The Iran nuclear deal. Planned Parenthood funding. The federal debt limit.
All of the above will be on Congress’s plate once its 39-day summer break ends in the next week or so and lawmakers get back to pretending they’re doing their jobs.
There is one piece of legislation that I’m hoping doesn’t get lost in the thorny politics that are sure to keep Republicans and Democrats at loggerheads for months: the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015.
The product of numerous hearings and months of work by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, the legislation is being billed as the first comprehensive update of national energy policy since 2007.
Actually, because of all of the horse-trading required to patch it together, the legislation isn’t exactly what I’d view as a showstopper. One of the more dramatic energy-related proposals this year – lifting U.S. crude oil exports – appears in a separate bill but faces an uphill battle before the full Senate.
Passage of the Murkowski-Cantwell package, on the other hand, appears more certain and includes a number of provisions important to protecting and enhancing the electric grid.
One would establish a 10-year, $2 billion grant program to pay for all kinds of trial projects related to the modernization of the grid.
Another would put the Department of Energy fully and formally in charge of programs to develop gird cybersecurity and cyber-resilience applications and technologies.
Yet another would requires the DOE to establish a program to promote the development of hybrid micro-grid systems for isolated communities and micro-grid systems in general “to increase the resilience of critical infrastructure.”
One provision that should be especially welcome by utilities would require federal agencies – meaning the EPA, among others – to provide a detailed response to any questions by regional entities about any kind of rules that could affect electric reliability.
And yet one other would allow our country’s national labs to use technology-transfer funds to carry out early-stage and pre-commercial technology demonstration activities. The idea? “To remove technology barriers that limit private-sector interest.” That one sounded especially promising to me.
There’s also more than a few clauses in the legislation related to storage R&D and other new technologies, including committing up to $500 million over the next decade to these areas. There’s also a section essentially directing the DOE to ensure that everything works as it’s supposed to under whatever scenarios emerge.
In summarizing the legislation, its backers said it would “save energy, expand domestic supplies, facilitate investment into critical infrastructure, protect the grid, boost energy trade, improve the performance of federal agencies, and renew programs that have proven effective.”
That’s a lot to expect from one piece of legislation. Whether it delivers remains to be seen. But there’s plenty of good stuff in this package and it deserves quick passage in Congress as well as the president’s signature before we get mired in all of the nastiness that will otherwise occupy our purported representatives in Washington this fall.
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