Hearing of The Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of The House Appropriations Committee - Opening Statement of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Markup on Fiscal Year 2022 Bill

Hearing

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Chair of the Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's markup of its fiscal year 2022 bill:

Today we will consider the fiscal year 2022 funding bill for Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies. This legislation not only meets the needs of the current moment. Our bill provides a foundation for addressing the challenges our nation will increasingly face as a result of population growth, the changing environment, and certainly, the changing climate.

Headlines this week tell the story. In the LA Times, "Lake Mead, a lifeline for water and electricity, tips toward crisis at its lowest level in 85 years. In Chicago and the Great Lakes, the New York Times reports that the past few years have been the wettest on record. I can personally attest to that. Driving yesterday back here to Washington 7 and a half hours of pounding of pounding rain storms from western Ohio through Pennsylvania through northern Maryland I never thought I would get out of it, definitely that was the worst trip of my life, and we read the news that in Oregon wildfire is robbing California's critical electric supply as the bootleg fire doubles again in terms of acres covered burning along an 8-mile stretch of high voltage power lines. Our goal on this Subcommittee remains to provide the necessary energy and water assets to help sustain life in our nation.

This investment of over $53 billion dollars will provide strategic resources to communities to address these changing environmental challenges as well as those struggling to recover from decades of underinvestment, while creating good-paying jobs in communities left behind in the transition to a new economy.

Our goal remains to provide the necessary energy and water assets to help sustain life in our nation.

This investment of over $53 billion dollars will provide strategic resources to communities struggling to recover from decades of underinvestment while creating good-paying jobs in communities left behind in the transition to the new economy.

It does so partly by rebuilding long-neglected energy and water infrastructure and enhances our national security through a robust nuclear capability and deterrent. This legislation -- a core component of our promise to the American people to Build Back Better -- will better connect power, goods, and services to markets and provide for the safe delivery of energy and water to over 31 million people.

After this past year where the stable and affordable delivery of fossil fuels to consumers has repeatedly been disrupted, the need to diversify our energy sources has never been more urgent. This legislation takes concrete steps to develop and deploy the infrastructure necessary to ensure a cleaner, greener, affordable, and more reliable energy future across all sources, as well as push harder to develop new sources right here in the USA.

And the bill provides necessary resources within our water agencies to help address the worsening western drought.

Our goal is to sustain energy and water independence for the secure future of our nation.

Let me briefly walk through the investments in the 2022 funding bill for Energy and Water Development:

The bill provides $8.6 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers to support water infrastructure throughout our great nation, an increase of $1.9 billion above the budget request. It provides $1.9 billion to the Bureau of Reclamation, an increase of $413 million above the request, an institution so vital to our dry West. It provides $191 million for programs to respond to the severe drought crippling much of the West. It makes use of the budgetary adjustment for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund included in Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) so important to our ports. And, by the way, the WRDA Act was development as of 2020. And finally, it provides $45.1 billion for the Department of Energy, an increase of $3.2 billion above fiscal year 2021 amounts.

And within the Department of Energy, the bill provides historic levels of funding across applied energy and science programs at our nation's finest research labs that propel innovation from coast to coast. And it provides this historic funding level across applied energy and science programs. The bill provides $3.77 billion for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, $906 million above enacted. $600 million for advanced Research on energy at ARPA-E, $173 million above enacted. $398 million for a modernized Weatherization program, $83 million above the enacted, to help assure that low-income households have energy-efficient, more livable homes.

We also will fund -- for the first time within DOE -- a sensible and comprehensive program that helps make improvements to homes with structural, health, or safety defects that would otherwise be unable to participate in the traditional Weatherization program. And I would like to thank full Committee and Labor-HHS Chair DeLauro for her cooperation in this. With blistering heat, punishing storms, and debilitating drought enveloping the nation just this month, this bill provides resources for a comprehensive weatherization program finally. Additionally, the bill responsibly funds America's nuclear deterrent and increases funding for nonproliferation programs.

In short, the bill meets and mandates by providing critical funding for water infrastructure, clean energy, and promotes a credible nuclear deterrent, all the while supporting good-paying jobs related to updating key infrastructure in every region of the country.

I'd like to thank all our Subcommittee members for their engagement, and want to thank my very able Ranking Member, Mr. Simpson. I'd like to thank Chair DeLauro and Ranking Member Granger as well for their strong support.

Finally, I'd like to thank the staff who worked tirelessly and really seamlessly to put this bill together: Jaime Shimek, Scott McKee, Mike Brain, Brian Smith, Will Ostertag, Lauren Leuck, Matt Kaplan, and Angie Giancarlo.

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