Hill Heat

Subcommittee hearing on the Department of Energy national laboratories.

Witnesses:

• Dr. John Wagner, Director, Idaho National Laboratory
• Dr. Thom Mason, Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Dr. Paul Kearns, Director, Argonne National Laboratory
• Dr. Kimberly Budil, Director, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren has sent letters to the heads of the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation requesting answers about the administration’s unconstitutional assault on federal science.

02/12/2025 at 10:00AM

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.

05/11/2022 at 02:15PM

Hearing page

Witness:

• Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy

05/04/2022 at 10:00AM

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm joins American clean energy industry leaders for a roundtable discussion. Watch live on Twitter or Facebook.

03/16/2022 at 10:00AM

Rescheduled from February 3rd. The purpose of the hearing is to consider the nominations of:

• Maria Duaime Robinson, to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Office of Electricity)
• Dr. Joseph F. DeCarolis, to be Administrator of the Energy Information Administration
• Laura Daniel-Davis, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior (Land and Minerals Management)

02/08/2022 at 10:00AM

The hearing will be conducted via teleconference.

Text of the Science Committee Print and the Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute by Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson.

The proposed $45.4 billion Science Committee ANS includes:

Department of Energy ($20.6 billion)

• $5 billion for regional innovation initiatives
• $10.4 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science laboratories, including $1.3 billion for the ITER fusion project
• $349 million for the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for NREL projects including the new EMAPS program and ARIES grid simulation
• $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
• $1 billion for hurricane hunter aircraft and radar systems
• $12 million for drone missions
• $743 million for deferred maintenance
• $173 million for space weather

National Science Foundation ($10.95 billion)

• $3.4 billion for infrastructure, including Antarctic bases – $300 million for minority-serving institutions
• $7.5 billion for research grants, including at least $400 million for climate change research and $700 million for minority-serving institutions
• $50 million for Office of the Inspector General

Introduced amendments:

• Amendment #R7 offered by Mr. Weber (R-TX)
• Amendment #009 offered by Ranking Member Lucas (R-OK)
• Amendment #R10 offered by Ranking Member Lucas (R-OK)
• Amendment #085 offered by Mr. Posey (R-FL)
• Amendment #022 offered by Mr. Feenstra (R-IA)
• Amendment #R13 offered by Ms. Bice (R-OK)
• Amendment #029 offered by Mr. Babin (R-TX)
• Amendment #030 offered by Mr. Babin (R-TX)
• Amendment #024 offered by Mr. Feenstra (R-IA)
• Amendment #001 offered by Mr. Ellzey (R-TX)
• Amendment #084 offered by Mr. Posey (R-FL)
• Amendment #054 offered by Mr. Sherman (D-CA)
• Amendment #R6 offered by Mr. Ellzey (R-TX)
• Amendment #R11 offered by Mr. Meijer (R-MI)
• Amendment #010 offered by Mr. Baird (R-IN)
• Amendment #031 offered by Mr. Babin (R-TX)
• Amendment #018 offered by Ms. Bice (R-OK)
• Amendment #019 offered by Ms. Bice (R-OK)
• Amendment #010 offered by Ranking Member Lucas (R-OK)
• Amendment #R8 offered by Ms. Bice (R-OK)
• Amendment #010 offered by Ms. Kim (R-CA)
• Amendment #063 offered by Mr. Waltz (R-FL)
• Amendment #064 offered by Mr. Waltz (R-FL)
• Amendment #R4 offered by Mr. Baird (R-IN)
• Amendment #R9 offered by Mr. Feenstra (R-IA)
• Amendment #008 offered by Ranking Member Lucas (R-OK)
• Amendment offered by Mr. Babin (R-TX)
• Amendment #020 offered by Ms. Bice (R-OK)
• Amendment #023 offered by Mr. Feenstra (R-IA)
• Amendment #021 offered by Mr. Garcia (R-CA)
• Amendment #033 offered by Mr. Gonzalez (R-OH)
• Amendment #R2 offered by Mr. Obernolte (R-CA)
• Amendment #R1 offered by Mr. Waltz (R-FL)
• Amendment #R3 offered by Mr. Weber (R-TX)

09/09/2021 at 10:00AM

The purpose of the hearing is to consider the nominations of:

• Dr. Geraldine Richmond to be Under Secretary for Science, Department of Energy
• Cynthia Weiner Stachelberg to be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior (Policy, Management, and Budget)
• Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe to be Director of the Office of Science, Department of Energy

Dr. Geri Richmond is a renowned water chemist who has written:

Environmental concerns about adequate clean water resources have increasingly become more global with the recognition that unwanted chemicals in the atmosphere, in our soils and in our surface waters often transport well beyond the national boundaries of origin. As a result, there is a growing international urgency to understand environmental issues that can cross boundaries with climate change, healthy air quality and clean water resources being the most obvious. The focus of the studies in the Richmond Laboratory is to provide fundamental insights into molecular processes that underlie some of the aforementioned global concerns, with a particular focus on understanding environmentally important processes that occur at water surfaces and aqueous-oil boundary layers.

Winnie Stachelberg is a long-time executive at the Center for American Progress. Previously she was the political director for the Human Rights Campaign.

Dr. Asmeret Berhe is a soil biogeochemist who studies climate change. She was born and did undergraduate education in Eritrea before receiving a master’s degree in political ecology from Michigan State and her PhD from UC Berkeley. She is a professor and assistant dean at UC Merced.

The main goal of her research is to understand the effect of changing environmental conditions on vital soil processes, most importantly the cycling and fate of essential elements in the critical zone. She studies soil processes in systems experiencing natural and/or anthropogenic perturbation in order to understand fundamental principles governed by geomorphology, and contemporary modifications introduced by changes in land use and climate.

08/03/2021 at 10:00AM

Witness:

• Jennifer Granholm, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy

05/06/2021 at 01:00PM

The Department of Energy has announced numerous senior hires, the vast majority of whom are climate hawks. As with the transition team, the picks range from lifelong environmental justice activists to corporate technologists. Most but not all have previous administration experience.

Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm is the nomineee to be Secretary of Energy. David G. Huizenga will serve as Acting Secretary of Energy, and Richard Glick is becoming chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Energy

• Shalanda H. Baker, Deputy Director for Energy Justice. Shalanda H. Baker was mostly recently a professor of law, public policy, and urban affairs at Northeastern University. She was the co-founder and co-director of the Initiative for Energy Justice, which provides technical law and policy support to communities on the front lines of climate change. Baker served as an Air Force officer prior to her honorable discharge pursuant to the then existing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and became a vocal advocate for repeal of the policy. She earned a B.S. in Political Science from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a J.D. from Northeastern University, and L.L.M. from the University of Wisconsin.

• Robert Cowin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Engagement. Robert Cowin was most recently director of government affairs for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Prior to that, Cowin worked for the National Environmental Trust, where he helped organize national campaigns focused on climate change, clean energy, and clean air. He holds a master’s degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a B.A. from Boston College.

• Tanya Das, Chief of Staff, Office of Science. Tanya Das was most recently a Professional Staff Member on the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, where she worked on legislation on a range of issues in clean energy and manufacturing policy. She was an AAAS Congressional fellow in the Office of Senator Chris Coons. She earned her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

• Christopher Davis, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy. Christopher Davis served all eight years of the Obama Administration — first in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and then in several senior roles at the Department of Energy. Prior to that, he worked for the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. More recently, Davis worked with Co-Equal, a non-profit organization providing expertise and knowledge to Congress on oversight and legislation.

• Ali Douraghy, Chief of Staff, Office of the Under Secretary for Science & Energy. Ali Douraghy was most recently Chief Strategy Officer for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area. He led the New Voices program at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which brings diverse leader perspectives into science policy. He received his Ph.D. in biomedical physics from the UCLA School of Medicine.

• Todd Kim, Deputy General Counsel for Litigation and Enforcement. Todd Kim most recently was a partner at Reed Smith LLP, and before that was the first Solicitor General for the District of Columbia, serving in that capacity more than 11 years. Kim was an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, and a clerk on the D.C. Circuit. Kim graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor of the Harvard Law Review, and received his undergraduate degree magna cum laude in biology from Harvard College.

• Jennifer Jean Kropke, Director of Energy Jobs. Jennifer Jean Kropke served as the first Director of Workforce and Environmental Engagement for IBEW Local Union 11 and the National Electrical Contractors’ Association-Los Angeles’ Labor Management Cooperation Committee. She focused on creating clean energy, port electrification, and zero emission transportation opportunities for union members. She is a graduate of the UCLA School of Law.

• Andrew Light, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. Andrew Light has worked on international climate and energy policy in and outside of government for the last 15 years. From 2013 to 2016, he served as Senior Adviser and India Counselor to the U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change, as well as a climate adviser in the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning. Light was an international climate and energy policy volunteer for the Biden campaign and was one of the chief architects of Governor Jay Inslee’s plan for global climate mobilization. He is an environmental philosopher and is married to Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin. He completed his undergraduate work at Mercer University and doctoral work at the University of California, Riverside with a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in environmental risk assessment at the University of Alberta.

• David A. Mayorga, Director of Public Affairs. David A. Mayorga most recently served as Director of Communications for the Attorney General for the District of Columbia Karl A. Racine. Previously he was Senior Spokesperson for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and led communications for DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, with the SunShot Initiative. He earned a B.A. from the University of Florida and began his professional career at the U.S. House Committee on Science.

• Shara Mohtadi, Chief of Staff, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. Shara Mohtadi has focused her career advising policymakers and international organizations on mitigating climate change and advancing clean energy policies. She most recently led the America’s Pledge initiative and managed grants focused on the coal to clean energy transition in Asia and Australia at Bloomberg Philanthropies. Previously, Shara served as a senior advisor on climate and energy policy for New York State government. During the Obama Administration, Mohtadi served as an advisor for the energy and environment portfolio at the White House, in the Office of Management and Budget. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University.

• Tarak Shah, Chief of Staff. Tarak Shah is an energy policy expert who has spent the last decade working on combating climate change. At the Biden-Harris Transition, Shah was the Personnel lead for the Climate and Science team. From 2014-2017, he served as Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Science and Energy at DOE. Shah has also worked on political campaigns, including President Obama’s Senate and presidential campaigns. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and his M.B.A from Cornell University.

• Kelly Speakes-Backman, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. Kelly Speakes-Backman most recently served as the first CEO of the Energy Storage Association, the national trade organization for the energy storage industry. Speakes-Backman has spent more than 20 years working in energy and environmental issues in the public, NGO and private sectors. In 2019, she was honored by The Cleanie Awards as Woman of the Year.

• Narayan Subramanian, Legal Advisor, Office of General Counsel. Narayan Subramanian was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment at Berkeley Law leading a project tracking regulatory rollbacks, and served as a Fellow at the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy at Johns Hopkins University and Data for Progress. He was lead coordinator of the Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign’s climate and energy policy advisory group. Subramanian holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, an M.P.A. from the School of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University, and a B.S. in Earth & Environmental Engineering from Columbia University.

• Shuchi Talati, Chief of Staff, Office of Fossil Energy. Dr. Shuchi Talati was most recently a Senior Policy Advisor at Carbon180 where she focused on policies to build sustainable and equitable technological carbon removal at scale. She also served as a policy volunteer on the Biden-Harris campaign. She was a UCS Fellow on solar geoengineering research governance and public engagement with the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Talati earned a B.S. from Northwestern University, an M.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. Her doctoral research focused on the climate-energy-water nexus looking specifically at the impacts of domestic climate regulations and carbon capture and storage technology.

• Jennifer Wilcox, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy. Jennifer Wilcox is a direct carbon air capture expert. She was most recently the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute. Wilcox’s work examines the nexus of energy and the environment, developing strategies to minimize negative climate impacts associated with society’s dependence on fossil fuels. Wilcox holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and M.A. in Chemistry from the University of Arizona and B.A. in Mathematics from Wellesley College.

• Avi Zevin, Deputy General Counsel for Energy Policy. Avi Zevin is an attorney with experience advancing policies that enable the provision of carbon-free, reliable, and cost-effective electricity. Until joining the administration, he was energy policy counsel for Google. He was a senior attorney and Affiliated Scholar at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law and an attorney at Van Ness Feldman LLP. He was a policy advisor for the corporate-funded Third Way think tank from 2008 to 2009. Zevin holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from New York University School of Law, an M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a B.A., with high honors, from the University of California, Berkeley.

Additional hires without significant reputation as climate policy experts or advocates include:

• Vanessa Z. Chan, Director, Office of Technology Transitions (Chief Commercialization Officer). Vanessa Z. Chan comes to the Biden-Harris Administration from the University of Pennsylvania where she was the Brassington Professor of Practice and the Undergraduate Chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department. She has spent the past 20 years helping large companies commercialize their technologies and revamping the academic curriculum of engineering students to make a greater social impact. Dr. Chan is a former longtime McKinsey & Company partner. She is a Venture Board Director for Vanguard and United Technology Corporation and a board member at multiple start-ups. Dr. Chan was the first woman and the first East Asian elected partner in McKinsey’s North American Chemicals practice. She is married to Mark van der Helm, the head of Energy, Waste and Facilities Maintenance at Walmart. Chan earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

• Caroline Grey, White House Liaison. Caroline Grey worked for Biden for President as Expansion States Director, managing distributed engagement in 33 states. Previously, she worked on the presidential campaign of Senator Elizabeth Warren. Grey started her career as an organizer for then-Senator Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and worked on the 2012 Obama re-election campaign. She co-founded Civis Analytics, a data science firm.

• Ali Nouri, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs. Ali Nouri is a molecular biologist and most recently was the President of the Federation of American Scientists, which addresses global health and security risks. In the past year, he has been working aggressively to fight COVID-19 misinformation. Prior to that, he served as a U.S. Senate staffer for a decade for Sens. Jim Webb and Al Franken and served as an advisor in the office of then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Nouri obtained a B.A. in biology from Reed College and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University.

A key architect of the climate-denial machine oversees the nation’s energy and climate science research at the U.S. Department of Energy. Jeffrey T. Salmon is the Deputy Director for Resource Management of the Office of Science, overseeing its decisions on its grants and budget. In 1998, Salmon was part of the “Global Climate Science Team” of industry operatives who devised a strategy of attacking the validity of climate science in order to disrupt the Kyoto Protocol.

At the time, Salmon was the executive director of the ExxonMobil-funded George C. Marshall Institute.

Under his direction, the Marshall Institute was a major purveyor of climate denial, rejecting the scientific consensus and arguing against any limits on carbon dioxide pollution. Salmon instituted the practice of accepting corporate contributions at Marshall, starting with Exxon. In a 1996 appearance on CNN, Salmon said, “If you want to reduce carbon emissions for some reason, let’s hear that reason; let’s not hear that it’s global warming, which there’s no indication that human action is contributing to.” In 1993, Salmon wrote that there is “no solid scientific evidence to support the theory that the earth is warming because of man-made greenhouse gases.” In 1992, a Salmon op-ed in USA Today claimed, “New findings suggest that the greenhouse problem is a non-problem.”

A George W. Bush appointee to the Department of Energy, Salmon moved over into his current position in July 2008. As a civil-service job, Salmon’s position is protected from removal by the current administration, an example of the practice known as “burrowing.” Salmon served in the Department of Energy for the entire Bush administration, starting in March 2001, as Senior Policy Advisor to Secretary Spencer Abraham. In 2002, he joined the Office of Science as the Chief of Staff to the Director of the Office of Science Ray Orbach. In 2006, when the Energy Policy Act of 2005 created the office of the Under Secretary for Science, he became the Associate Under Secretary below Orbach.

Under Obama’s first Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, much of the Department of Energy’s science research funding was directed through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), funded by the 2009 stimulus bill.

Salmon, who has a doctorate in politics, was a speechwriter for both Dick Cheney when he was secretary of defense.