Budget Hearing - Department of Energy

The committee will come to order. Mr. Secretary, good afternoon, sir. I have some prepared remarks, but I wanna start with profound thanks to you and your wonderful team at DOE, to the president, um for all you are doing um in your tenure you have been a partner you've been a friend uh we have worked so well together um and i know where your great heart is in this position so profound thanks for me in my role as chairman and as an american thank you sir to everyone on the dais and our friends coming in i'd like to welcome secretary chris wright to the Energy and Water Subcommittee this afternoon. Secretary Wright, thank you for joining us to today to discuss the fiscal year twenty twenty-seven budget request for the Department of Energy. I would like to take a moment to express my deep appreciation for your continued partnership over the last fourteen months your commitment to maintaining strong lines of communication has been invaluable and I look forward to continuing to work closely with you as we develop the fiscal year twenty twenty seven bill. Mister Secretary, the department has continued at an aggressive pace under the Trump administration, and the past year has demonstrated the department's clear commitment to furthering American energy abundance. In the fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget request, the administration continues to prioritize expanding domestic energy production, strengthening technological leadership and enhancing national security, work that is essential to maintaining America's competitiveness. I'm encouraged by the department's continued focus on critical research areas, including high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, nuclear energy and critical minerals. In November, President Trump issued an executive order launching the genesis mission an ambitious effort to advance discovery science enhance our national security and accelerate new energy technologies to the use of artificial intelligence platforms that bring together the national labs and industry collaborators and leverages the department's high performance computing quantum systems and artificial intelligence expertise i look forward to hearing more about the department's plans to further this initiative while also ensuring that these investments do not come at the expense of the department of energy's core scientific discovery mission that is essential to american scientific and technological leadership as many know i have long championed an american dominance in energy strategy because affordable abundant energy benefits every American. However, nuclear energy, it's where my heart is, must remain foundational to that strategy. The administration has appropriately placed nuclear energy at the forefront of its U. S. energy policy, beginning with the twenty twenty-five executive orders aimed at accelerating deployment of advanced reactor technologies and expanding domestic nuclear capacity. With the support of this committee, The department has taken important steps to support demonstration and pilot projects, and to strengthen the domestic fuel cycle, including increasing US enrichment capabilities and supporting efforts to reprocess used nuclear fuel. And on that point, I am a big fan of reprocessing, um, and Secretary Walsh has been so strong on this. Thank you. It's long overdue in America and I thank you for that. However, additional federal investment is essential to ensure the timely commercialization of these advanced technologies, and to establish a secure and resilient domestic nuclear fuel supply chain. Without sustained and targeted support, the United States risks seeding leadership in nuclear innovation and undermining our long-term energy security. I am pleased to see that the budget request continues to prioritize funding for our nation's nuclear deterrent, proposing an increase of twenty-nine percent to the national nuclear security administration another side note thank you for brandon williams our former colleague and a great great administrator the fiscal twenty twenty seven request continues strong investments in sustaining and modernizing the stockpile recapitalization production infrastructure and maintaining the scientific stool tools and workforce to uphold the strength of our nuclear deterrent communist china Their nuclear build-up, Russia's continued aggression and the war in the Persian Gulf underscore how rapidly the global security environment is shifting. And our nuclear deterrent remains indispensable to the United States national defense At the same time it is imperative that the Department of Energy ensure prudent investments that provide the necessary oversight so that taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly. Secretary Wright, thank you again. for being here today. I look forward to working with you and my colleagues to develop a physically responsible bill that will strengthen our national security and advance American energy dominance. I will now turn to my ranking member, my colleague, Miss Capter, for her opening statement. Miss Capter.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Uh, good afternoon and thank you all uh for joining us. Uh, Chairman Fleischman, Secretary Wright, uh thank you for appearing. before us today. Energy security is national security. And that has been the guiding principle of this subcommittee for decades, and it's never been more urgent than it is right now. Nearly fifty years ago, as our nation's economy reeled from the first, uh, Arab oil embargo, President Carter and our predecessors in Congress created the US Department of Energy. Their vision was clear. America must never again be held hostage by foreign energy suppliers. I'm trying to read my own writing here. OK, with steadfast bipartisan commitment, our nation has made remarkable progress. US crude oil production has grown from about nine point six million barrels per day in nineteen seventy to thirteen point six million last year. We are a net petroleum exporter. And yet somehow, American households are still at the mercy of global energy markets and prices. Energy bills are doubling and gas prices have risen a dollar or more per gallon. Diesel fuel is emptying the pockets of our transport industries. It's a really serious problem. I come from a major distribution hub. When Russia invaded Ukraine, oil prices spiked worldwide. We see it again right now as President Trump's invasion of Iran has sent energy prices soaring for American consumers. Since the war began in late February, gas prices have jumped more than a dollar a gallon and the national average hit four dollars and twelve cents this week. The gasoline price spike in March was the largest single month increase on record. Families are paying ten to twenty more dollars every time they fill their tanks and the Energy Information Administration says prices may not return to pre-conflict levels until twenty twenty seven. As we've seen repeatedly, when gas prices rose in nineteen fifty-six, nineteen seventy-three, nineteen seventy-eight, nineteen ninety and two thousand eight for example, our nation endures deep economic downturns. How can prices be going up? When we are pumping more oil, engines are more efficient, and we've brought on massive natural gas supplies to add to our energy portfolio. Why? Now our constituents are enduring the largest global oil supply disruption in history. Exceeding that of the Arab oil embargo in the nineteen seventies, that prompted a strong policy response from the United States. We must again rise to the new occasion, and I know everyone here cares about that as well. It is not just gasoline. Electricity prices in just my region of Ohio have doubled. Utilities coast to coast have proposed or implemented rate hikes after more than one hundred and eleven million co- affecting a hundred and a million, hundred and eleven million customers, one one one. Residential natural gas prices are up thirteen percent. Since the start of this administration, more than eighty million Americans are struggling to pay their utility bills, yet the president's budget eliminates the weatherization assistance program, impacting the wallets of over hundreds of thousands of households across our nation. I don't think that's such a good idea. and working families in northwestern Ohio, across the Midwest, and in every corner of this country are being squeezed hard at the pump, with their electric bills and at the checkout counter. The answer to this crisis is not less energy innovation. It is competitive domestic energy markets and innovation of more efficient power production. Fair pricing and energy independence and perpetuity require we diversify our energy portfolio, no single fuel source. no monopoly, no single conflict, and no single cartel or region can hold the American economy hostage. That is exactly what this department was created to do, and may I observe your department should play no favorites. We have to have our fingers on all the keys. This budget moves in the opposite direction. The Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation is slashed by one point nine billion dollars that's a sixty-three percent cut that's shocking. The weatherization assistance program, which helps low income families reduce their energy bills, is eliminated entirely. I'd like to know what the substitute is for that. The Office of Science is cut by one point one billion, and ARPA-E, which has generated fifteen billion in private sector investment, just uh up from four billion in federal funding, is nearly cut in half. These are the foundations of America's future energy innovation, energy security and energy affordability, and gutting them while families are paying four dollars a gallon for gas, is unconscionable. Further, this budget proposes to cancel and repurpose nearly twenty billion dollars in infrastructure investment and jobs act programs. This will halt critical US energy modernization in manufacturing industries which I represent so many of what's left in America, and the President says he wants to keep. And further, with farmers in agricultural America facing a really rough year due to tariffs, and displace global markets, why is the administration dawdling with approving year-round E-fifteen? And for me that's not even enough. That isn't very adventuresome. Uh, roughly half the corn and soybeans produced just in my congressional district are now dedicated to renewable fuels. And let me tell you, all across agricultural America, that holds true, and this isn't gonna be a good year. We have to do more to help our farmers. Yet the stalled farm bill and year-round E-fifteen authorization for our country await action, while the president extended E-fifteen only temporarily to cover the summer months. Brazil has E-sixty. Technology in our nation can get up to E-thirty. I really don't understand why the administration is punting in such a vital energy sector. Turning to nuclear security, we both Chairman and I, all of us, support maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent. Our world is more dangerous, not less. And Russia continues to threaten nuclear escalation as China rapidly expands its arsenal. Iran, North Korea and other actors collaborate and pose growing risks. Your budget requests thirty-two point eight billion dollars for NNSA, Mister Secretary, a twenty-nine percent increase, driven by a seven billion dollar increase for weapons activities. But NNSA is already managing twenty-eight major construction projects worth more than thirty billion dollars. GAO has found that NNSA project cost overruns have more than doubled, since twenty twenty-three rising to four point eight billion, and all of us must be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We can't pour more money into these programs without strong oversight and project management reform. What deeply concerns me is the other side of your ledger, defense, nuclear, and non-proliferation. And it's essentially flat. The budget before us cuts up to twenty-six percent of the programs that secure nuclear materials and prevent weapons from falling into the wrong hands. Does President Trump I think President Trump needs to be informed that his budget does exactly that. At a time when nuclear threats are growing, these are exactly the programs we should be strengthening, not cutting. A strong deterrent and the ability to stop adversaries from acquiring nuclear weapons must go hand in hand. If not, there is no security. Mister Chairman, in conclusion, energy prices are rising, our grid is under strain, and the world is more dangerous, particularly, huh, again, in the oil kingdoms. This is the moment to invest in American energy innovation, not throttle it, or impose higher energy costs on our households. This is the moment of disciplined reinvestment. We must modernize commercial nuclear power plants with real accountability, new technology, not blank checks. And that is why last week I was so very grateful, along with the Department of Energy, uh, to announce the award by the department to the Great Lakes Region, which will produce one-third, and already does, of our nation's nuclear power. We just gotta do it in a modern way, uh, with no more major mistakes. None. Nuclear reactor safety and workforce development are paramount in a region where nuclear mismanagement harmed the reputation of a technology advanced by our outstanding nuclear navy. This is the moment to strengthen every tool we have for nuclear safety and to prevent nuclear threats, not to hollow out these programs. Thank you for your attention and I look forward to hearing the secretary and to the discussion ahead.

Thank you, Miss Capter. I will now turn to the distinguished ranking member for the full committee, Ms. Dilauro for her opening statement.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman and Ranking Member Capter, I wanna say a thank you to Secretary Wright for taking the time to be here, and to answer the committee's questions today. Uh, let me commend Ranking Member Capter, Chairman Fleischman, along with other members of this subcommittee for their work on the fiscal year twenty twenty six funding bill. Everyone showed that we can come together to forge a bipartisan compromise in this body, and write a bill that passes overwhelmingly. Uh, it is unfortunate that the spirit of cooperation did not find its way into the president's budget um of a budget request for the Department of Energy. The Trump administration's budget would do away with all of the progress we have made. It would revert back to the steep cuts that worsen the cost of the living crisis that so many Americans are facing. In his budget, the president proposes a seventeen percent cut to non-defense funding across the department. There is no question that if this were to become a reality, it would raise energy costs even higher for American families, even as they are struggling with a forty percent increase in gas prices, over a dollar a gallon on average, caused by the president's reckless war of choice with Iran. And just the other day, the president admitted with indifference that the price of gas will likely get even higher. Instead of taking any meaningful steps to bring down the soaring cost of living caused by this administration's policy, the president's budget makes the problem worse. It proposes a nearly two billion dollar cut to the new office of critical minerals and energy innovation, which promotes energy efficiency, supports clean energy development, and improves our energy supply chains. energy more affordable for American families. But instead of investing in these programs, the Trump administration's plan is to take a hatchet to them. They even propose eliminating the weatherization assistance program entirely. This is a program that helps families afford improvements to their homes, to reduce energy wasted by poor insulation or drafty windows. It is a program that saves households who participate in it nearly four hundred dollars a year on average. I guess this administration does not believe American families need that money. Four hundred dollars a year on average. Regrettably, the partisanship in this budget proposal is also present in how DOE has conducted itself over the past year. In October, the department announced the termination of over two hundred projects, totaling more than seven point five billion dollars in federal funding, exclusively in states that voted for Vice President Harris in the twenty twenty four election. It is impossible to interpret this as anything other than punishing voters for executing their political freedoms. It's an abuse of power so fundamentally un-American it should unnerve every member of this committee. Over the past year, the Democrat the department recklessly to carry out a series of staffing reductions without giving any thought to whom they were firing. They ended up having to rehire many employees because abruptly terminating them posed a national security risk. It turns out we do in fact need the technical experts who maintain our nuclear arsenal. All of this chaos only adds to the confusion and uncertainty that the administration uh uh that the administration is imposing on American families. And you know what American families are sick and tired of having to deal all with all of this because of this administration. Eliminating programs, blocking grant funding for political reasons, haphazardly laying off staff, and crippling the capacity of the Department of Energy uh offices to serve the public, all share a common effect. They make Americans' lives worse. I know my colleagues on this committee, Democrats and Wo- Republicans, we can work together. to produce a bill that helps the American people. But based on this budget proposal, I do not believe the Trump administration has any clue about the challenges so many families are facing today. I hope that as we move forward through the fiscal year, twenty twenty seven, in terms of that funding process, that we can forcefully reject these reckless cuts to programs that so many people rely on. Secretary Wright, I look forward to hearing your testimony and to being able to answer uh uh you're being able to answer our questions today. I thank you and I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Laro. Mr. Secretary, thank you again for being here today. Without objection, your full written testimony will be entered into the record. With that in mind, we would ask that you please summarize your remarks in five minutes. Secretary Wright, you are now recognized.

Thank you. Chairman Fleishman, Ranking Member, Captor and members of committee thank you for the opportunity to testify on the President's fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget for the Department of Energy. Under President Trump's leadership, we have put the department back on mission, delivering affordable, reliable and secure energy to the American people. Let me highlight what this looks like. We have taken decisive steps to restore grid reliability. Using emergency authorities under section two O two C of the Federal Power Act, We kept critical base load generation online after DOE analysis warned outage risk could increase by up to one hundred fold by twenty thirty due to supply shortfalls, if we had continued on the previous trajectory. This action and the market response to our actions preserved seventeen gigawatts of critical dispatchable generation for the American people. Hundreds of American lives were saved By these actions during winter storm fern, historic cold drove record heating and electricity demand. Dispatchable energy, natural gas, coal, hydro, and nuclear were the MVPs of the grid. In New England, at peak demand, which is what matters with an electricity grid, hydrocarbons, hydro, and nuclear power provided ninety-five percent of the electricity. Wind, solar, and batteries provided two percent. far less than the three percent that was derived from burning wood and trash. The lesson, when reliability is on the line, dispatchable energy shows up. We work to establish American energy leadership globally. Since President Trump ended the previous administration's reckless LNG export approval ban, the department has approved more than nineteen billion cubic feet a day of new export authorizations. which is more than America's entire capacity upon inauguration last January. This is a win for America, a win for our allies, a win for global energy security, and a blow to our adversaries. We're advancing national security at home and abroad. From day one, President Trump has focused on delivering prosperity at home and peace abroad. Occasionally, Power seg- national security is anchored. Occasionally power must be projected to create long-term peace. American national security is anchored by our nuclear deterrent. DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration is honored by this mission to ensure a safe, secure and effective deterrent against new and evolving threats. Today, NNSA is delivering more new weapons seven warhead modernization programs simultaneously and plutonium pits than at any time since the Cold War. We are driving a nuclear renaissance. Our efforts span next generation reactor pilot programs, re-establishing American nuclear enrichment capacity and domestic nuclear fuel fabrication, reprocessing of spent fuel, and a pathway to spent fuel permitted storage. I am proud to share that we will have multiple advanced reactor prototypes, critical by American's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. We are driving hard to meet President Trump's goal of quadrupling nuclear capacity to four hundred gigawatts by twenty fifty. This ensures nuclear energy will play a central role in powering America's re-industrialization and leadership in AI. Our budget request reaffirms our commitment to cleaning up nuclear waste and communities that carried the weight of America's earliest nuclear programs. We are bringing professional management and innovation to enhance clean-up efforts while seeking to redevelop cleaned-up sites like Portsmouth, Paducah, Hanford, and others. We launched the Genesis mission to bring AI's immense promise to scientific and technological innovation. In our nation's history, there have been two great scientific mobilizations. the World War Two Manhattan Project and the Apollo space program. The Genesis mission is the third. Genese- Genesis mission is focused on the most difficult scientific challenges of our time, quantum computing, fusion energy, advanced materials development and human health. We are partnering where industry alone cannot go, tackling long-term challenges that require national commitment, bringing together our national laboratories, universities and industry to accelerate scientific discovery. We are winning the AI race and lowering energy costs. By leveraging department owned land and assets, we are enabling rapid deployment of large scale compute capacity through public-private partnerships. We are working closely with industry and communities to ensure these projects adhere to the President's important rate payer protection pledge to rapidly expand our nation's electricity grid and the Biden and to reverse the Biden administration's ruinous rise in electricity prices. We are securing critical minerals, we have strategically reorganized the department, consolidating five offices into a single office of critical minerals and energy innovation. This creates one hub across DOE, the national labs and external partners to manage the full supply chain from mining mining and processing to magnets and batteries. We have committed one billion in existing funding to strengthen domestic supply chains, reduce reliance on foreign adversaries, and re-shore American manufacturing. We are restoring fiscal discipline. We inherited a department that prioritized political objectives over energy security. The restructured Office of Energy Dominance Financing is correcting that. We've reviewed every loan commitment of taxpayer dollars, restructuring or eliminating over eighty billion dollars in loans. more than eighty percent of the Biden era loan portfolio and we are redirecting that capital towards projects that strengthen reliability and American energy production including an historic twenty-six billion dollar loan to the southern company that will lower costs and expand grid capacity in multiple states. Finally, we are preparing for the future. America is open for business again and trillions of dollars are being invested in American infrastructure for manufacturing and AI data centers. Meeting this moment requires abundant, reliable and secure energy, and that is exactly what this budget delivers. As Secretary of Energy, I'm honored to lead this effort for President Trump and work with this committee to strengthen America's energy future. I'm also honored to partner with the great men and women you see sitting behind me, and that are populated around the country in the Department of Energy's efforts. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Secretary Wright. We will now begin with questions starting with my own, and I anticipate that we'll probably have two rounds, so I'm going to limit my questions to to five minutes and ask that my colleagues do the same. Mister Secretary, in May of last year, the department ish initiated a review of financial assistance awards to identify and eliminate wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars and to ensure that awards of advanced affordable and reliable energy was there for the American people. Mister Secretary, can you please provide the committee an update on this review, sir?

Yes, it it was quite an ambitious endeavor. There were over twenty-two hundred projects that were reviewed through a critical lens of what will benefit American taxpayers, most importantly American ratepayers, American consumers of energy across the country. We were hampered by multiple factors and I have to call out one, it's the Senate, not the House, but every single Senate confirmed appointee to the Department of Energy was filibustered, for the first time in American history. I did not get a meaningful amount of the leadership of the Department of Energy until late October. We worked all summer long evaluating projects, discussing, debating, pushing back both ways. Uh, and then we bring in the leadership of these various departments comes in in October. And quite understandably, they all wanted to engage and involve themselves in these critical decisions in the departments they were tapped to lead and to hold. But we so we re-reviewed twenty-two hundred projects to make those critical decisions of which projects advance the interest of American ratepayers of American taxpayers and our national security. Giving the tie to the runner, if a project had a credible way to be helpful, Uh, we we we we supported it. We've had hundreds of dialogues with applicants back and forth. Many projects were readjusted to better align it. The the the applicants themselves said, yeah, well, we only put that in because we we were told if we did that, we would get money. So we we did a rigorous business evaluation, unfortunately, of a lot of projects that didn't even have a business plan or a credible pathway to success. Um, but I am am am happy to say That effort has finally come to a completion, not as fast as I would have liked, uh, but a number of factors out of my control. But we have finished that that effort and we are keen to move forward with, uh, the majority of the projects which did pass, either straight up or through restructuring. And on we go.

Thank you for that endeavor on on your part and on the part of the entire department. Thank you, sir. Uh, Mister Secretary, in your uh testimony in your statement, you talked about the Genesis mission. Um, and I'd like to ask you a couple of questions in my remaining time. In your view, what are the short, medium and long-term goals of the Genesis mission? And how will the national lab and industry partners get you there? And then my follow-up question is, what is the single most impactful example of the Genesis mission success that you can describe for each of the office of science and and NSA?

Wow, we yeah, look, the Genesis mission to me is is an opportunity of a lifetime. As I mentioned, this is really the third United States large-scale mobilization of our scientific resources which is mostly housed in our national labs but our, but also in our universities and private industry. We hear a lot about giant AI investments for economic improvement, for advancing services, for doing all sorts of tremendous things. But, but private industry does not think, they cannot invest in understanding what dark matter is or how to understand plasma instabilities behave and therefore how to get to viable fusion energy, how to develop new advanced materials, and maybe personally most exciting to me, we can understand at the small protein folding you know molecular level, pathogens and causes of disease in Americans, we can take a number of serious conditions, think cancers that today are death sentences, and turn them into manageable conditions. literally millions of lives will ultimately be saved by the genesis mission. This is not an easy mission. This is all seventeen national labs, this is taking the data sets from fundamental scientific research, putting them in a fashion where they can be harvested from AI, the minds and innovation within our labs, across our universities and in private industry, and focusing on one effort, we have to speed the rate of scientific innovation, to better energize our country, to supercharge our ability to deliver healthcare services, to protect and shepherd our nuclear arsenal, and to understand and defend from foes abroad with their capabilities of today, and with the capabilities that are gonna evolve going forward. Thank you all for supporting the initial funding for the Genesis mission. I hope we will continue to expand and grow that effort. This is not replacing basic science. This is supercharging our pace of scientific and ener- and engineering innovation. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, thank you. I could not be more pleased with that response. Thank you, sir. At this time, I would like to recognize the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee, Miss Capter, for five minutes.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you, Secretary Wright. Uh, you got your arms around the department and uh, we're full steam ahead. I wanted to ask you um, starting with uh the uh infrastructure investment and jobs act uh the department uh proposes cancelling fifteen point two billion dollars uh in funding for what were competitively awarded energy projects my questions are um does this budget contemplate additional project terminations beyond those already announced? and is there any path to reconsider, are all projects being reconsidered, particularly I have to put in a plug here, for manufacturing America where energy costs would be saved for companies that truly are in global competition and uh energy could make or break the company. Um and um how is the department assessing which projects will be canceled, which will not be canceled and how do we work with you on that?

Thank you, Representative Caster, for uh, Capter, sorry, for that question. Thank you. And thank you for your passion for manufacturing and blue-collar jobs in this country. You've you've led in that for decades. OK. I, as you know, and as we've discussed before, I share I share that particular interest. OK. Um, it is a deep passion of mine. So on reconsideration, a hundred percent. We've already had a number of those, where we have made decisions in the department, we have communicated those, uh so you know some of those last year and then we get feedback from the applicants saying i don't think you read my thing right will you hear me out we say, of course we will hear you out, that's our job. We've had a number of projects where we've made decisions, we've been clarified and educated and thought you know you're right, I I I think we misunderstood what you were doing there or we thought it wasn't viable because we didn't see that connecting step that makes the math works. So absolutely we are willing and ready to engage those. you you referenced a lot of the the projects or the dollars that we did cancel. Frankly, there were a lot of projects, large in scale, that had no, no there there, no meat on the bones. Hundreds, hundreds of projects of hundreds of millions of dollars, that didn't have a business plan, that would basically just spend the taxpayer money, and we'd have nothing new at the end. We'd have no new factory that stayed open or no new innovation that could have a business based on. We had giant amount of money going to massive American companies to produce mac and cheese that they already know how to produce, but to produce it with a little bit lower greenhouse gas emissions. How does that justify spending huge American dollars to deliver the same product but make it a little bit more expensive? Those are simply not projects I think in the American taxpayer interest, but there are many that were, and well over eighty percent of all these projects we reviewed in detail, passed, and are going on. And did we make mistakes in some of them? Absolutely. And are we willing to re-engage? You bet.

Th- well that's good news. Thank you. Thank you. I know you'll give them careful review, but uh I've just seen so many places close uh in my career and I I just think where it's possible to advance manufacturing, we should do it. Uh in view of the nature of the competition that many of these companies face, so thank you on that. I I wanted to um uh go to the nuclear deterrent issue. Uh GAO reported in February that cost overruns on NNSA's twenty-eight major construction projects have doubled, more than doubled, rising to four point eight billion dollars. So the plutonium pit production program is split across two sites, and it will likely cost well over twenty billion dollars, and still does not have a comprehensive life cycle cost estimate. Could you kind of talk about what specific project management reforms NNSA is implementing and when will Congress receive a complete life cycle cost estimate for the pit production?

Uh, thank thank again, thank thank you Representative Capter for raising that question. It is a another serious passion of mine is our nation's security. NNSA as you as you recognize is more than half of our department. Um, its management track record over the last decade or two has not been good. Um, another reason I was particularly frustrated that my administer for NNSA came in late last year. Um, but we have tried to look at at that endeavor, how it works, how the management incentives of of people and how to align if you have X responsibility, but you're not empowered to do the things that are needed to deliver that then the responsibility and the empowerment are misaligned. So we have realigned incentives, empowerment and responsibilities. So basically trying to run it more like a business. And and I'm happy to say, I think we're seeing rapid progress there.

Mm.

The pit production uh at Los Alamos has ramped up rapidly. We are both uh moving out old legacy equipment while actually manufacturing pits. We have people taking the second site that you referenced that's gonna be at savannah river uh don't don't wait till we get that done come on out to los alamos and work with us in pit production today and and and developing the new lines and how we're gonna manufacture this going forward i think we're seeing a rapid acceleration in our capacity to build and construct pits and that will come with a very critical eye to the design of the facility um that will be at savannah river for pit production we're learning cause we're producing pits again

alright thank you glad you're got both hands on it

thank you miss captor at this time i would like to recognize my friend the distinguished chairman of the interior subcommittee of appropriations and a former chair of this committee and he represents the great idaho reservation uh my friend and mentor mike simpson

thank you mr. chairman uh secretary i appreciate you uh achieving your goal of last year of visiting all of the uh doe labs throughout the country and uh i wasn't gonna say this

no

out of respect for uh my chairman and also out of respect for my friend from the hanford pnnl area but you saved the best for last it was it was great

representative simpson said this at the lab when we were together and believe me they liked it.

And they brought a cake that said that. Anyway, uh, as you know the INL is doing amazing things and uh the demonstration of micro-reactors experiment or the dome test bed is now open and operating uh It presents uh some really exciting times for nuclear energy in in the future for these micro-reactors and other reactors and uh this is there's obviously a lot going on at the inl and much of that work is relying on unique uh facilities the and infrastructure that the inl has however given that the inl is seventy five years old uh a lot of that infrastructure is almost as old as the inl is and i appreciate the fact that president trump and you put in this budget a proposed increase for the inl infrastructure uh account and uh uh if congress can deliver additional funding specifically to address infrastructure recapitalization of the INL. Is DOE aligned to make it a priority to address the aging infrastructure at the lab site?

Absolutely we are, and and thank you for raising that. As I tour our facilities and in in the great state of Tennessee as well, our legacy facilities that usher ushered in the nuclear age, both in the weapons side, which which sounds scary, but they've actually brought great peace and stability among the great nations of the world, and launched nuclear energy. particularly at INL and the the original the original pile uh in the Chicago squash court, the first ever sustained controlled nuclear reaction is the genesis of Idaho National Lab.

Yep.

So, when I look at those aging facilities and how important they are to their future, I want nothing more than to accelerate the replacement of that infrastructure. Now, I have my own my own uh fights on budget, you know, with with with the administration on how to do these things. So I, you know, I get some wins, I get some losses. But can we deploy more capital to advance the infrastructure of our legacy labs faster? Absolutely we can. Will it age age the mission to bring in this nuclear renaissance to more rapidly modernize our weapon stockpile and all that? Absolutely it will.

I appreciate that. Uh, a couple other issues, this really isn't a question, it's just something I wanna make you aware of that I'm sure you are. The Idaho delegation sent a letter last week to you, and I didn't realize that this existed uh until about a year ago. Uh, as you know, the DOE side in Idaho, I think the same thing is true at Hanford, uh, is not owned by all of it by the DOE. Uh, much of it's that crosshatch of uh land, Department of Interior, BLM land, and uh, and DOE land. And this complication complicates the working uh with two different federal agencies that create some problems. Uh, I wanted just to make you aware of that and hope that DOE and DOI and the delegation can work together to try to solve this problem not only at Idaho but also if it's necessary at Hanford, because DOE ought to own that land at the DOE site.

I I agree entirely and I am aware of the issue and I will work with secretary Burgum. Of course it's a legacy of building the railroads across the United States and this cross hatching of sections that were distributed.

Yep.

But yeah, I agree. It's a problem we should solve and I and I don't see any reason we can't solve it. But I need to work with the Interior Department to do that.

I appreciate that. Uh. One more question. Recent incidents have raised concerns about the presence of unauthorized wireless signals and devices within sensitive and classified spaces across federal facilities including those under the D uh DOE. Those signals, whether from personal devices, rogue access points, or foreign in- surveillance tools, pose a risk to national security by creating vulnerabilities uh for d- uh for data or unauthorized disclosure. As DOE oversees critical nuclear and energy infrastructure, ensuring strict control over wireless activities inside secure environments is essential. What specific steps is the Department of Energy currently taking to detect, prevent, and mitigate unauthorized wireless devices within classified or sensitive DOE facilities? And does the department maintain a comprehensive real-time capability to monitor and track unauthorized wireless devices and signals in secure spaces. And how are those incidents detected, analyzed and reported to ensure accountability and continuous improvement?

Yeah, so look, again you raise a huge question. The risk of cyber threats, the risk of devious behavior, even of drones over our sites is growing rapidly. We are aware of it. We have efforts to address it. Do we have a comprehensive plan that I can say is gonna work rock solid? No, we don't yet. But that is absolutely a front and center topic for us, and I think we're gonna see it across the government, just growing risks of cyber espionage, misbehavior, and and we need to get serious and we need to have a a better system to deal with the evolving threats.

I've always been worried about a nuclear attack, but I will tell you a cyber attack is is more scary than just about anything.

Yes.

Thank you.

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. At this time, I'd like to recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mister Lareau, for five minutes of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wright, thanks again for coming before us today to discuss the budget request. Uh, on October first, secretary, during a government shutdown, uh, your department announced the termination of seven and a half billion dollars in energy awards across more than two hundred projects. Those project terminations targeted states that voted for Vice President Harris in the twenty twenty-four presidential election. The very next day you were on CNN and told the American people that this was just a quote " partial" list and that more terminations were coming. You said and I quote, uh " as this fall goes on, you'll see cancellations in red and blue states", end quote. That was seven months ago, so effectively the only projects that have been terminated were targeted at blue states, including two uh with direct ties to my district in Connecticut, which is a very parochial interest, as you can imagine. And when this was challenged in court, your own department didn't even try to deny it. Department of Education and OM of of Energy and OMB stipulated, admitted in a legal filing that, and I quote, "A primary reason for the selection of which DOE grant termination decisions was included in the October twenty twenty-five notice tranche was whether the grantee was located in a blue state." End quote. The District Court this January found that this violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law, you did not appeal that ruling. So let me be direct, Secretary. You claimed that the project reviews were not conducted on political grounds. It appears that that was not true. The courts have ruled that targeting blue states is unconstitutional. Your own lawyers have conceded that point. So, um, given that you did not appeal the court's ruling, will you now reverse all remaining blue state terminations that were selected on the same unconstitutional basis?

Uh, so so let me restate ag- again. all of the twenty two hundred and seventy projects we evaluated were were not evaluated in any way shape or form based on where they were and the award location is just is just one address most of these awards involve cross-state collaboration they get supplier pieces here the the award could be in one state most of the money spent in another state so this is a broad bet base uh efforts on on where these things go and all of the people that worked on our project review process uh did not take into account any politics in the evaluation of these projects

well i i i i understand what you're saying that but the district court just January found that this violated the fifth amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law your own department didn't uh uh tried to deny that that was the decision based on the decision that was whether a grantee was located in a in a blue state So, Mister Secretary, your department canceled projects based on the fact that they were located in the States and voted for Vice President Harris. And again, your own lawyers conceded a point in court, I I'm not making making that up, I read you the quotes. Did they lie to the judge? And do we need to look to disbarment procedures uh for for th- for these folks? I I I apparently uh there's a discrepancy between what you are saying and what the court determined about those projects. So, um uh i i think that have some concern and my hope would be that you would reinstate those projects that were uh denied uh to to blue states uh like my own state of the revolution wind project in this in the state of connecticut because in fact the court ruled that uh uh illegal an illegal action um let me move to another question which has to do with energy rebates um

ok

uh You know, the administration is not just driving up the cost of gas, it's using spending freezes, grant cancellations to attack clean energy projects, attacking federal programs that are aimed directly at helping families address rising utility bills. In addition to proposing the elimination of the low-income home energy assistance program isn't uh uh uh quite honestly that's really mindless. LIHEAP, a program which had just through uh we addressed that through another subcommittee, The budget proposes to cut major energy assistance programs at Department of Energy. Uh, through the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats and Congress provided eight billion dollars to DOE for the home energy rebates program. Program puts money directly back in the hands of America's households. The rebates help consumers save money on home improvements, uh, on those projects that can be lower energy bills by providing up to fourteen thousand dollars per household in rebates. Estimated that the programs will save households up to a billion dollars per year on energy bills and support over fifty thousand US jobs. DOE has stalled on implementing these programs for well over a year already. You could be saving households' money if we're in the midst of a cost of living crisis in the United States. Whether the administration or the president believes it, says affordability is a hoax, it is not a hoax, it is a reality. Start to talk to real people on what's going on in their lives. Um, so what what is the timing? for releasing the funds for the home energy whole house rebates program and for the high efficiency electric home rebates program