The League of Conservation Voters is hosting an event with President
Biden.
We will show up, too. It is an outrage that an “environmental”
organization would honor the President days after he approved a
pipeline. We cannot accept this. And we won’t.
10 days ago, President Biden signed into law the Mountain Valley
Pipeline, which could transport 2,000,000,000 cubic-feet-per-day of
fracked gas.
This was not a compromise.
This was a crime.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline would have the climate impact of adding
19,000,000 cars to the road. What the fuck? As it is, people in both the
economic and financial capitals of this nation are chocking on the air.
It. Gets. Worse. The President also greenlit the Willow Project. This
would carry 180,000 barrels of oil per day. We need to cut emissions in
half by 2030. It would only START pumping oil
close to 2030. This is a death sentence for us.
It got zero attention (maybe because the media keeps taking fossil fuel
money) but right after Willow, the President
ALSO approved the Alaska
LNG Project, which, somehow, would cause
MORE climate damage than Willow.
We believe the League of Conservation Voters is well-intended but
honoring a President who has done a mediocre job on climate and
backstabbed us on too many occasions to count is poor strategy. He will
not fear our movement if he knows we will brown-nose no matter how many
fossil fuel projects he approves.
Don’t just like. Don’t just share. We need you to join us
in-person.
We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.
Protesting at an event hosted by another environmental group is
uncomfortable. But dammit we didn’t start this group to go along and get
along. We did so because we need to stand up and fight. And we will do
so even when it is uncomfortable. That is a promise.
Start: Wednesday, June 14, 2023, 4:45 PM
Location: The Anthem, 901 Wharf St SW, Washington,
DC 20024 US
The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources will hold a legislative
hearing
on H.R. 2685 (Rep. Owens), “Mining Schools Act of 2023”; H.R. 3883 (Rep.
Amodei), To nullify Public Land Order No. 7921, withdrawing certain land
in the Railroad Valley of Nye County, Nevada, from mineral entry; and a
Discussion Draft of H.R. ___ (Rep. LaHood), the “Community
Reclamation Partnerships Act”, on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, at 2:15 p.m.
in 1334 Longworth House Office Building.
This
hearing
will consider three bills related to different aspects and needs of the
domestic mining sector.
H.R. 2685 (Rep. Owens), the “Mining Schools Act of 2023”, would create
a grant program for mining schools to support educational programs in
mining and related fields. • H.R. ___ (Rep. LaHood), the
“Community Reclamation Partnerships Act”, would allow non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to help in the remediation of abandoned mine land
sites
H.R. 3883 (Rep. Amodei) would nullify an administrative withdrawal of
nearly 23,000 acres from mineral development in Nye County, Nevada.
Witnesses
Panel I:
Mark Amodei, Representative, Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District
Burgess Owens, Representative, Utah’s 4th Congressional District
Darin LaHood, Representative, Illinois’s 16th Congressional District
Panel II:
Walter G. Copan, Ph.D., Vice President for Research and Technology
Transfer, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO
Christopher Wood, President and Chief Executive Officer, Trout
Unlimited
Kevin Moore, Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, 3 Proton Lithium
(3PL), Carson City, NV
Emily Hammond, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs; Glen Earl Weston
Research Professor, George Washington University School of Law
(Democratic witness)
The Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries will hold a
legislative hearing on: H.R. 1607 (Rep. Schweikert), To clarify
jurisdiction with respect to certain Bureau of Reclamation pumped
storage development, and for other purposes; H.R. 3027 (Rep. Porter),
“Reclamation Climate Change and Water Program Reauthorization Act of
2023”; and H.R. 3675 (Rep. Boebert), To amend the Water Infrastructure
Improvements for the Nation Act to extend certain contract prepayment
authority, on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, at 2:00 p.m.
EDT in 1324 Longworth House Office Building.
On Wednesday, June 14, 2023, at 10:00 AM ET,
U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chairman of the Senate Environment and
Public Works (EPW) Committee, will hold a full committee
hearing
to examine the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and
Inflation Reduction Act by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
The hearing will follow a business meeting to consider the nomination of
Jeffery Martin Baran to serve a third term on the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
Witness:
Shailen Bhatt, Adminstrator, Federal Highway Administration
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer
(R-Ky.) will hold a full committee
hearing
titled “Death by a Thousand Regulations: The Biden Administration’s
Campaign to Bury America in Red Tape.” This hearing will examine the
Biden Administration’s historic level of regulatory overreach and
President Biden’s decision to rescind nearly all the Trump
Administration’s successful regulatory reforms.
Witnesses:
Anthony P. Campau, Principal, Clark Hill Public Strategies
Casey Mulligan, Professor in Economics, University of Chicago
Adam J. White, Co-Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for
the Study of the Administrative State, George Mason University Antonin
Scalia Law School
Sally Katzen, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in
Residence, New York University School of Law (Democratic witness)
On Wednesday, June 14, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn House Office
Building, the Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security will
hold a
hearing
entitled “Oversight of the NRC: Ensuring
Efficient and Predictable Nuclear Safety Regulation for a Prosperous
America.” The hearing will examine the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s
(NRC) role in regulating and licensing commercial power plants, advanced
nuclear technologies, and other uses of nuclear materials.
The NRC operates as an independent safety
regulator and oversees the commercial nuclear industry pursuant to the
Atomic Energy Act, as amended. In keeping with the established policy,
the NRC, per its mission statement, “licenses
and regulates the Nation’s civilian use of radioactive materials to
provide reasonable assurances of adequate protection of public health
and safety, to promote the common defense and security, and to protect
the environment.”
Today, the NRC’s regulatory mission covers
three main areas: Reactors, Materials, and Waste. The
NRC regulates commercial nuclear power plants;
research, test, and training reactors; nuclear fuel cycle facilities;
and nuclear materials used in medicine, academia, and industry. The
Commission is also responsible for regulating the transport, storage,
disposal of nuclear materials and waste, and facility decommissioning,
in addition to the import and export of radioactive materials. The
current United States’ nuclear fleet consists of 93 reactors, at 53
plants, in 28 states. The NRC is responsible
for the regulation, licensing, and safety of the current fleet.
The NRC is headed by a five-member Commission.
The five Commissioners are appointed by the President and confirmed by
the Senate for five-year terms. The President designates one of the
Commissioners to be the Chair and official spokesperson of the
Committee. The NRC is presently operating with
all five Commissioners, including the current Chair, Christopher Hanson.
The NRC’s fiscal year 2024 budget request,
including for the Office of the Inspector General, is $1 billion to
support 2,949 full-time employees. This request is an increase of $63.2
million or approximately 6.7 percent compared to the
FY 2023 enacted budget.6 Of the $979 million
in budget authority, NRC expects to recover
823.2 million in fees assessed to applicants and licensees, resulting in
a net appropriation request of $156 million, an increase $19 million
over 2023 enacted budget.
The NRC major program budget requests are
organized under four activities: $530.8 million for Nuclear Reactor
Safety, including licensing, regulating, and overseeing civilian nuclear
power, research and test reactors, and medical isotope facilities;
$152.9 million for Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety, including spent
fuel storage and transportation, nuclear materials users,
decommissioning and low-level waste, high level waste, and fuel
facilities; $304 million for Corporate support, including IT, policy
support, human resource management, administrative services; and $0
funding requested for University Nuclear Leadership Program, which
includes grants for nuclear engineering education.
Subcommittee
hearing
on the Fiscal Year 2024 budget request for Near Eastern Affairs.
Witnesses:
Barbara A.
Leaf,
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, U.S. Department
of State
Jeanne
Pryor,
Deputy Assistant, Administrator, Middle East Bureau, United States
Agency for International Development
To advance the President’s regional agenda, the FY
2024 President’s Budget Request includes $7.57 billion in foreign
assistance for the Middle East and Near Africa with the goal of
continuing the work to build a more stable, integrated, and prosperous
region.
The FY 2024 President’s Budget Request for the
region includes $5.3 billion in Foreign Military Funding, maintaining
our enduring commitments to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and advancing
U.S. priorities in countries like Iraq, Lebanon, and Tunisia.
We supported Israel, Jordan, and the UAE to
launch Project Prosperity, opening the door to regional cooperation on
clean energy and water security. We are working with Saudi Arabia to
develop the next generation of 5G, 6G, and OpenRAN technology. We are
helping Egypt to build 10 gigawatts of renewable power.
Shortages in wheat supplies caused by Putin’s continued war on Ukraine
worsened already tenuous food security across the region, which also saw
poor domestic harvests due to severe droughts and water shortages.
In Libya, USAID’s work to strengthen the
energy sector dramatically decreased power outages from 158 hours in the
first quarter of 2022 to only 3 hours in the first quarter of 2023,
providing a significant increase in reliable power for Libyans and their
economy.
In Egypt, the world’s largest grain importer,
USAID helped agricultural collection centers
improve their storage capacity to decrease grain losses due to spoiling.
USAID accomplished this through the
introduction of 30 low or no cost solutions for irrigation, cooling,
drying, and harvesting that cut post-harvest losses by a third.
USAID programs also helped farmers get more
from their seeds, reducing planting costs by 60 percent.
In Lebanon, U.S. assistance helped sustain local vegetable, legume, and
dairy production by providing everything from seeds and compost to
technical assistance and training. In Yemen,
USAID scaled up our agriculture work to train
an additional 1,200 farmers on modern approaches like greenhouses,
tunnel farming, drip irrigation, and solar-water pumping.
COP 27, the United Nations Conference of
Parties on Climate Change, hosted last year by Egypt, was particularly
timely given record-breaking heat waves across the region in 2022.
According to experts, the Middle East is currently warming at nearly
double the rate of the rest of the world. In the future, if average
global temperatures rise by two degrees, rainfall is projected to
decline by 20-40 percent. As 70 percent of agriculture is rain-fed, this
could significantly reduce food security and trigger climate-induced
migration and greater political instability in the region. Approximately
52 million people in the MENA region are
chronically undernourished and increasing droughts will push more people
in that direction.
The Fiscal Year 2023 Request significantly increased funding for climate
change adaptation, and does so again in the Fiscal Year 2024 Request to
continue this vital work. Sustainable domestic agriculture production in
the world’s most water-scarce region requires consideration of climate
change impacts in all our work. For example, in Jordan, groundwater is
depleted twice as fast as it can be replenished, and leaks, theft, or
broken meters lead to water and revenue losses.
USAID is working with the Government of
Jordan’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation to strengthen infrastructure
and oversight and incentivize water conservation.
With Fiscal Year 2024 resources, USAID will
continue valuable partnerships, such as our work with the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology to develop energy and water saving irrigation
systems. This partnership yielded low-drip technology that cuts energy
requirements in half and costs 40 percent less than existing systems,
which the irrigation company Toro is now commercializing.
House Foreign Affairs Committee
Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia Subcommittee
