This Week on the Hill

Congress comes back from its President’s Day recess for a week that will feature President Obama’s address to the nation on Tuesday night and the passage of the FY2009 Omnibus bill, which contains the bulk of non-stimulus, non-entitlement spending for this fiscal year.  It will also be an active week in the committees with multiple hearings on both ends of Capitol Hill.

Hearings begin on Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. in the Energy and Environment Subcommittee where Chairman Markey will lead a hearing on “Energy Efficiency: Complementary Polices for Climate Legislation” in Room 2322 of the Rayburn House Building.  Witnesses include Philip Giudice, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources; Tom King, president of National Grid USA; Rick Wells, vice president of energy, Dow Chemical; Lain Campbell, vice president and General Manager, Johnson Controls; John Anderson, president, Electricity Consumer Resource Council.

Also on Tuesday, the Science and Technology Subcommittee will conduct a hearing entitled “How Do We Know What We Are Emitting?  Monitoring, Reporting and Verifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions.”  The hearing will focus on the various ways that businesses, government and localities track emissions.  The witnesses will be John Stephenson, director of natural resources and environment at GAO; Jill Gravender, vice president for policy at the Climate Registry; Leslie Wong, director of greenhouse gas programs at Waste Management Inc.; and Rob Ellis, Greenhouse Gas program manager for Advanced Waste Management.  The hearing takes place at 10 a.m. in Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Building.

On Wednesday at 10 a.m. the Ways and Means Committee will begin its investigation into climate change and capping greenhouse gas emissions for this Congress in a hearing on “Scientific Objectives for Climate Change Legislation” in Room 1100 of the Longworth House Building.  With the likely House consideration of a bill this year, more Committees are seeking to claim at least some portion of the jurisdiction pie.  With so much money at stake in proposed auctions or taxes it is only natural that the Ways and Means Committee would seek to make a claim.  Witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing include Dr. James Hansen, Adjunct Professor, The Earth Institute at Columbia University; Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, Climate Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists; and Dr. John Christy, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville. 

On Thursday the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will have a hearing entitled, “Update on the Latest Global Warming Science.”  Appearing at the hearing are, R.K. Pachauri, Chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Christopher Field PhD, Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University; Howard Frumkin, Director, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and William Happer, PhD, Professor of Physics, Princeton University.  The hearing takes place at 10 a.m. in Room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Building.

On Thursday the Energy and Environment Subcommittee picks up where it left on Tuesday with an examination of how renewables and efficiency can play a role in emissions reductions.  The hearing, which takes place at 9:30 a.m. in Room 2322 of the Rayburn House Building, will examine renewable electricity standards (RES), electricity efficiency block grants and the efficiency programs funded in the stimulus bill.  Witnesses have not yet been announced.

For further information about this topic, please contact Akin Gump.