency, and nearly $7 billion in funding for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA to catalyze wind energy, restore habitats, protect the oceans and coasts, and improve NOAA’s ability to predict extreme weather associated with climate change).

Hearing page

Chair Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)

Witness

• Marcia L. Fudge, Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development

The 2023 President’s Budget requests $71.9 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), approximately $11.6 billion more than the 2022 annualized continuing resolution (CR) level, to support underserved communities and equitable community development, increase access to and production of affordable housing, promote homeownership and wealth-building, advance sustainable communities, climate resilience, and environmental justice, and strengthen HUD’s internal capacity.

The budget includes:

• $1.1 billion in targeted climate resilience and energy efficiency improvements in public housing, tribal housing, and other assisted housing;
• $400 million to remove dangerous health hazards from homes, including mitigating threats from fire, lead, carbon monoxide, and radon
• The President’s 2023 Budget supports authorizing the Community Development Block Grant—Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program. For more than twenty years, the Congress has appropriated emergency supplemental funds to HUD in response to major disasters to address the unmet long term disaster recovery needs of States, territories, local governments, and Tribes. Authorization would improve the transparency and predictability of CDBG-DR funds for impacted communities.

Hearing page

Witness

• Samantha Power, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development

The President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Budget Request for the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is $60.4 billion, which includes $29.4 billion for USAID fully and partially managed accounts, $1.7 billion (6 percent) above the FY 2022 Request.

• Increases USAID and State Programming to address the Climate Crisis to $2.3 billion. This includes over $1.6 billion in direct USAID and Department of State programming for climate mitigation and adaptation and over $650 million in programming across development sectors—including water, health and health security, and agriculture—that provides significant climate co-benefits. This level will more than double USAID implemented programs and dramatically expand the scale and geographic reach of USAID’s programs to increase climate action through investments in renewable energy and the conservation, restoration and management of land that captures and stores carbon.

Hearing page

Chair Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)

Witnesses

• Dr. Marvin Adams, Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
• Admiral James “Frank” Caldwell, Deputy Administrator for Naval Reactors, National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
• Corey Hinderstein, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
• Jill Hruby, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
• William “Ike” White, Senior Advisor, Office of Environmental Management, U.S. Department of Energy

The FY2023 DOE budget request includes $21.4 billion for the Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration to pursue five major national security endeavors: maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear weapons stockpile; reduce global nuclear threats and keep materials out of the hands of terrorists; strengthen key science, technology and engineering capabilities in support of certification, assessment, and current and weapon modernization programs; provide safe and effective integrated nuclear propulsion systems for the U.S. Navy; and modernize the Nuclear Security infrastructure. The request also includes $7.6 billion for the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management to continue cleanup of sites resulting from six decades of nuclear weapons development and production and Government-sponsored nuclear energy research. This sustains our investment in the EM mission to clean up World War II and Cold War nuclear sites.

Hearing page

Chair Matt Cartwright (D-Penn.)

Witness

• Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director, National Science Foundation

The President’s budget includes $10.5 billion for the U.S. National Science Foundation

• $1.5 billion will fund a broad portfolio of research related to climate science and clean energy
• $393 million will fund programs that aim to broaden the participation in science and engineering of groups that are underserved and underrepresented
• $880 million will go toward expanding the newly established Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships within NSF to help translate research into practical applications
• $187 million will fund the construction of major NSF research facilities, including long-term upgrades of NSF’s major Antarctic infrastructure

On Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 2:00 p.m. (ET), in room 1324 Longworth House Office Building and via Cisco WebEx the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands will hold a hybrid legislative hearing on the following bills:

• H.R. 279 (Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-AZ) To provide lasting protection for inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System. Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2021.
• H.R. 7329 (Rep. Jared Huffman, D-CA) To amend the Smith River National Recreation Area Act to include certain additions to the Smith River National Recreation Area, to amend the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to designate certain wild rivers in the State of Oregon, and for other purposes. Smith River National Recreation Area Expansion Act.
• H.R. 7399(Rep. James Comer, R-KY) To amend the Land Between the Lakes Protection Act of 1998 to clarify the administration of the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, and for other purposes. LBL Recreation and Heritage Act.
• H.R. XXXX (Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-OR) To provide for conservation and recreation enhancement for Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, and for other purposes. Mt. Hood and Columbia River Gorge Recreation Enhancement and Conservation (REC) Act of 2022.