By Rich Heidorn Jr.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and ranking member Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) unveiled their long-awaited energy legislation Thursday, incorporating some 50 bills previously approved by the panel.

Murkowski said the 550-page American Energy Innovation Act “is our best chance to modernize our nation’s energy policies in more than 12 years,” an apparent reference to the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.

The bill “will modernize domestic energy laws to ensure the United States remains a global energy leader while also strengthening national security, increasing our international competitiveness and investing in clean energy technologies,” she said in a statement. “By working together to pass it into law, we can promote a range of emerging technologies that will help keep energy affordable even as it becomes cleaner and cleaner. Our bill also addresses national needs by taking overdue steps to enhance our cybersecurity, grid security and mineral security. I’m proud of the bipartisan work we have done and encourage all members of the Senate to work with us to advance it through the legislative process.”

Murkowski’s previous efforts to update energy efficiency laws with former ranking member Maria Cantwell repeatedly fell short. But Murkowski indicated she had support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S.2657, a geothermal research and development bill by Murkowski and Manchin that she said will serve as the legislative vehicle for the bill. The Hill reported that the bill could reach the floor as soon as next week.

In addition to reauthorizing the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) through fiscal year 2025, the bill could mean higher salaries for some FERC employees and provide new markets for coal and natural gas. It includes initiatives for carbon capture, ocean energy, next generation nuclear power and advanced vehicles and would create incentives for utility investments in cybersecurity.

The bill won immediate support from the National Mining Association; ClearPath Action, a conservative clean energy group; the Nature Conservancy; and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) said it backed the bill’s support for energy storage. “However, all should understand that federal investment in future innovation, while constructive, is not nearly a sufficient response to the climate crisis. In 2020, any energy bill should include provisions to accelerate near-term renewable energy deployment. More specifically, ACORE calls on Congress to include critical clean energy tax incentives in this package.”

Below is a summary of some of the most significant provisions of the bill:

Energy Efficiency

• Creates a pilot program to award grants to provide nonprofit buildings with energy efficiency materials;
• Competitive grants for schools to make energy improvements;
• Establishes a program to implement smart building technology and demonstrate the costs and benefits of smart buildings;
• Extends existing federal building energy efficiency improvement targets through 2028, and adds water use reduction targets through 2030;
• Requires development of a metric for data center energy efficiency;
• Reauthorizes the Weatherization Assistance Program through FY 2025; and
• Establishes rebate programs for the replacement of energy-inefficient electric motors and transformers.

Capacity Building and Workforce Development

• Provides grants to colleges for building training and assessment centers and grants to partially cover the cost of training programs in energy-efficient building technologies;
• Establishes a pilot program to provide competitively awarded cost-shared grants to support training and apprenticeship programs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, grid modernization or the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions;
• Establishes a joint industry-government partnership to research, develop and demonstrate new sustainable manufacturing and industrial technologies and processes; and
• Authorizes FERC to pay employees with scientific technological, engineering and mathematical skills at a higher level than that allowed under civil service.

Renewable Energy

• Extends incentives for hydroelectric production and efficiency authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 through FY 2036;
• Modernizes the Department of Energy’s R&D work on marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy; establishes the National Marine Renewable Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Centers at institutions of higher education;
• Requires the U.S. Geological Survey to update its geothermal resource assessment; establishes a program to adapt oil and gas technologies for geothermal development; creates a prize competition for the production of critical minerals from geothermal brines; expands research into enhanced geothermal systems; establishes a research program for heat pumps and direct use; defines the thermal component of geothermal energy as renewable; and
• Establishes solar and wind energy technology programs.

Energy Storage

• Incorporates the Better Energy Storage Technology Act, establishing a research, development and deployment (RD&D) program to advance energy storage technologies; requires at least five demonstration projects; establishes a joint long-term demonstration initiative with the secretary of defense; facilitates a technical and planning assistance program for rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities; directs FERC to issue a regulation on energy storage cost recovery;
• Provides the secretary of the interior with sole authority for the development of pumped storage hydropower projects on Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs, eliminating the need for a separate permit from FERC; and
• Creates a program on grid-scale energy storage to address challenges identified in the 2013 DOE Strategic Plan for Grid Energy Storage, including systems research, power conversion technologies research, grid-scale testing and analysis, and storage device safety and reliability.

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage

• Establishes a technology program to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, costs and environmental performance of coal and natural gas use, including an R&D program, large-scale pilot projects, demonstration projects, and a front-end engineering and design program;
• Establishes an RD&D carbon storage program, a large-scale carbon sequestration demonstration program and an integrated storage program;
• Establishes an RD&D program to identify and assess novel uses for carbon, carbon oxide, carbon capture technologies for industrial systems and alternative uses for coal; and
• Establishes a program to develop technologies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere on a large scale.

Nuclear

• Replaces DOE’s existing Nuclear Energy Systems Support Program with a Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program to maximize the benefits of existing nuclear generation; enable continued operation of existing nuclear power plants through technology development; improve performance; and reduce plant operating and maintenance costs;
• Creates a research program on next-generation light water reactor and advanced reactor fuels through FY 2025; and
• Requires DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy to develop a 10-year strategic plan that supports advanced nuclear R&D to help such reactors reach the market.

Vehicles

• Creates a program of basic and applied research, development, engineering, demonstration and commercial application activities to increase the efficiency of, and reduce petroleum use in, passenger and commercial vehicles;
• Creates a program of research, development, engineering, demonstration and commercial application for advanced vehicle manufacturing technologies and practices; and
• Creates a program of cooperative research, development, demonstration and commercial application activities on advanced technologies for medium- to heavy-duty commercial, vocational, recreational and transit vehicles.

Natural Gas

• Amends the Natural Gas Act to expedite approval of exports of small volumes of natural gas by deeming applications to export up to 51.75 billion cubic feet per year to any country to be consistent with the public interest;
• Authorizes a study involving DOE and the secretaries of defense and treasury on the potential national and economic security benefits of building ethane and other natural gas liquids-related petrochemical infrastructure in the vicinity of the Marcellus, Utica and Rogersville shale plays.

Supply Chain Security

• Updates the congressional declaration of policy on mineral security; and
• Creates a program to develop advanced separation technologies for the extraction and recovery of rare earth elements and minerals from coal and coal byproducts.

Cybersecurity and Grid Security and Modernization

• Amends the Federal Power Act to require FERC, working with DOE, NERC, the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, to establish incentive-based rate treatments to encourage utility investments in advanced cybersecurity technology and participation in cybersecurity threat information sharing programs;
• Establishes a competitive grant program for rural and municipal utilities to deploy advanced cybersecurity technology and participate in cybersecurity threat information sharing;
• Authorizes financial assistance to help states develop energy security plans that assess states’ existing circumstances and proposes ways to improve its ability to secure infrastructure and minimize supply disruptions; reauthorizes the State Energy Program through FY 2025;
• Requires DOE, working with state regulatory authorities, industry, the Electric Reliability Organization and other relevant federal agencies, to advance the physical security and cybersecurity of electric utilities, with priority provided to utilities with fewer resources; requires a report to Congress on improving the cybersecurity of electricity distribution systems;
• Creates a program to develop advanced energy sector cybersecurity technologies and applications, and to leverage electric grid architecture to assess risks to the energy sector; requires DOE conduct “cybertesting” and mitigation to identify vulnerabilities of energy sector supply chain products;
• Establishes a grant program for projects modernizing the electric grid, including distribution system technologies;
• Establishes a program to promote hybrid microgrid systems for isolated communities and microgrid systems to increase the resilience of critical infrastructure; and
• Creates a process to develop model grid architecture and a set of future scenarios to examine the impacts of different combinations of resources on the electric grid; the energy secretary would use the findings to determine whether any new standards are necessary for the grid, and if so, make recommendations.