S. HRG. 112–839 Senate Hearings Before the Committee on Appropriations Energy and Water Development Appropriations Fiscal Year 2013 112th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION H.R. 5325/S. 2465 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE—CIVIL DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES Energy and Water Development Appropriations, 2013 (H.R. 5325/S. 2465) S. HRG. 112–839 ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013 HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H.R. 5325/S. 2465 AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOP- MENT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2013, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES Department of Defense—Civil Department of Energy Department of the Interior Nondepartmental Witnesses Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ committee.action?chamber=senate&committee=appropriations U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 72–311 PDF WASHINGTON : 2013 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi, Ranking TOM HARKIN, Iowa MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama HERB KOHL, Wisconsin KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas PATTY MURRAY, Washington LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California SUSAN COLLINS, Maine RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana MARK KIRK, Illinois JACK REED, Rhode Island DANIEL COATS, Indiana FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey ROY BLUNT, Missouri BEN NELSON, Nebraska JERRY MORAN, Kansas MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota JON TESTER, Montana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin SHERROD BROWN, Ohio CHARLES J. HOUY, Staff Director BRUCE EVANS, Minority Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California, Chairman PATTY MURRAY, Washington LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky JACK REED, Rhode Island KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama TOM HARKIN, Iowa SUSAN COLLINS, Maine JON TESTER, Montana LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii (ex officio) Professional Staff DOUG CLAPP ROGER COCKRELL LELAND COGLIANI CAROLYN E. APOSTOLOU (Minority) TYLER OWENS (Minority) TOM CRAIG (Minority) Administrative Support MOLLY BARACKMAN-EDER LASHAWNDA SMITH (Minority) (II) CONTENTS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2012 Page Department of Energy ............................................................................................. 1 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2012 Deparment of Energy: National Nuclear Security Administration ..................... 63 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2012 Department of Defense—Civil: Department of the Army: Corps of Engineers— Civil ....................................................................................................................... 123 Department of the Interior: Bureau of Reclamation ............................................. 142 NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES Department of Defense—Civil: Department of the Army: Corps of Engineers— Civil ....................................................................................................................... 221 Department of Energy ............................................................................................. 241 Department of the Interior: Bureau of Reclamation ............................................. 313 (III) ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2012 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 2:31 p.m., in room SD–192, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Dianne Feinstein (chairman) pre- siding. Present: Senators Feinstein, Murray, Johnson, Reed, Tester, Al- exander, Cochran, Collins, Murkowski, and Graham. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY STATEMENT OF HON. STEVEN CHU, SECRETARY OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN Senator FEINSTEIN. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the Energy and Water Subcommittee’s budget hearing on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) fiscal year 2013 budget request. DOE has requested $27.2 billion for fiscal year 2013. That is an increase of $1.5 billion, or 5.7 percent, from fiscal year 2012. Approximately $535 million—that is about one-third—of the $1.5 billion increase is for the National Nuclear Security Administra- tion’s (NNSA) nuclear weapons nonproliferation and naval reactor programs. This is a 5-percent increase. The subcommittee will ex- plore NNSA’s budget request with Administrator D’Agostino next week. The rest of the Department’s proposed increase is largely, as we understand it, for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) projects, Advanced Research Projects Agency-En- ergy (ARPA–E), and basic energy research. The budget request clearly prioritizes some programs while mak- ing difficult choices to cut funding to other programs. This is where we have a lot of questions. The Congress must now determine whether or not we can agree on those priorities. Mr. Secretary, I hope you will highlight the administration’s pri- orities today and make the case for the choices that you have made. I would like to highlight the three largest increases in the budg- et. (1) 2 First, the single largest increase would be for EERE which would see an increase of $512 million, or 28 percent. A significant portion of this increase would be used for the new advanced manufacturing program. The second, ARPA–E, would see an increase of $75 million, or 27 percent. As the Secretary says, ARPA–E holds the promise of ad- vancing high-risk, high-reward technology. An early indicator of success has been that 11 projects, which received $40 million from ARPA–E, have now secured more than $200 million in outside pri- vate capital investment to further develop these technologies, and that is good news. So we would like to encourage the Department to continue tracking these projects and demonstrate how Federal investments have developed more energy-efficient technologies and potentially new industries. Third, the Office of Science would see an increase of $118 mil- lion, or 2.4 percent. The science budget has clearly prioritized the subprograms exploring materials research, advanced computing, and biological research. So the Department is making its priorities clear there. However, in the non-priority subprograms, it is more difficult to understand the administration’s position because the Department has failed to prioritize activities within the very limited funding. One example is fusion energy science. The overall budget for fu- sion energy science is not large enough to accommodate our com- mitment to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in France while at the same time maintaining our domestic program. The difficult decision was apparently made to cut funding to the fusion facility at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The budget, though, fails to fully fund the com- mitment to ITER. This will likely increase our total contribution to ITER in the future and delay the project. I understand the decision not to prioritize fusion energy sciences in a tight budget environ- ment, but if we are making that decision, then we need to follow through and make the tough decisions within the program itself and not leave them floundering around. It now appears that we are simply going to cripple both our domestic and international efforts. While renewable energy, ARPA–E, and the Office of Science saw increases in the budget, there are two energy programs that were cut. The proposed budget for the Office of Fossil Energy (FE) is $428 million. That is a decrease of 20 percent, or $106 million. The single largest cut in fossil energy comes from zeroing out the fuel cells subprogram, and we would like to know the reason. The proposed budget for the Office of Nuclear Energy is $675 million, excluding security costs. This is a cut of $93 million, or 12 percent. The major cuts in nuclear energy come from the advanced reactor program, which is largely focused on fast reactors and high- temperature reactors. Today, I am sure we will hear various opinions about the deci- sions made in the administration’s budget request for energy, but this is an important first step. I know the choices are difficult for you, Mr. Secretary. Before welcoming you and having your presen- tation, I would like to ask for the remarks of the ranking member. 3 STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAMAR ALEXANDER Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Secretary, welcome. It is a pleasure to work with the Senator from California always, and it is a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Secretary. We appreciate your service to the country. It is a long way to go home for you, I know. So we appreciate that. You have attracted some very good people to work with you. There are a great many areas of the President’s proposal, your budget, that I support. In a recent visit to Sandia, the science di- rector told me that