On Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. (ET) in 2322 Rayburn House
Office Building, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will
hold a hearing entitled, “Examining Emerging Threats to Electric Energy
Infrastructure.”
Manny
Cancel,
Chief Executive Officer, Electric Information Sharing and Analysis
Center, and Senior Vice President, North American Electric Reliability
Corporation
Sam
Chanoski,
Technical Relationship Manager, Idaho National Laboratory
Paul N.
Stockton,
Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory
Bruce Walker, President and Chief Security Office, Alliance for
Critical Infrastructure Security, Inc
Subcommittee
hearing
on U.S. foreign policy priorities in East Asia and the Pacific and the
FY 2024 Budget Request.
Witnesses:
Daniel
Kritenbrink,
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S.
Department of State
Michael
Ronning,
Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator, Asia Bureau, U.S. Agency for
International Development
For East Asia and the Pacific, USAID’s
FY 2024 budget request includes $279.3 million
for climate, which is a $108.8 million increase, or 64 percent, over the
FY 2023 request. The FY 2024 request
emphasizes the Administration’s priority of addressing climate change by
reducing emissions, protecting critical ecosystems, implementing legal
and regulatory reforms, mitigating resource conflicts, helping nations
transition to renewable energy, and building resilience against the
impacts of climate change. There is significant demand for this support
from our partners across the region. The FY
2024 request includes a significant increase for regional
programming on climate adaptation in IPEF
countries. With this funding, USAID will be
able to respond to IPEF partners’ priorities,
as articulated in the course of the IPEF
negotiations, to help them implement IPEF
commitments and grow their economies, as well as the economy of the
United States. We will support them in climate change adaptation through
investments in agriculture systems and food supplies, nature-driven
solutions, resilient cities, and investments in climate-friendly
infrastructure, in alignment with the Partnership for Global
Infrastructure and Investment. Across the region,
USAID will enhance climate change adaptation
and mitigation by improving access to, and use of, information and tools
that can help countries slow, stop, and reverse rapid deforestation,
improve land and natural resources management, and prepare and respond
to the impacts of climate change. USAID will
support net-zero energy grid development in Asia by promoting power
sector reforms, supporting the deployment of stateof-the-art energy
systems and technologies, and modernizing power grids. With
FY 2024 resources,
USAID will help our Pacific Islands neighbors
realize their own ambitious climate adaptation and mitigation goals by
advancing the adoption of renewable energy sources, increasing access to
infrastructure that is resilient to a changing climate, and
strengthening early warning systems for climate-induced disasters. To
promote transformative adaptation and resilience solutions,
FY 2024 resources will help more residents to
adopt climate-smart livelihoods and mobilize additional climate
financing. Since 2016, USAID has mobilized
more than $500 million dollars for Pacific Island countries from
international climate finance institutions and supported local
institutions to receive full accreditation to directly access
international climate finance. With FY 2024
resources, USAID will also improve the
performance of energy utilities, increase transparent private sector
investments in the energy sector, and expand off-grid clean energy
systems in Pacific Island countries. In addition, the request will allow
USAID to boost the resilience of communities
around the region so that they can keep working and earning a
living—despite the negative impacts of climate change. In Vietnam, for
example, USAID will use FY
2024 resources to protect the landscapes and biodiversity that
agricultural communities depend on. We will continue to develop
sustainable, climate-smart livelihoods, building on success creating
jobs in parks, conservation zones, and watershed protection areas as
well as in ecotourism. In the Philippines, which the 2022 World Risk
Index ranked as the country with the highest disaster risk,
USAID will improve the coping capacities of
vulnerable communities in the face of disaster and capitalize on the use
of climate-smart technologies to advance U.S. leadership in addressing
climate security, as well as food security.
USAID will also continue to engage our
partners in the region and identify adaptation needs in Pacific Island
countries, where extreme weather and shifting climate patterns pose an
existential threat. Although collectively these nations contribute less
than half a percent of global greenhouse emissions, they are on the
frontlines of the struggle against climate threats.
On Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn House Office
Building, the Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security will
hold a legislative
hearing
entitled “American Nuclear Energy Expansion: Updating Policies for
Efficient, Predictable Licensing and Deployment.”
Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at 10:00 AM ET, the
Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security,
led by Chairman Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), will hold a
hearing
to examine the existing and future security threats in the Arctic Region
and opportunities for the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to effectively respond and address
these threats.
Witnesses:
Ronald O’Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs, Congressional Research
Service
Luke Coffey, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Esther
Brimmer,
James H. Binger Senior Fellow in Global Governance, Council on Foreign
Relations
On Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. in Room 2220 of the Rayburn
House Office Building, the Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial
Institutions and Monetary Policy will hold a
hearing
titled “Climate-Risk: Are Financial Regulators Politically Independent?”
Michael S. Gibson, Director, Division of Supervision and Regulation,
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Greg Coleman, Senior Deputy Comptroller for Large Bank Supervision,
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Doreen Eberley, Director, Division of Risk Management and Supervision,
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Rendell L. Jones, Deputy Executive Director, National Credit Union
Administration
Sarah Benatar, Treasurer, Coconino County, Arizona
The hearing will examine recent actions by federal banking regulators to
incorporate climate-related financial risks into financial institutions’
risk management frameworks and to monitor and guide those frameworks.
The hearing will also examine recent actions by federal banking
regulators to incorporate recommendations related to climate-related
financial risks of Executive Orders, the Financial Stability Oversight
Council, Executive-Branch-led working groups, and international
non-governmental organizations. Many recent climate-related financial
risk actions by regulators closely align with President Biden’s May 20,
2021, Executive Order on ClimateRelated Financial Risk (EO 14030) and,
relatedly, the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s determination of
climate change as “an emerging and increasing threat to financial
stability” on October 21, 2021.
House Financial Services Committee
Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy Subcommittee
Subcommittee
hearing
on the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.
Subcommittee chair: Brian Mast (R-Fla.)
Ranking member: Jason Crow (D-Colo.)
Witness:
John Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, U.S. Department of
State
Under questioning from Rep. Mast, Kerry
said that “under no circumstances” would the United States support a
loss and damage fund at COP 28.
MAST: Are you planning to commit America to
‘climate reparations’, that is to say we have to pay some other
country because they had a flood, or they had a hurricane, or a
typhoon, or a wildfire?
KERRY: No. Under no circumstances.
MAST: Very good. I’m glad to hear you say
that. I do have a “no”, I’ll put it up there.
KERRY: Why don’t you create an exclamation
point beside it?
MAST: I will write in an exclamation point
for you. And I’m glad that we have agreement on that.
[The exchange begins at 56:05 in the above recording.]
The purpose of this
hearing
is to receive testimony on pending public lands, forests, and mining
legislation.
Opening Remarks:
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Subcommittee Chair, Subcommitte on Public
Lands, Forests, and Mining
Sen. Mike Lee, Subcommittee Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Public
Lands, Forests, and Mining
Witnesses:
Thomas Heinlein, Assistant Director, National Conservation Lands and
Community Partnerships, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of
the Interior
Christopher French, Deputy Chief, National Forest System, Forest
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
John J. Entsminger, General Manager, Southern Nevada Water Authority
Michelle McConkie, Director, Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands
Administration
Joseph A. Heringer, Commissioner of University and School Trust Lands,
North Dakota Department of Trust Lands
Legislation:
S.
636, to
establish the Dolores River National Conservation Area and the Dolores
River Special Management Area in the State of Colorado, to protect
private water rights in the State, and for other purposes;
S.
912, to
require the Secretary of Energy to provide technology grants to
strengthen domestic mining education, and for other purposes;
S.
1015,
to require the Secretary of Agriculture to convey the Pleasant Valley
Ranger District Administrative Site to Gila County, Arizona;
S.
1088,
to authorize the relinquishment and in lieu selection of land and
minerals in the State of North Dakota, to restore land and minerals to
Indian Tribes within the State of North Dakota, and for other
purposes;
S.
1254,
to designate and expand wilderness areas in Olympic National Forest in
the State of Washington, and to designate certain rivers in Olympic
National Forest and Olympic National Park as wild and scenic rivers,
and for other purposes;
S.
1405,
to provide for the exchange of certain Federal land and State land in
the State of Utah;
S.
1622,
to discourage speculative oil and gas leasing and to promote enhanced
multiple use management of public land and National Forest System
land, and for other purposes;
S.
1634,
to provide for the designation of certain wilderness areas, recreation
management areas, and conservation areas in the State of Colorado, and
for other purposes;
S.
1657,
to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain land to
La Paz County, Arizona, and for other purposes;
S.
1760,
to amend the Apex Project, Nevada Land Transfer and Authorization Act
of 1989 to include the city of North Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Apex
Industrial Park Owners Association, and for other purposes;
S.
1776,
to provide for the protection of and investment in certain Federal
land in the State of California, and for other purposes;
S.
1890,
to provide for the establishment of a grazing management program on
Federal land in Malheur County, Oregon, and for other purposes;
S.
2020,
to amend the Oregon Resource Conservation Act of 1996 to reauthorize
the Deschutes River Conservancy Working Group, for other purposes;
S.
2042,
to amend the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area Act to adjust the
boundary of the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, and for other
purposes;
S.
2136,
to require the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of
Agriculture to convey certain Federal land to the State of Utah for
inclusion in certain State parks, and for other purposes;
S.
2149,
to sustain economic development and recreational use of National
Forest System land in the State of Montana, to add certain land to the
National Wilderness Preservation System, to designate new areas for
recreation, and for other purposes.
S. ___, to release from wilderness study area designation certain
land in the State of Montana, to improve the management of that land,
and for other purposes.