The Committee on Education and Labor will
meet
to consider its portion of the Build Back Better Act, which invests
$761
billion
to lower costs for families, secure good-paying jobs for American
workers, and set a strong foundation of America’s children.
Their bill invests:
roughly $450 billion in lowering the cost of child care and securing
universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds
$111 billion to lower the cost of higher education
$82 billion in America’s public school infrastructure, for safe,
healthy, energy efficient, and environmentally resilient public school
facilities
nearly $80 billion in workforce development programs
$408 million for the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy
$20 million for the Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and
Carbon Management
$1.08 billion in general funds for Department of Energy National
Laboratories, including
$377 million for Office of Science
$210 million for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
$40 million for Office of Nuclear Energy
$190 million for Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
$102 million for the Office of Environmental Management
$2 billion for fusion research and development
$1.1 billion for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
demonstration projects, including wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower,
vehicles, bioenergy, and building technologies
$70 million for a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute
$52.5 million for university nuclear reactor research
$10 million for demonstration projects on reducing the environmental
impacts of fracking
wastewater
$20 million for the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity
$50 million for the Office of the Inspector General
Environmental Protection Agency
$264 million to conduct environmental research and development
activities related to climate change, including environmental justice
FEMA
$798 million for Assistance to Firefighters Grants
NASA ($4.4 billion)
$4 billion for infrastructure and maintenance
$388 million for climate change research and development
NIST ($4.2 billion)
$1.2 billion for scientific and technical research, including
resilience to natural hazards including wildfires, and greenhouse gas
and other climate-related measurement
$2 billion for American manufacturing support
$1 billion for infrastructure and maintenance
NOAA ($4.2 billion)
$1.2 billion for weather, ocean, and climate research and forecasting
$265 million to develop and distribute actionable climate information
for communities in an equitable manner
$500 million to recruit, educate, and train a “climate-ready”
workforce
$70 million for high-performance computing
$224 million for phased-array radar research and development
The Committee on Small Business will hold a hybrid
markup
at 10:00 A.M. (EDT) on Thursday, September 9, 2021, in Room 2360 of the
Rayburn House Office Building and on Zoom. Members who wish to
participate remotely may do so via Zoom, information to be provided
separately. The Committee will consider Committee Print (providing for
reconciliation pursuant to S. Con. Res. 14, the Concurrent Resolution on
the Budget for Fiscal Year 2022).
Includes provision for $2.1 billion in federal debentures to back
small-business loans to acquire renewable energy equipment such as solar
panels, wind turbines, or battery storage.
On Thursday, September 9, 2021, at 10:00 a.m.
EDT via Webex, and livestreamed on the
Committee’s YouTube pages, the Committee on Natural Resources will
meet
to consider the following postponed recorded votes that were requested
at the Committee’s most recent business
meeting,
and to continue its consideration on legislative
proposals
to comply with the reconciliation directive included in section 2002 of
the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2022, S. Con.
Res.14.
The votes will be on the [following Republican
amendments](https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II00/20210909/114022/HMKP-117-II00-20210909-SD002-U1.pdf):
On Thursday, September 2, 2021, at 10:00 a.m.
EDT via Cisco Webex and livestreamed on the
Committee’s YouTube page, the Committee on Natural Resources will meet
to
consider
legislative proposals to comply with the reconciliation directive
included in section 2002 of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for
Fiscal Year 2022, S. Con. Res.14.
This
hearing
will consider the nomination of Dr. Homer L. Wilkes to be Under
Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment.
Dr. Wilkes was the state conservationist for Mississippi from 1994 to
2010. Since 2010, he has served at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
From 2013 to present, he has been the Director of the Gulf of Mexico
Ecosystem Restoration Division at USDA, part
of the federal government’s long-term response to 2010 BP Deepwater
Horizon disaster.
Dr. Homer L. Wilkes, USDA
Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
On Wednesday, August 4, at 10:00 AM ET, the
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a
hearing
on three of President Biden’s nominees to key positions at the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Amanda Howe to be Assistant Administrator for Mission Support of the
Environmental Protection Agency
David Uhlmann to be Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance of the Environmental Protection Agency
Carlton
Waterhouse to
be Assistant Administrator of Land and Emergency Management of the
Environmental Protection Agency
Uhlmann, nominated to be the chief enforcement officer at
EPA, served for 17 years as a federal
prosecutor, including seven years as chief of the Environmental Crimes
Section at the U.S. Department of Justice.
At the end of the 2020 election season, Uhlmann
wrote
of the urgency to enact sweeping climate legislation:
The United States may soon have the chance, for the first time in more
than a decade, to enact urgently needed legislation to address global
climate change—but only if Democrats don’t repeat the mistakes they
made at the start of the Obama administration.
The top corporate-polluter law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth
warned
that Uhlmann’s nomination “is a very strong signal of how serious” the
Biden administration’s intention to “increase environmental enforcement”
is, and that “companies should prioritize review of environmental
compliance and performance and remain vigilant.”
Waterhouse, a Howard
University law
school graduate and professor, is an “an international expert on
environmental law and environmental justice, as well as reparations and
redress for historic injustices.” He served as an
EPA lawyer from 1991 to 2000. If confirmed, he
will oversee the Superfund and related programs.