Energy and Water

Despite my appreciation for the innovative and streamlined project model used by ARPA-E, I have repeatedly shared my concerns regarding your program's potential overlap with other areas of DOE. Many of the activities pursued by ARPA-E are in areas where either DOE's applied programs or the Office of Science are also endeavoring to make progress. I believe that there is a place for competition within the Department, but in an era of scarce funding redundancies must be kept to a minimum.

Reclamation's budget request for Water and Related Resources represents a four percent reduction from that of 2012. And while we are all interested in finding appropriate places to cut, I have some concerns that this reduced request continues the disinvestment in the nation's water resource infrastructure. Therefore, it will be especially important that the Subcommittee understands the specific methodology used to arrive at the Bureau's particular set of projects and activities.

Gas prices are again rising, putting pressure on the wallet of every American. While there is no 'magic bullet' available to the government to immediately drop the price of gasoline, on-going federal research in vehicle technologies is starting to yield dividends with the market introduction of automobiles utilizing technologies that will displace some portion of gasoline for power.

Worker health and safety is one of the most important elements in meeting the Department's mission. In particular, given the materials and facilities under EM's charge, the potential human and financial losses that can come from having an unsafe worksite are mindboggling. I appreciate that you take seriously your charge to ensure the safety of the Department's projects and look forward to discussing in detail your office's progress on this front.

Given the constrained fiscal environment, it is particularly important that we strategically plan each major program area to ensure we are proceeding in a deliberate and thoughtful manner, increasing or maintaining our lead in the areas where we can and limiting our investment where we cannot.

I am convinced that the commercial nuclear energy sector in the U.S. is safe and effective. That being said, we must ensure that the lessons learned from last year's tragedy at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility are heeded and we enhance the safety and emergency protocols at America's nuclear reactors.

While it is impossible to entirely prevent some natural disasters, I believe that many are exacerbated by the dramatic underinvestment in our nation's infrastructure. We need to make preventative and proactive investments because in almost every circumstance, it makes more fiscal sense to prevent a disaster than to respond.

Mr. Administrator, at your appearance before the Subcommittee last week, I applauded the hard choices NNSA made in its budget request regarding nuclear weapons. However, I cannot do the same today. I have yet to be provided with any compelling reason for including the funding for USEC within Nonproliferation. Further, I must point out that the increase in the account for USEC roughly corresponds to the drastic reduction in the Second Line of Defense program. I cannot fathom an explanation that will be satisfactory for these changes given the importance of this mission, but I am here to listen to your justification.