Full committee hearing.
Witness:
- Brooke L. Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture, USDA
06/10/2026 at 10:00AM
Climate science, policy, politics, and action
Full committee hearing.
Witness:
This hearing will examine the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program and its effectiveness in addressing unmet local recovery needs.
Witnesses:
The CDBG-DR program is the supplemental disaster recovery assistance grant program administered by HUD through its traditional Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) framework. Unlike the traditional program, the DR sub-program of CDBG is not permanently authorized and lacks statutory codification. Thus, funding for CDBG-DR only takes place when Congress enacts a specific appropriation for that purpose. The first use of CDBG-DR funding took place in FY1993 when Congress voted to appropriate $85 million to assist the victims recovering from Hurricanes Andrew, Iniki, and Typhoon Omar. Since then, Congress has voted more than 30 times to appropriate more than $111 billion in CDBG-DR funds, including roughly $65 billion since FY2016.2 Congress has intended this funding to be used by the communities that receive it to address long-term disaster needs that remain unmet after other sources of assistance such as grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or loans made available by the Small Business Administration. CDBG-DR funding recipients are typically areas subject to federal disaster declarations under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and can include states, localities, U.S. territories, and federally recognized tribes.
The purpose of this hearing, is to examine the Department of Energy’s (DOE) fiscal year 2027 (FY27) budget request to Congress and examine the changing priorities this proposed budget would have on civilian research, DOE infrastructure, and the various other programs at the Department.
Witness:
The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has jurisdiction over DOE’s civilian research, development, demonstration, and commercial application programs. In total, the Committee oversees $12.53 billion of the Department’s annual budget. DOE activities and programs under the Committee’s jurisdiction include, but are not limited to: DOE’s National Laboratory system; basic science research; grid modernization and cybersecurity activities; fossil, nuclear, geothermal, and other advanced energy technologies; waste and environmental management research; international research projects; critical minerals research; pipeline research, development, and demonstration projects; and relevant oversight activities.
Of the $53.91 billion requested for DOE, $7.14 billion is proposed for Science, $8.18 billion for Environmental Management, $1.55 billion for Nuclear Energy, and $32.80 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The President’s FY27 budget request for programs under the Under Secretary for Science totals $8.38 billion, an increase of $116 million from the $8.26 billion appropriated in FY26. Offices that fall under the Under Secretary for Science include the previously established Office of Science and Office of Technology Commercialization, formerly known as the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT). Three new offices were also established, including the Office of Fusion (OF), the Office of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum (AIQ), and the Office of Strategy and Technology Roadmaps (OSTR).
The President’s FY27 budget request for the Office of Science is $7.14 billion, a $1.11 billion decrease from the $8.25 billion appropriated in FY26. The request prioritizes Administration and Department activities focused on advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum information sciences (QIS), fusion energy, high-performance computing, and high-energy physics. The FY27 House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides $8.53 billion, a $275 million increase from FY26 and $1.39 billion more than the President’s budget request. In the President’s budget request, $1.2 billion for SC was reallocated to the Office of AIQ. The House Energy and Water bill left the Office of AIQ unfunded.
Of the 17 National Labs, 10 fall solely within the Office of Science: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Ames National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program maintains advanced computational infrastructure, accelerates U.S. computational and networking capabilities, and partners with programs within DOE to expedite innovation. The President’s FY27 budget request for ASCR is $1.10 billion. This is approximately an $11.88 million decrease from the FY26 appropriated level of $1.12 billion. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides $1.18 billion, an increase of $59 million from FY26 and $71 million more than the President’s budget request.
The Basic Energy Sciences program supports basic scientific research to lay the foundation for new energy technologies and advance DOE’s mission in energy, environment, and national security. BES research emphasizes the discovery, design, and understanding of new materials, chemicals, biochemicals, and geological processes. The President’s FY27 budget request for BES is $2.15 billion. This is a decrease of approximately $530 million from the FY26 appropriated level of $2.68 billion. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides BES with $2.78 billion, an increase of approximately $101 million from FY26 and $633 million more than the President’s budget request.
The Biological and Environmental Research program seeks to understand biological, earth, and environmental systems to advance the nation’s energy and infrastructure security.25 The program supported the Human Genome Project; pioneering initial research on atmospheric and ocean circulation; and biology underpinning the production of biofuels. The President’s FY27 budget request for BER is $395.97 million. This is a decrease of $458.03 million, compared to the FY26 appropriated level of $854 million. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides BER with $800 million, a decrease of $54 million from FY26 and $404 million more than the President’s budget request.
The Fusion Energy Science mission is to drive scientific and technological innovation for the creation of a fusion energy source and to support the development of the fusion industry. The President’s FY27 budget request for FES is $755.25 million. This represents a decrease of $50.41 million, compared to the FY26 appropriated level of $805.66 million. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides FES with $800 million, a decrease of $5.66 million from FY26 and $45 million more than the President’s budget request. The President’s budget requested $10 million for an Office of Fusion; however, the Energy and Water bill did not fund it and instead increased the FES budget.
High Energy Physics (HEP) seeks to understand the fundamental nature of matter, energy, space, and time at both the smallest and larges scales in the universe. The President’s FY27 budget request for HEP is $1.12 billion. This is a decrease of $114.77 million from the FY26 appropriated level of $1.24 billion. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides HEP with $1.26 billion, an increase of $25 million from FY26 and $140 million more than the President’s budget request.
The Nuclear Physics (NP) program studies all forms of nuclear matter to solve the mystery of the basic constituents of matter and how they interact to form the elements and properties we observe.43 The President’s FY27 budget request for NP is $791.43 million. This is a decrease of $74.71 million, compared to the FY26 appropriated level of $866.14 million. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides NP with $870 million, an increase of $4 million from FY26 and $79 million more than the President’s budget request.
DOE Isotope R&D and Production (DOE IP) has the sole federal government authority to produce isotopes for sale and distribution, often serving as either the sole source or one of the few sources of these isotopes worldwide. The President’s FY27 budget request for IRP is $168.57 million. This is a decrease of $1.43 million from the FY26 appropriated level of $170 million. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill maintain DOE IP funding at the FY26 level of $170 million.
The mission of the Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) is to expand the commercial and national security impact of the DOE research investments. The President’s FY27 budget request for OTC is $26.56 million. This is an increase of $13.56 million, compared to the FY26 appropriated level of $13 million.
The Office of Strategy and Technology Roadmaps (OSTR) was established during the November 2025 DOE reorganization to coordinate all Department of Energy activities related to critical and emerging technologies and provide strategic guidance for DOE’s R&D through technology road mapping. The President’s FY27 budget request is $3 million.
The President’s FY27 budget request would provide roughly $5.10 billion for the Under Secretary of Energy’s portfolio in the Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s jurisdiction.
The Office of Electricity (OE)’s mission is to strengthen, optimize, and grow the electricity system to ensure the grid delivers affordable, reliable, and secure energy. The President’s FY27 budget request for OE is $203.48 million, a $56.27 million decrease from the $259.75 million appropriated in FY26. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill maintains OE current funding level at $235 million.
The Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)’s mission is to advance nuclear energy science and technology to meet U.S. energy, environmental, and economic needs. Under the President’s Budget Request, NE will be the largest component of the Under Secretary of Energy’s portfolio. The President’s FY27 budget request for NE is $1.53 billion, a $251 million decrease from the $1.79 billion appropriated in FY26. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provide NE with $1.80 billion $266 million more than the President’s budget request.
The Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office (HGEO)’s mission is to unleash the full potential of America’s hydrocarbon and geothermal resources to provide affordable, reliable, and secure energy using scientific and economically driven decisions. Formerly known as the Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Office (FECM), this office gained the geothermal office, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), while giving up most of the critical mineral R&D that FECM had previously conducted. The President’s budget request for FY27 is $676.04 million, a $110.96 million decrease from the $787 million appropriated in FY26. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provide $700 million in funding for HGEO, $24 million more than the President’s budget request.
The Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) leads the Department’s efforts to strengthen the security and resilience of the U.S. energy infrastructure against all threats and hazards. It also serves as the DOE lead for the Sector Risk Management Agency for the energy sector. The President’s FY27 budget request for CESER is $160.17 million, a $29.82 million decrease from the $190 million appropriated in FY26. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill maintain CESER’s current funding level at $190 million.
The Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) manages the Title 17 Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program, which provides access to debt capital for high-impact, large-scale infrastructure projects and commercial-scale deployments in the U.S. The President’s FY27 request proposes $59.27 million, an increase of $24.27 million from the FY26 appropriated level of $35 million. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill maintains the current funding level for EDF at $35 million.
Advanced Research Projects – Energy (ARPA-E) was established in 2009 by the America COMPETES Act and is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). With this model, ARPA-E is tasked to target high-risk, high-reward energy technologies that are too early for private sector investment. These projects focus on transformational energy initiatives that can be significantly advanced with a modest amount of funding. The President’s FY27 request for ARPA-E is $200.29 million, a decrease of $149.71 million from the FY26 appropriated level of $350 million. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides $300 million, $50 million less than the FY26 appropriated level but $100 million more than the President’s budget request.
The Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI)’s mission is to advance the U.S. critical minerals supply chain and accelerate nextgeneration energy technologies to strengthen national security and power the future. Established in November 2025, it includes all program activity from EERE, MESC, OCED, SCEP, FEMP, as well as the Mineral Production and Processing Technologies program from the former Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. The President’s FY27 budget request for CMEI is $1.12 billion, a $1.91 billion decrease from the $3.03 billion appropriated in FY26. The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill provides $1.85 billion, $730 million more than the President’s budget request.
On Wednesday, June 10, 2026, at 10:00 a.m., in room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources will meet to consider:
The legislative hearing for H.R. 7882 was held on March 25.
The purpose of the business meeting is to consider the following legislation:
The Data Center Working Group, Kairos Fellowship, and Fight Oligarchy team are offering a five-part training series to support organizing and campaign efforts to stop the expansion of data centers. Each session covers key skills and techniques to help groups build winning coalitions, strategies, and campaigns. Sessions have a progressive structure with each workshop building upon the previous one, as well as individual workshops can be taken as standalones. This series is part of the larger work of building a movement to advance an alternative vision of a society where our communities determine their own economies and futures.
In this session, gain tools to ask powerful research questions, uncover connections and lobbying relationships, and follow money trails that corporations hide to gain a strategic advantage over our communities.
Full committee markup. Homeland Security markup will be completed on Wednesday.
The hearing will review the following legislation:
Witnesses
On July 9, 2024, the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act was signed into law. (The House version of this legislation was H.R. 6544, the Atomic Energy Advancement Act.) The ADVANCE Act establishes requirements for the NRC to license and regulate nuclear technology in an efficient, predictable, and timely manner while maintaining public safety. Additionally, it requires the NRC to align its mission statement with the foundational goals of the AEA and directs it to conduct efficient and predictable licensing processes while regularly updating metrics to measure timely licensing performance and efficiency. The law also updates NRC hiring authorities, reduces fees collected from applicants for advanced nuclear reactors licenses, directs NRC to identify measures to facilitate licensing of reactors at brownfield sites, and directs the NRC to implement measures to increase efficiency of environmental reviews, among other measures.
On May 13, 2024, the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act was signed into law.10 While the U.S. maintains the largest market globally for nuclear fuels, domestic fuel infrastructure has atrophied in recent years, to the point that Russia has been supplying up to a quarter of nuclear fuel used in the U.S. reactor fleet. The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act provides a date certain, after which no Russian-sourced enriched nuclear fuel will be available for U.S. nuclear reactors. This will create the market conditions for the long-term commercial contracts that domestic fuel producers need to invest in new U.S. supply capacity, including uranium conversion and enrichment capacity. The Nuclear Fuel Security Act of 2023 was signed into law on December 22, 2023, to provide funding and other support to assist the domestic development of advanced and conventional nuclear fuel supplies. Against this backdrop, the legislation under consideration makes additional reforms to Atomic Energy Act licensing requirements.
A. H.R. 5549, Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act
This legislation would amend the AEA to remove the need for the NRC to expend resources on unnecessary hearings. It would eliminate the requirement to hold uncontested hearings on applications to the NRC for granting a construction permit, an operating license, or a combined construction and operating license for nuclear facilities. The legislation would also clarify that the NRC may use informal adjudicatory procedures for any hearing the Commission determines appropriate. These provisions would in no way affect the right of persons whose interests are affected to request a hearing on specific matters. (Reps. Griffith and Schrier introduced this legislation on September 23, 2025.)
B. H.R. 3978, Nuclear REFUEL (Recycling Efficient Fuels Utilizing Expedited Licensing) Act
This legislation would amend the definition of a production facility in the AEA to exclude facilities that reprocess spent nuclear fuel in a manner that does not separate plutonium from other transuranic elements. In effect, amending the definition would clarify that certain reprocessing facilities may be licensed under the same regulatory process as other fuel cycle facilities rather than as a production facility. Licensing a fuel cycle facility involves a single process for a license to operate a facility instead of a two-step licensing process for a production facility, which must receive a construction permit and then complete a process for an operating license. (Reps. Latta and Peters introduced this legislation on June 12, 2025.)
C. H.R. 9084, Department of Energy Nuclear Transparency Act
This legislation would require DOE to announce and post information on decisions relating to the licensing and authorization of DOE nuclear facilities, as well as changes in directives and safety standards relating to such facilities on a publicly accessible website, within 24 hours of such decisions or actions. The legislation would also require the Secretary of Energy to provide a report annually to the Energy and Commerce Committee and to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that details all such activity by DOE to authorize nuclear facilities over the previous year. (Rep. Castor introduced this legislation on June 2, 2026.)
D. H.R. ____, Nuclear Advisory Committee Reform Act
This legislation would amend the AEA to update the role of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS). The legislation would establish that the ACRS would provide advice to the NRC on license applications, license amendments, regulatory activities, and any other matter only upon specific request by the Commission. The legislation would direct the ACRS to focus on issues that are directly related to reactor design, safety significant, and novel, and that have not previously been acted on by the Committee. The legislation would also update term requirements and require membership that represents a diverse background of technical expertise relevant to the NRC mission.
E. H.R. ____, American Enrichment Deployment Act
This legislation would amend the AEA to update the licensing of uranium enrichment facilities to align with the licensing requirements for all other fuel cycle facilities. It does so by removing enrichment-specific requirements for environmental review and for an adjudicatory hearing and by clarifying that construction of a facility may be allowed prior to licensing under the same terms and conditions applicable to other fuel cycle facilities. The uranium enrichment facility would remain subject to all applicable licensing requirements under sections 53 and 63 of the AEA, as well as NRC’s environmental review requirements. A rule of construction provides that the amendment does not affect NRC authority to regulate construction and does not affect the right of any person whose interest may be affected by a licensing proceeding to a hearing under the AEA. The legislation also directs the NRC to revise its regulations to conform with the bill.
F. H.R. ____, NRC Staff Pay Alignment Act
This legislation amends the AEA to provide that the Chairman of the NRC may fix the compensation for career, Senior Executive Service (SES) appointees at a rate that is 10 percent higher than the maximum annual rate of basic pay for SES positions within the Commission. The legislation would help align the pay authority applicable to these career employees with workforce development and pay authority amendments made to the AEA by the ADVANCE Act.