Hill Heat

Subcommittee hearing to review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request for the Environmental Protection Agency, chaired by Sen. Merkley (D-Ore.).

Witness:

• Michael S. Regan, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency

The proposed FY 2025 budget for the EPA provides $11 billion and 17,145 full-time employees to support the Agency’s mission of protecting human health and the environment. This includes more than 2,000 new employees to address the Agency’s priorities and work with our partners across the Nation.

The FY 2025 Budget prioritizes tackling climate change with the urgency that science demands. EPA’s Climate Change Indicators website presents compelling and clear evidence of changes to our climate reflected in rising temperatures, ocean acidity, sea level rise, river flooding, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires. Recent natural disasters, like the devastating wildfire in Maui, Hawaii, the hazardous smoke and air pollution stemming from summer wildfires, and the catastrophic flooding in the West, reinforce the significance of EPA’s role in addressing and mitigating effects of climate change nationally and in our local communities. Resources in the Budget support efforts to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis while spurring economic progress and creating good-paying jobs. Both climate change mitigation and adaptation are essential components of the Agency’s strategy to reduce threats and impacts of climate change. The Budget empowers EPA to work with partners to address the climate crisis by reducing GHG emissions, building resilience in the face of climate impacts, and engaging with the global community to respond to this shared challenge. In FY 2025, EPA will drive reductions in emissions that significantly contribute to climate change through regulation of GHGs, climate partnership programs, and support to tribal, state, and local governments. The Agency will accomplish this through the transformative investments in the IRA, IIJA, and our annual appropriation. In FY 2025 and beyond, EPA will ensure its programs, policies, regulations, enforcement and compliance assurance activities, and internal business operations consider current and future impacts of climate change.

The Budget includes an increase of $77.5 million and 40.6 FTE above the FY 2024 ACR, for a total of $187.3 million and 256.7 FTE, for the Climate Protection Program to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad through an integrated approach of regulations, partnerships, and technical assistance. The increase would enable EPA to take strong action on CO2 and methane, as well as high-global warming potential climate pollutants, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), restore the capacity of EPA’s climate partnership programs, and strengthen EPA’s capacity to apply its modeling tools and expertise across a wide range of high priority work areas including supporting U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement and the Climate-Macro Interagency Technical Working Group. Resources also are requested for EPA to continue to implement regulations in FY 2025 to enhance reporting of GHG emissions from U.S. industrial sectors, including methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector.

Also included in this increase is $5 million for EPA to provide administrative support to implement a historic $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, enacted through the IRA. EPA recently released funding opportunities for three grant competitions: the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund, the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, and the $7 billion Solar for All competition.4 With enhanced administrative support provided by the additional funding request, EPA will be able to more effectively and efficiently administer competitive grants to mobilize financing and leverage private capital for clean energy and climate projects that reduce GHG emissions with an emphasis on projects that benefit low-income and disadvantaged communities. The Agency is requesting an additional $68.5 million and 46.8 FTE for a total of $185.9 million and 370.3 FTE for the Federal Vehicle and Fuels Standards and Certification Program. This includes the development of analytical methods, regulations, and analyses, to support climate protection by controlling GHG emissions from light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles. In FY 2025, EPA will begin implementing a final rulemaking under the Clean Air Act to establish new GHG emissions standards for heavy-duty engines and vehicles beginning with Model Year (MY) 2027. EPA will invest significant resources to address a myriad of new technical challenges to support two sets of long-term rulemakings, which will include added light-duty vehicle and heavyduty vehicle testing and modeling capabilities at the National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVFEL). EPA also will begin implementing the multi-pollutant emissions standards, including for GHG emissions, for light- and medium-duty vehicles beginning with MY 2027 and extending through and including at least MY 2030.

Acting domestically to reduce GHG emissions is an important step to tackle the climate crisis; however, environmental protection is a shared responsibility that crosses international borders, and climate change poses a threat that no one government can solve alone. The Budget includes an additional $18.1 million and 16 FTE to support tackling the climate crisis abroad. Through a collaborative approach with international counterparts, EPA will enhance capacity building programs for priority countries with increasing GHG footprints, to enable stronger legislative, regulatory, and legal enforcement. To this end, President Biden has ambitiously laid out a path, by 2030, for the United States to cut GHG emissions by at least half from 2005 levels showing our international partners that America is doing its part to reduce global emissions. In FY 2023, EPA implemented 10 international climate engagements resulting in individual partner commitments or actions to reduce GHG emissions, adapt to climate change, or improve resilience in a manner that promotes equity, building on the work of eight engagements in FY 2022. The Agency will continue to engage both bilaterally and through multilateral institutions to improve international cooperation on climate change. These efforts help fulfill EPA’s commitment to Executive Order 14008: Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. Tackling the climate crisis depends not only on the Agency’s ability to mitigate GHG emissions but also the capacity to adapt and deliver targeted assistance to increase the Nation’s resilience to climate change impacts. As part of a whole-of-government approach, EPA will directly support federal partners, tribes and indigenous communities, states, territories, local governments, environmental justice organizations, community groups, and businesses as they anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to the impacts of climate change. In FY 2022, EPA assisted 110 federally recognized tribes and 242 states, territories, local governments, and communities in taking such actions. The FY 2025 Budget includes an additional $19.3 million and 14.5 FTE for climate adaptation efforts to increase resilience of EPA programs and strengthen the adaptive capacity of tribes, states, territories, local governments, communities, and businesses. In FY 2025, EPA will continue to implement the updated version of its Climate Adaptation Action Plan as well as 20 Climate Adaptation Implementation Plans developed by the EPA program and regional offices. These plans focus on five priority actions the Agency will take by FY 2026 to increase human and ecosystem resilience as the climate changes and disruptive impacts increase. To support the economic revitalization of coal, oil, gas, and power plant communities (Energy Communities), the Budget requests an additional $5 million and 3 FTE for stakeholder engagement and cross-agency coordination, including resources to increase the number of Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) from three in FY 2023 to at least 10 by the end of FY 2025. To advance work on climate change modeling, an additional $3 million is requested across multiple programs to support the Agency’s participation in the Climate-Macro Interagency Technical Working Group and the Assessments of Federal Financial Climate Risk Interagency Working Group. Further, the Agency will continue development of open-source data and economic models, including sector-specific cost models, that assess the macroeconomic and fiscal impacts of climate change and the risk of extreme weather events.

Subcommittee hearing on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Mission Area budget.

Witnesses:

• Robert Bonnie, Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Terry J. Cosby, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Zach Ducheneaux, Administrator, Farm Service Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Marcia Bunger, Administrator, Risk Management Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Under the current law, the 2025 request for discretionary budget authority to fund programs and operating expenses is $31.6 billion, slightly more than 6.84 percent increase, or $2.16 billion, above the 2024 annualized Continuing Resolution (CR) levels.

The Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) mission area focuses on domestic agricultural issues. Locating the Farm Service Agency (FSA) – $1.6 billion budget plus $5.6 billion in loans and disaster programs plus $7.9 billion in expected commodity payments, the Risk Management Agency (RMA) – $14.8 billion budget, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) – $10.5 billion budget, and the FPAC Business Center under one mission area provides a simplified one-stop shop for USDA’s primary customers, the farmers, ranchers, and forest managers across America. FSA, RMA, and NRCS implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance, conservation programs and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs.

In 2023, the FPAC Mission Area worked to keep U.S. farmers and ranchers financially healthy. For example, in 2023, as authorized by the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill), FSA provided over $355 million in Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payments to producers for crop year 2021.1 ARC and PLC are an important part of the farm safety net to assist producers during downturns in crop revenue or commodity prices. The Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program provided $1.1 billion in protection to dairy producers when the difference between the all-milk price and the average feed cost (the margin) fell below a certain dollar amount selected by the producer. To help the dairy industry respond to challenges, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 established Supplemental Dairy Margin Coverage payments for calendar years 2021-2023, and subsequently, the program was extended through calendar year 2024. These payments are limited to farms enrolled in DMC with a production history of less than 5,000,000 pounds and reflect increases in their production since 2014. As of early January 2024, Supplemental DMC has provided about $88 million to better help small- and mid-sized dairy operations that have increased production over the years but were not able to enroll that additional production.

FSA continues to provide tools for America’s farmers to be good stewards of the land. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) has protected and conserved environmentally sensitive land since 1986. CRP is one of the world’s largest voluntary conservation programs with an established track record of preserving topsoil, sequestering carbon, and reducing nitrogen runoff, as well as providing healthy habitat for wildlife. FSA is assessing the impact of recent improvements to the CRP, including: higher rental rates to increase producer interest and enrollment; a Climate-Smart Practice Incentive to increase enrollment for carbon sequestration; and a Climate Change Mitigation Assessment Initiative to measure program outcomes and understand their potential to mitigate the impacts of climate change over time. Grassland, forest, and wetland assessment teams have been laying the groundwork to monitor climate mitigation impacts of over 1,000 enrollments and are working with NRCS to provide training opportunities to conservation planners during field visits. Since 2021, USDA has seen a significant increase in enrollment in the CRP, which is a critical part of the Department’s efforts to support climate-smart agriculture and forestry on working lands. In October 2023, USDA announced it issued more than $1.77 billion to 667,000 agricultural producers and landowners for 23 million acres of private land enrolled in CRP. FSA farm loan programs provide an important safety net for producers, by providing a source of credit to producers who commercial lenders may be unwilling to serve. The majority of FSA’s direct and guaranteed farm ownership and operating loans are targeted to beginning producers, who generally have had a more difficult time obtaining credit to maintain and expand their operations. In 2023, FSA provided more than 22,000 direct and guaranteed loans to farmers and ranchers, totaling over $4.7 billion with beginning farmers representing 60 percent of this total. As of December 2023, under Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), USDA has helped distressed farm loan borrowers with approximately $1.9 billion in assistance. This assistance to borrowers has helped borrowers stay on their farms and keep farming. Section 22006 provided funds for relief of distressed borrowers with certain direct and guaranteed loans, and to expedite assistance for those whose agricultural operations are at financial risk due to factors outside their control, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout 2023, FSA improved the farm loan process including a simplified direct loan application and launching an online direct application, which improves the customer experience and program delivery. Crop insurance is designed to allow farmers and ranchers to effectively manage their risk through difficult periods, helping to maintain America’s food supply and the sustainability of small, limited resource, socially disadvantaged and other underserved farmers. In calendar year 2023, RMA helped provide the largest farm safety net in history, a record $207 billion in protection for American agriculture. At the same time, the agency continued to introduce new programs to support specialty crops, livestock, controlled environment, and shellfish producers. Additionally, RMA invested over $6.5 million in cooperative agreements and partnerships to help educate underserved, small-scale and organic producers better manage risks.

NRCS works in partnership with private landowners, communities, local governments, and other stakeholders to promote the sustainable use and to safeguard the productivity of the Nation’s private working lands. The agency provides conservation planning, technical assistance, and financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and foresters to help them conserve, enhance, and protect natural resources. In addition, NRCS works with these partners to leverage resources and innovative ideas to make the landscape and critical infrastructure more resilient. In 2023, NRCS developed conservation plans covering over 75 million acres. In accordance with those plans and utilizing Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA) program support, conservation practices and systems designed to improve soil quality were applied to 5 million acres of cropland. Through the IRA, USDA has enrolled more famers and more acres in voluntary conservation programs than at any point in history, addressing a backlog that has persisted for many years. In calendar year 2023, USDA enrolled nearly 5,300 additional producers in NRCS conservation programs across all 50 states. The IRA provided $19.5 billion to implement conservation programs, including the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) and to measure, monitor, report and verify greenhouse gas emissions. Throughout 2023, NRCS worked on improvements to RCPP and ACEP to streamline processes and reduce the burden on partners.

A subcommittee hearing on the FY2025 budget request for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Witness:

• Adrianne Todman, Acting Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

The $72.6 billion budget includes:

• $407 million to support energy efficiency, resilience, and climate mitigation work in HUD-assisted and financed developments.
• $417 million to remove dangerous health hazards from homes for vulnerable families through funding for Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes programs and the Public Housing Fund, including mitigating threats from fire, lead, carbon monoxide, and radon.
• $112 million – up to $50 million in Tenant-Based Rental Assistance and $62 million in Project-Based Rental Assistance – for conversions that promote the energy efficiency or climate resilience of properties
• $67 million is designated for competitive grants to remove lead-based paint hazards from public housing and to help public housing authorities identify and eliminate other housing-related health and safety hazards, such as fire, mold, carbon monoxide, radon, and other housing hazards. The Office of Public and Indian Housing and the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes will collaborate across their programs to ensure the health and safety of families living in public housing.
• The Budget includes up to $5 million to fund research on energy efficiency, disaster preparedness, recovery, and resilience

Subcommittee hearing on member requests for the State, Foreign Operations and related programs budget.

On Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at 10:00 a.m., in room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources will hold an oversight hearing titled “Examining the President’s FY 2025 Budget Request for the Department of the Interior.”

Witness:

• Deb Haaland, Secretary, Department of the Interior

The Department’s 2025 budget totals $18.0 billion in current authority ($17.8 billion in net discretionary authority)—an increase of $575.9 million, or 3 percent, from the 2024 continuing resolution (CR) level. An additional $360.0 million is accessible through a budget cap adjustment for wildfire suppression to ensure funds are available in the event the regular annual appropriation is inadequate to meet suppression needs. The budget also includes an estimated $14.8 billion in permanent funding available in 2025.

The Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security has scheduled a hearing on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. (ET) in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. The title of the hearing is: “The Fiscal Year 2025 Department of Energy Budget.” The request is for $51.42 billion, including $25 billion for maintenance of the nuclear arsenal, $8.23 billion for cleanup of DOE environmental pollution, and $8.58 billion for the Office of Science.

Hearing memo

Witness:

• Jennifer Granholm, Secretary, Department of Energy

The Budget includes $8.5 billion across DOE to support researchers and entrepreneurs transforming innovations into commercial clean energy products, including in areas such as: offshore wind; industrial heat; sustainable aviation fuel; and grid infrastructure.

The Budget invests $1.6 billion to support clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects across the Nation, including: $385 million to weatherize and retrofit homes of low-income Americans; $95 million to electrify Tribal homes, provide technical assistance to advance Tribal energy projects, and transition Tribal colleges and universities to renewable energy; $113 million for the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains to strengthen domestic clean energy supply chains, and $102 million to support utilities and State and local governments in building a grid that is more secure, reliable, resilient, and able to integrate electricity from clean energy sources.

The Office of State and Community Energy Programs includes $385 million for the Weatherization Assistance Program to weatherize low-income homes.

The Budget supports $76 million to advance technologies that can enable earlier detection of methane leaks and integrate across a network of methane monitoring sensors for more reliable measurement and mitigation and $150 million to make small quantities of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) available for ongoing advanced nuclear reactor demonstrations.

Business meeting agenda:

• Nomination of Christopher T. Hanson, current chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• S. 3738, the GLRI Act of 2024, a bill to reauthorize the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, and for other purposes
• One GSA resolution blocking a FBI lease in Cleveland

There will be a hearing of the Committee on the Budget on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, 9:00 AM in Room SH-216 to consider: “Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change”.

Report

Witnesses:

• Geoffrey Supran, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Environmental Science And Policy, And Director, Climate Accountability Lab, University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
• Jamie Raskin (MD-8), Ranking Member, Committee on Oversight and Accountability, U.S. House of Representatives
• Sharon Eubanks, Former Director, Tobacco Litigation Team, U.S. Department of Justice
• Dr. Ariel Cohen, Senior Fellow, The Atlantic Council, and Managing Director, Energy, Growth, and Security Program, International Tax Investment Center, Republican witness
• Michael Ratner, Specialist In Energy Policy, Congressional Research Service, Republican witness

Geoffrey Supran has helped expose ExxonMobil’s long campaign of public deception about the scientific threat of their product.

Sharon Eubanks forced Big Tobacco to pay $206 billion for their similar criminal deception of the deadliness of their addictive product.

Ariel Cohen is a 20-year Heritage Foundation veteran focused on Russian petropolitics who now works for the International Tax and Investment Center, a Big Oil front group for killing taxes on the global fossil-fuel industry, overseen by oil executives and high-level right-wing politicians.

Michael Ratner is a specialist in global oil and gas infrastructure who formerly worked for Enron and the CIA.

A subcommittee hearing chaired by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on the FY2025 budget request for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Witness:

• Adrianne Todman, Acting Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

The $72.6 billion budget includes:

• $407 million to support energy efficiency, resilience, and climate mitigation work in HUD-assisted and financed developments.
• $417 million to remove dangerous health hazards from homes for vulnerable families through funding for Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes programs and the Public Housing Fund, including mitigating threats from fire, lead, carbon monoxide, and radon.
• $112 million – up to $50 million in Tenant-Based Rental Assistance and $62 million in Project-Based Rental Assistance – for conversions that promote the energy efficiency or climate resilience of properties
• $67 million is designated for competitive grants to remove lead-based paint hazards from public housing and to help public housing authorities identify and eliminate other housing-related health and safety hazards, such as fire, mold, carbon monoxide, radon, and other housing hazards. The Office of Public and Indian Housing and the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes will collaborate across their programs to ensure the health and safety of families living in public housing.
• The Budget includes up to $5 million to fund research on energy efficiency, disaster preparedness, recovery, and resilience

On Tuesday, April 30, 2024, at 10:15 a.m., in room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold an oversight hearing titled “Examining the Influence of Extreme Environmental Activist Groups in the Department of the Interior.”

Witnesses:

• Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center, Washington, D.C.
• Tyler O’Neil, Author, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Washington, D.C.
• Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis, MN [Minority Witness]

Hearing memo

The Committee has, on several occasions, raised concerns that some extreme activist nonprofit organizations—including but not limited to Code Pink, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)—have ties to foreign governments and other entities. . . . Under Secretary Haaland, DOI has cultivated intimate and potentially improper relationships with radical nonprofits that undermines acceptable standards for nonprofit-government relationships. Committee Republicans will continue to hold these groups and the Biden administration accountable through a thorough oversight process.