The week ahead: Testimony to highlight GOP-White House divisions

The Obama administration’s top energy and environment officials will fan out across Capitol Hill this week to defend the White House fiscal 2012 budget request.
 
Their appearances will provide public venues for battles between the White House and Republicans on hot-button issues like energy research spending, offshore drilling and greenhouse gas rules.
 
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will appear Wednesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Thursday before the House Natural Resources Committee.
 
He’s likely to face tough questions from Republicans and drill-state Democrats who say Interior is moving far too slowly on offshore oil-and-gas permitting in the wake of the BP spill. A top Interior Department official said in Houston Friday that the department is “very close” to starting to issue deepwater permits that were halted after the BP disaster, according to several press accounts.
 
The push for drilling and wider industry access is intensifying as drilling advocates point to unrest in the Middle East and North Africa to make their case that Interior should move faster to green-light U.S. projects.
 
An equally hot seat is reserved for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who will appear before House and Senate committees amid a GOP-led effort to nullify EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases and sharply cut the agency’s budget.

She will testify Wednesday before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and Thursday before the panel of the House Appropriations Committee that crafts EPA spending bills.
 
The White House budget plan calls for slashing EPA’s budget by roughly $1.3 billion, but Republicans are seeking deeper cuts.
 
The House GOP’s fiscal 2011 spending bill that passed earlier this month would cut $3 billion from EPA and block funding for implementation of greenhouse gas rules.

The hearings will also give lawmakers a chance to ask Jackson about a major New York Times report on water pollution that was published over the weekend.

The piece explored how wastewater laced with contaminants is making its way from natural gas drilling sites into rivers that supply drinking water, and prompted a top Democrat to call for fast EPA action on the matter.

In addition to the budget-focused hearings, House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans will attack EPA's emissions rules at a Tuesday hearing.

The Subcommittee on Energy and Power's hearing is called "EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations and Their Effect on American Jobs” and will feature testimony from officials from several industry groups as well as Gina McCarthy, EPA's top air quality regulator.
 
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, meanwhile, will testify before the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday, then head across the Capitol on Thursday to appear before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.
 
President Obama is seeking major increases in spending on green energy research and development. Obama is also at odds with some top Republicans over his push for a “clean energy standard” that would require utilities to supply escalating amounts of power from renewables, nuclear energy, natural gas and other low- or no-carbon sources.
 
Chu will also go off Capitol Hill to make the case for investments in cutting-edge energy sources. He will be the keynote speaker Tuesday at the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) "innovation summit" in National Harbor, Md.
 
ARPA-E is a program that funds so-called high-risk, high-reward efforts to develop breakthrough energy technologies – it’s among the programs Obama wants to bolster but Republicans have targeted for cuts.
 
Other big names slated to speak at the Feb. 28-March 2 event include former GOP California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and several senators, including Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Officials from key energy companies will also appear.
 
The ARPA-E summit is among several expert-heavy events in what’s shaping up as a busy week.
 
The Edison Foundation’s “Powering the People” conference Thursday will include remarks by Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as well as Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, among others.