On Monday, May 12, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. (MDT) the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources will hold an oversight hearing entitled “Letting Off Steam: Unleashing Geothermal Energy Development on Federal Land.” The hearing will examine the barriers to developing geothermal energy on federal lands. The hearing will also highlight the growth potential of geothermal energy as a result of developing technologies like enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) and how this potential could help us meet rapidly growing domestic energy demand.
This hearing will be held in the Sterling R. Church Auditorium in the Sharwan Smith Student Center, at Southern Utah University, 351 W University Boulevard, in Cedar City, Utah.
Tim Latimer, Co-Founder and CEO, Fervo Energy, Houston, TX
• Paul Thomsen, Vice President of Business Development, Ormat Technologies, Inc., Reno, NV
• Jake Garfield, Deputy Director, Utah Office of Energy Development, Salt Lake City, UT
• Dr. Joseph Moore, Research Professor, Energy & Geoscience Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah [Minority Witness]
Kristi Noem, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
"President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people, and that FEMA, as it exists today, should be eliminated in empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support."
Amounts for DHS in the 2026 Budget complement amounts that the Administration has requested as
part of the reconciliation bill currently under consideration in the Congress. Reconciliation would
allocate more than $175 billion in additional multiyear budget authority to implement the
Administration’s priorities in the homeland security space of which at least an estimated $43.8 billion
would be allocated in 2026. Reconciliation funding in 2026 would enable DHS to fully implement
the President’s mass removal campaign, finish construction of the border wall on the Southwest
border, procure advanced border security technology, modernize the fleet and facilities of the Coast
Guard, and enhance Secret Service protective operations. Reconciliation would also provide funding
to bolster State and local capacity to enhance security around key events and facilities, and prepare
for upcoming special events like the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics.
Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations
Program
$ Change
from 2025
Enacted
(in millions)
Description
Non-Disaster Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) Grant
Programs
-646
The Budget reduces FEMA grant programs. FEMA under the previous administration made equity a top priority for
emergency relief, which will end. The National Domestic Preparedness Consortium will be eliminated.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (CISA)
-491
The Budget refocuses CISA on Federal network defense and enhancing the
security and resilience of critical infrastructure. The Budget eliminates programs focused on misinformation and propaganda
as well as external engagement offices such as international affairs.
Shelter and Services Program
-650
The Budget proposes eliminating the Shelter and Services Program.
The purpose of the hearing is to consider the nominations of Mr. William Doffermyre to be Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, Ms. Catherine Jereza to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Electricity), and Mr. Kyle Haustveit to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Fossil Energy).
Held in conjunction with a business meeting to vote on previous nominees.
Catherine Jereza to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Electricity)
Kyle Haustveit to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Fossil Energy)
Doffermyre reported earning $2.2 million in salary and bonuses last year as assistant general counsel and senior director of the Texas-based firm Energy Transfer’s Alternative Energy Group. He also reported a $790,000 severance payment from the company, which he joined in 2019. He left Energy Transfer in February to serve as a senior adviser to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, as he awaits his Senate confirmation hearing to serve as the department’s solicitor. Doffermyre was general Counsel for Lake Charles LNG; and was former general counsel, Overseas Private Investment Corp.
Katie Jereza is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transmission Permitting & Technical Assistance (TPTA) in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity. She served as the Director for Infrastructure Resilience at the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) where she co-led the smarter energy infrastructure initiative and helped launch the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council’s Cyber Mutual Assistance program. She was a management consultant with the McLeod Group, LLC and Energetics Incorporated and also worked for the Maryland Department of the Environment, GE Water and Process Technologies (formerly BetzDearborn), and the Lincoln Electric Company.
Kyle Haustveit is a professional petroleum engineer and geoscience manager with Devon Energy. He is the manager of Devon Energy Ventures, the newly formed corporate venturing arm of US-headquartered oil and gas supplier Devon Energy. He is experienced in unconventional reservoirs with a focus on completions design, diagnostics and field development. Devon Energy was an early-stage investor in US-based internet-of-things analytics software company Seeq Corporation, which received funding from Altira Group Fund VI. Seeq is also backed by Chevron Technology Ventures and Next47, part of energy group Chevron and industrial equipment manufacturer Siemens respectively.
Over the next few weeks, we’re watching the House closely as Republicans kick off voting on their budget reconciliation bill, which is chock-full of handouts to polluters and billionaires and is on track to be one of the most harmful, costly, and sweeping pieces of legislation in recent history.
On Wednesdays, May 7, 14, and 21st starting around 4pm we’re rallying at the U.S. Capitol steps to fight back against Republicans’ attempts to pass massive cuts to essential programs to provide handouts to billionaires and polluters. RSVP now.
Cam Hamilton, Acting Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency
Hamilton testified in defense of FEMA:
As the senior advisor to the President on disasters and emergency management, and to the Secretary of Homeland Security, I do not believe it is in the best interest the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Having said that, I am not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination as consequential as that should be made. That is a conversation that should be had between the President of the United States and this governing body.
FSIS inspects meat, poultry, and egg product plants to ensure food safety nationwide. Several States
have their own equivalent inspection program, and FSIS shares in the cost of these programs.
Increases are needed to support increased production and demand for services.
Rental Assistance Grants
+74
The Budget provides funding to renew the rental assistance grant contracts at $1.7 billion. This
prevents the default of the $9 billion in USDA underwritten multifamily housing direct loans, that
depend on the rental assistance grants for the debt service.
Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations
Program
(millions of $)
Description
National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)
-602
The Budget eliminates programming in NIFA, such as activities related to climate
change, renewable energy, and promoting DEI in education that were prioritized under the Biden
Administration. In addition, the Budget reduces funding for formula grants. Instead, the Budget focuses on the merit-based
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The Budget protects funding to youth and K-12 programs
such as 4-H clubs, tribal colleges, and universities. This investment would help prepare future
generations of farmers. It also ensures HBCUs are amply funded.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
and USDA Research Statistical
Agencies
-159
The Budget reduces funding for
research sites across the Nation and reduces funding for
research projects. The Budget also makes small
reductions to the Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service to stop
climate research added by the Biden Administration while ensuring some
analysis and data collection continues.
Natural Resource Conservation Service
(NRCS)—Private Lands Conservation
Operations
-754
The Budget eliminates discretionary funding for conservation technical assistance. While funding has helped producers deploy conservation practices on their lands,
many have been forced to participate in the program in order to comply with State environmental
regulations such as California’s Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program, which regulates agricultural
runoff.
NRCS Watershed Operations
-16
The Budget eliminates funding to renovate locally owned dams in the NRCS Watershed Programs.
These
programs received an influx of funding through IIJA. Currently, there is over $100 million
in unobligated balances between the two programs.
Rural Development Programs
-721
Infrastructure loans are prioritized for aging
rural water and wastewater systems, as well as technical assistance through the “Circuit Rider”
program balanced with reductions in the grants. Other specialty water grants and earmarks are not
funded except where the tax base cannot support loans, including maintaining funding for Native
American Tribes. Community facility grants are eliminated, as the Congress has been earmarking nearly 100 percent of them. No new USDA funding is needed for broadband
expansion. The Budget
would also eliminate rural business programs, single family housing direct loans, self-help housing grants,
telecommunications loans, and rural housing vouchers. Rural Development salaries and expenses are
reduced commensurately.
Farm Service Agency (FSA) Salaries
and Expenses: Farm Production and
Conservation-Business Center (FPACBC)
-358
The first Trump Administration placed the FSA, NRCS, and Risk
Management Agency under one umbrella: FPAC-BC. The staff-heavy FSA struggles with hiring
due in part because of labor market competition. The Budget reduces funding in order to reflect the Agency’s plans
for efficiencies, which include improving online services.
National Forest System Management
-392
The Budget reduces salaries and expenses by $342 million, and saves an additional $50 million by
eliminating funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, and reducing
funding for recreation, vegetation and watershed management, and land management regulation. The
Budget fully supports the Executive Order 14225, “Immediate Expansion
of American Timber Production,” to improve forest management and increase domestic timber
production. The requested funding level supports timber sales, hazardous fuels removal, mineral
extraction, grazing, and wildlife habitat management.
Forest Service Operations
-391
The Budget reduces funding for expenses including salaries and facility leases to streamline the
Agency’s management structure and reduce their real property footprint.
State, Local, Tribal, and NGO
Conservation Programs
-303
The Budget reduces grant programs that subsidize management of State and privately-owned forests.
While the Budget provides reduced support for Federal wildland fire
management activities, these partners should be encouraged to
fund their own community preparedness and risk mitigation activities.
Forest and Rangeland Research (Except
Forest Inventory and Analysis)
-300
The President has pledged to manage national forests for their intended purpose of producing timber.
The Budget reduces funding for the Forest and Rangeland Research program because it is out of step
with timber production, but maintains funding for Forest
Inventory and Analysis, a longstanding census of forest resources and conditions.
Commodity Supplemental Food
Program (CSFP)
-425
The Budget
ends CSFP and replaces it with MAHA food boxes.
The MAHA food boxes provide food directly to
seniors. Unlike the current approach using food banks, which provide those in need with shelf-stable
foods, MAHA boxes would be filled with
commodities sourced from domestic farmers and given directly to American households.
McGovern-Dole Food for Education
Program
-240
The McGovern-Dole Food for Education program buys agricultural commodities from U.S. farmers
and donates them in the form of foreign aid. Only a small portion of the program’s funding goes
toward purchasing U.S. commodities, given the high transportation costs and large portion of funding
provided for technical assistance. While these donated commodities totaled only $37 million in 2023
(0.01 percent of all U.S. crop sales), they undercut commodity prices in markets abroad. The elimination of this program is consistent
with the elimination of other in-kind international food donation programs in the Budget, including
Food for Progress and Food for Peace Title II Grants.
House Appropriations Committee
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
The Budget cancels over $15 billion in funds committed to build
renewable energy, removing carbon dioxide from the air, and other technologies. The Budget also ends funding to electric vehicle and battery
makers and cancels the Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.
Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy (EERE)
-2,572
The Budget reorients EERE programs to early-stage research and development programming,
eliminating funding for climate change-related activities like the
Biden Administration’s Justice40. This proposal would support technologies that promote fossil-fuel
power and other priorities, such as bioenergy.
Office of Science
-1,148
The Budget reduces funding for climate change and renewable energy research. The Budget
maintains U.S. competitiveness in areas such as high-performance computing, artificial
intelligence, quantum information science, fusion, and critical minerals.
Environmental Management (EM)
-389
The EM program performs activities at 14 active cleanup sites and operates a geologic disposal
facility (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico). The EM topline is being reduced
by $389 million, which reflects a reduction of about $178 million for the transfer of responsibility
from the EM program to the National Nuclear Security Administration for the Savannah River site in
South Carolina, where plutonium pit production capabilities would be developed. The Budget
maintains the Hanford site in Washington at the 2025 enacted level but reduces funding for various
cleanup activities at other sites.
Advanced Research Project Agency‒
Energy (ARPA-E)
-260
The Budget reduces funding for ARPA-E.
Office of Nuclear Energy
-408
The Budget reduces funding for non-essential research on nuclear energy. Continued research priorities include developing innovative
concepts for nuclear reactors, researching advanced nuclear fuels, and maintaining the capabilities of
the Idaho National Laboratory.
Office of Fossil Energy (and Carbon Management)
-270
The Budget renames the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management back to the Office of Fossil Energy, focusing on the research of technologies that could increase extraction of domestic fossil
energy and critical minerals.
House Appropriations Committee
Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee
Subcommittee hearing entitled “Cleaning Up the Past, Building the Future: The Brownfields Program.”
Witnesses:
Terry M. Wilbur, Clerk, Oswego County, New York; on behalf of the National Association of Counties
Lisa Shook, Assistant Chief, Division of Environmental Response and Remediation, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
Lance Larson, Analyst in Environmental Policy; Resources, Science, and Industry Division; Congressional Research Service
Michael Goldstein, Esq., Managing Partner, Goldstein Environmental Law Firm, P.A.
Opening remarks, as prepared, of Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Mike Collins (R-GA) from today’s hearing, entitled, “Cleaning Up the Past, Building the Future: The Brownfields Program”:
I want to first thank our witnesses for joining us this morning to discuss EPA’s Brownfields Program. As we review the program, last authorized in 2018, I’m looking forward to learning from our witnesses about their experiences with the program, suggestions for program improvements, as well as the tangible impact it’s had on the ground.
All of us here, throughout our travels, have seen abandoned warehouses, dilapidated gas stations, or vacant factories. Often, these blighted properties, which are eyesores in our communities, are considered brownfields. Brownfields are properties that are abandoned or underused due to concerns about environmental contamination. EPA has estimated that there are more than 450,000 brownfield sites across the United States. Their redevelopment and reuse can help increase local tax bases, create jobs, and encourage additional development.
According to EPA, since its inception, the program has made over 10,800 sites ready for productive reuse, leveraged more than $40.4 billion in additional cleanup and redevelopment funding, and helped to create or leverage more than 270,000 jobs.
However, property owners and developers are often hesitant to finance the redevelopment of these sites because of possible liability under CERCLA.
CERCLA liability is no joke. CERCLA has extremely stringent liability standards that could result in a current property owner being held responsible for cleanup costs at a site, even if there was no negligence on their part or if other parties had previously caused the contamination.
This program provides common-sense liability relief to folks who want to improve a degraded site. The EPA Brownfields Program helps communities assess and evaluate contamination at these sites and provides funding to help clean up and promote their redevelopment.
For example, in my district in Georgia, the program assisted the City of Greensboro in addressing contamination at an old cotton mill. As part of this project, approximately 2,600 tons of contaminated soil were removed from the property, and the mill was ultimately redeveloped and converted into a 71-unit apartment complex.
Federal funding through the Brownfields Program helps attract other non-federal project funding for assessment, remediation, and redevelopment efforts. But we know that just throwing hard-earned taxpayer money at problems doesn’t make them go away.
That’s why I also want to underscore the importance of programmatic efficiencies and regulatory relief when it comes to redevelopment and timely project completions.
For far too long, the EPA has placed untenable regulatory and bureaucratic burdens on hardworking Americans that cost them time and money. That’s why I am working with my colleagues here in Congress and with the Trump Administration on efforts to reduce red tape and streamline permitting processes.
At the end of the day, these types of improvements will help important projects get done more efficiently – whether it’s redeveloping Brownfields sites or constructing an Army Corps project. And that benefits all Americans.