A strong federal commitment to nuclear energy, carbon capture, hydrogen and critical mineral extraction could provide a foundation for bipartisan support for President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure package — at least for Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Those technologies were a key focus of the committee’s Tuesday hearing on the Department of Energy’s 2022 budget, with Secretary Jennifer Granholm promoting the American Jobs Plan as the vehicle for developing new and advanced carbon-free technologies to create jobs and drive U.S. leadership in global markets.

Granholm highlighted a new $12 million funding initiative for direct air capture technologies, rolled out on Tuesday; DOE’s recently announced Hydrogen Shot, aimed at cutting the cost of clean hydrogen to $1/kg over the next decade; and the $1.8 billion budgeted for nuclear energy programs.

However, she said, such spending represents only “a down payment on a cleaner, more prosperous future [that] truly would not be fulfilled without the American Jobs Plan, which would not only position the country to compete in the global clean energy market and confront the climate crisis, but would allow us to lift up our disadvantaged communities, tribal nations and other communities of color that have been historically burdened by pollution.”

Appearing before the full committee at a live hearing, Granholm dialed down her normal ebullience as she faced tough questions from both sides of the aisle and looked for potential points of agreement. The hearing is the third Granholm has faced on DOE’s 2022 budget thus far; a fourth is scheduled for June 23 before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Congress has once again missed its nonbinding April 15 deadline for passing the next fiscal year’s budget, and hearings on departmental budgets are ongoing across different congressional committees.

The DOE budget numbers did not all add up for committee Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), whose vote will be critical for the passage of any infrastructure package in the Senate. While pleased with the budget’s increased funding for the department’s Office of Fossil Energy, Manchin queried Granholm on why the department has set 2022 spending for carbon-capture technology at only $890 million, when the bipartisan Energy Act of 2020 had authorized up to $1 billion.

Noting that the global fleet of coal-fired plants continues to grow in China and across developing economies, Manchin said, “It’s clear as day to me we need to remain focused on getting the cost of [carbon capture and sequestration] technologies down to be able to deploy them on a wide scale around the world because fossil is not going away, as much as some people would like that.”

While not commenting directly on the funding cut, Granholm said that DOE’s Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management had seen a 19% increase in funding from the previous year, while nuclear was up 23%. “We are completely committed to these,” she said. “We just want to make sure we are prioritizing these within the context of the overall number in the budget.”

Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) took the hardest line against the Biden agenda, decrying an increase in gas prices and growing strains on the grid as “wind and solar energy displace reliable coal and nuclear power. Where we once worried about OPEC control over energy supplies, we’re now witnessing China and Russia dominate critical supply chains, and at the rate we’re going, America may soon face an energy crisis like we did in the ’70s,” Barrasso said.

He also pushed Granholm on Biden’s hold on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, which she answered by noting “current lease holders are able to continue to operate under their current leases while the administration evaluates what it is going to do going forward. But I will say that the entire world is moving toward trying to find solutions to make sure that we have reliable power, whether it’s fuel for transportation or fuel for buildings and the built environment,” Granholm said. “That’s the kind of technologies that the Department of Energy is really interested in.”

Critical Minerals

Republicans and Democrats from Western states shared a common concern about building out a U.S. supply chain for critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies.

“The U.S. is far too reliant on foreign countries like China for the minerals and raw materials used for energy, defense, health care and more,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said. “They could become truly a single point of failure in the supply chain for the United States and the world if we don’t start creating domestic production.”

“Before we can recycle [materials], we have to cycle [them] in the first place, so we’ve got to get those minerals from somewhere,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said, pitching her state’s “great mining opportunities” and the ability to co-locate mining and processing facilities.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) also said the U.S. should be looking at critical mineral extraction for domestic supply chains, while also “recognizing there is a way to still protect the environment and bring all the stakeholders in, in a collaborative nature so everybody is working on the same page.”

Granholm agreed across the board. Responding to Daines, she held up a copy of the DOE’s National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries, released earlier this month, which includes a call for mining lithium and other critical minerals in the U.S. (See DOE Wants US Lithium Battery Supply Chain in Place by 2030.)

Calling for a “philosophical conversation,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) suggested that the energy transition underway from fossil fuels to renewables and electrification is too abrupt, arguing for a more gradual transition with natural gas and hybrid vehicles as bridge technologies.

“The technologies that will help us to transition are really supported by this administration,” Granholm said. “What we want to do is assist natural gas, for example, in removing greenhouse gas emissions, whether it’s carbon dioxide or methane. We want to assist the baseload fuel power sector to remove those [emissions] so that they can still function in a zero-carbon environment.”

Whatever their common interests, Democrats and Republicans have yet to hammer out the bipartisan compromise on infrastructure, which Biden had hoped for. The president broke off talks with GOP lawmakers earlier this month but continues to explore avenues for passage of his plan, possibly by the budget reconciliation process that would circumvent strong Republican opposition in the Senate.