The two house of Congress passed their own versions of the Energy and Water appropriations bill that includes Department of Energy funding. Now the bill will go to committee before a final version is passed by both house before it is sent to President Obama to be signed into law.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) told the New York Times that merging the House and Senate bills should not be too difficult. “I don’t anticipate that this process is going to be full of controversy. I think we will be able to do this in fairly short order. We have somewhat different numbers on water issues and certain areas of energy, but I think we will get this done,” he said.
Overall, the House’s version of the bill (pdf) provides $26.9 billion for DOE. According to the House Appropriations Committee, this is $86 million above current spending. The Senate’s version of the bill (pdf) provides almost $27.4 billion for DOE, $5.4 billion for the corps and almost $1.2 billion for Interior water programs.” House and Senate lawmakers will have the task of ironing out the differences.
Some of the funds will be funneled as follows:
$2.25 billion for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.
$4.94 billion for DOE’s Office of Science.
$15 million into district energy and combined heat and power systems.
$812 million for nuclear energy research.
$618 million for research and development for carbon capture and storage projects and alternative fuel technologies.
$15 million into district energy and combined heat and power systems.
Both versions also apparently contain funding for hydrogen vehicle research.
Congress is currently adjourned for summer recess and as a result, final passage of the bill is likely to occur in the early autumn.
