Cost-Share Accountability Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. OBERNOLTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas) for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of my bill, H.R. 342, the Cost- Sharing Accountability Act.

Mr. Speaker, research and development grants in the field of energy administered by the Department of Energy play a critical role in innovation and energy research in the United States. The administration and awarding of those grants is governed by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Among other things, that act requires the DOE to impose a cost share on the recipients of those grants. That cost share can be as low as 20 percent in the case of research and development grants, or as high as 50 percent in the case of commercialization and demonstration grants.

The purpose of this cost share is simple. It is to ensure that the grant recipients also have some skin in the game when it comes to ensuring the success of the grants and the projects that they are bidding on and demonstrating.

Several months ago, the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held an oversight hearing in which we investigated the occasions on which the Department of Energy had waived those cost-sharing requirements on grants that it had awarded.

The DOE has the statutory ability to waive those cost shares under the appropriate circumstances. We wanted to make sure that that authority was being exercised judiciously.

Although we found that the DOE was appropriately waiving those cost shares under those circumstances, we were very surprised by the lack of transparency in that process and equally surprised by the difficulty with which the subcommittee had in acquiring the information about how often the DOE was waiving those cost shares.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, H.R. 342, is a very simple solution to that problem. It will require the DOE to make quarterly reports to the committees of jurisdiction in both the House and the Senate on the occasions and the circumstances under which it waives cost-share requirements for the grants that it awards.

This will enhance Congress' ability to exercise oversight over the DOE. Equally importantly, it will impose greater transparency into this process for the parties that apply for these grants, and it will demonstrate the circumstances under which the DOE would consider waiving those cost-share requirements.

Mr. Speaker, this is basic good governance. It is an oversight bill. I hope it is something that we all on both sides of the aisle can support.

I thank my cosponsor, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster), for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of H.R. 342.

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