40%. in essence, on the one hand the epa is saying you can't build a new plant because you don't have the technology to burn coal the way we want it burned. and you're saying but i'm not going to give you the money to find the ways to burn coal the way you would like. am i confused? >> mr. congressman, i have to say that i am very much supportive of developing those technologies that you speak of. that would develop to be able to use gas and coal in a clean way. we believe that it is very important to develop those technologies not only in the united states but in partnership of the world what we're going to be doing fl coal will be around for a long time. and we recognize that. and for those -- i think the congressman was at the east

summit. he heard me talk about that this morning. how important it is that we continue that research. part of the issue and the budget was there was a lot of money recinded in some of the carbon capturing projects that were partnership between the government and private sector. we were trying to do forward as we see a viable path forward is that there is a beneficial use of carbon dioxide which will further or research in capturing carbon dioxide. but not to be used in enhanced oil but also as we pump the carbon dioxide in the ground, we'll learn a lot about what is going on. and this at least industry is saying that what we say is all right. we understand. we're still interested in that. and so we're working -- we're trying to work with industry and reprogram some of this and we

have interest. we have the carbon capture and the sequestration which will tell us a lot and it will help sequester in the short term. we're going to learn a fund from that. >> you're proposing to cut the funding. you're going to cut fossil energy and research and development by 21%. you're cutting advanced energy systems almost half. cost cutting research by 40%. all the while, you're increasing funding for all the other research programs other than for coal. notably, a $500 million increase for the renewable program which is already funded at $1.8 billion. how do you explain that? that's completely contrary to the answer you just gave me if i understood you correctly. >> well, as i said, we do

support the research. there's a deployment side -- >> then why are you cutting it? drastically cutting it. if you support it, that's a funny way of supporting. how are you supporting it other than with money? >> we are supporting it with money. we are supporting it with trying to work with the utility companies in these projects. >> there's been lots of applications for fossil energy r & d. i don't think there's been any of them to prove it. >> r & d? excuse me? no, loan guarantees. >> i think the loan guarantees are ones where these are working

through them in. we want to actually -- we have the loan money. we're working through that and these are complex issues. i would like to see that loan money used. >> mr. dicks, ranking member. >> can you bring us up to date on yucca mountain? >> as far as i know, what is happening is that this is before the courts and we're waiting the decision of the >> we believe this still is the law the land. you have to start forward. how much you would estimate it would cost to get this project o moving forward? >> i would have to get back to order t is to proceed, we'll proceed. i can get back to you on the exact details. >> we understand it's around $100 million to get started.

now tell us about your blue ribbon commission. what recommendations do they have on nuclear waste? >> well, what they recommended is, first, they -- as we all do acknowledge that we have to solve thisd it very important t do solve the problem. i commend them for the excellent job. one of the things they noted is that other countries have done it in different way, notably sweden. they think also finland has gone a different way. and so what they found was that -- >> can you tell us what those ways are? >> yes. sweden set up a public-private

type of company. it's not officially in let's say the department of energy. this can be done in a safe way. there are economic benefits. and what could have been, you know, let's pick you and you like it or not it's falling there, it surnd out to be three competitive bids for the right to put the spent fuel in the sites. and so it was a competition that kind of went completely in reverse. in fact, the losers, the people who did not get the site picked actually had some side benefits. but there was a serious competition and we see economic benefit and if you do this in a safe way, there's -- can you control the down sides. we actually have an example of that in the united states.

there is radioactive waste in new mexico in carlsbad where it's been operating for 11, 1 years, roughly that party. great economic benefit number accidents. it's, done in a very safe way. and it's been economic prosperity for that region. >> in my hometown, we have a big shipyard. and nuclear powered submarines are coming in and the waste is taken off the submarines and sent over to mr. simpson's district in idaho. and they're supposed to send it on to yucca mountain. there is a grievance here. this got up to the level of the top level of the clinton -- i guess the clinton administration. and there's a time -- i think it's like 2025. this has to happen. or idaho will no longer be

obligated to receive this waste. so this -- this has implications. the fact that we're just letting this thing go on and on and on, i think is a big mistake. and i was here. i voted for this. to go -- to do it at yucca mountain. i that i is the law of the land. it hasn't been changed. i think you're going to wind up -- i think the courts -- i can't believe the courts are going to sustain your position. so you better start looking at these alternatives. you better start figuring out how you're going to get yucca mountain moving forward. you just can't declare something that it is no longer the law. you have to come to congress and get the law changed. that hasn't happened. >> well, that was another very important recommendation in the blue ribbon commission. it is really up to congress if congress wants to change the law and we would be willing to work with congress to do that. and we take the legal

i think it's 2035 you have to get prepared. by 2037 you have to be in shipping. >> dr. chu, thank you very much for being with usment i can't help but scratch my head about the fact that we're able to acquire someone of your background and talent to serve in this capacity. to say the least, beyond the heat you'll be taking from km committees like this, you're willingness to serve is very much appreciated by many of us. beyond that, you celebrating your anniversary is another thing. your bride, dr. jean chu holds a

doctorate in philosophy from oxford university and above and beyond that, she served as chief of staff for two stanford university presidents as well as dean of admissions. my god it would be interesting to hear what you talk about at night. >> all i know for sure is she would not have admitted me. i must say, your service is very much appreciated. but beyond that, the panel probably doesn't realize this. but yucca mountain has for all these decades essentially been in my district. and the early days, it strikes me that unless we learn from this most recent history we're bound to repeat the disaster that yucca mountain. i was fooling around with a figure earlier thinking that we spent something in the

neighborhood of $9 billion in the yucca mountain catastrophe, it's closer to $14 billion as staff tells me. and in connection with that, in the early days of yucca, all of the politicians who want to solve this problem purportedly were supportive of yucca mountain as the location. especially when it was producing jobs in the local economic community. and then you move forward and lo and behold there is some controversy around this subject. and all the politicians flee in spite of the billions of dollars they send on to you earlier. and the concern that we've got to have is that first of all, we must solve this difficulty in an environment that is a political environment. and lord knows if we're not careful about learning from the past, we are bound, bound to repeat it. we'll spend billions of dollars again for another location following yucca mountain and lo and behold what will happen? so one way or another we have to think through the pure politics

of this if we're going to make serious progress. and the congress ought to be trying to help you work their way through that. and i can't say that we've done that very well after this point. >> can i respond? >> please. >> first, thank you for your comments. i agree with you. and one of the recommendations is to set up the semiautonomous arm like a dva that says get it out of the political arena. get it so you can have very competent people. take a very professional avenue. what is in the best interest of the united states in solving this problem. and so that was certainly one of the recommendations. but right now, you know, it's up to congress to weigh these considerations and to decide. but that is one of the clear recommendations of the blue ribbon commission. >> in the meantime, we are struggling with this reality. it was not that long ago that others in the arena where i

serve, where the government was located, we all supported this -- this should go forward to a logical location. lo and behold the next time you locate a facility, please don't locate it next -- somewhere near the district because the problems there will be endless as well. so between here and there, i would hope that your policy people would work very closely with us to try to have us together hand in hand and have an independent commission or otherwise not just work effectively but get results at the other end. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and welcome again to the secretary. i wanted to go back to this question of technology, transfer and jobs. i visited many of the federal labs. i think that the department in terms of executing its its responsibility in terms of federal labs, you've done an extraordinary job, particularly in terms of the nuclear weapons,

stewardship and the modernization efforts. i know the committee has done a lot to make sure that we fully fund that. also visited the firma lab and the aragon lab. this issue about government funded research is not limited to the energy department. nasa's got 17,000 patents. we could go through the list. but there are -- i think the administration has been doing some work in this regard. i know that the white house is required all of the departments to work on this question of technology transfer and jobs and that energy is working hand in hand with the commerce department with the national innovative marketplace to get american manufacturers first run at many of these opportunities. but this is a serious issue. you got conflicting issues and as a scientists, you'll appreciate the fact that it is a conflicting issue inh want to h

interactions around inventions and new ideas and new approaches in the scientific community. at the same time, we are in economic competition with other countries. and so, you know, making all this information public, making it available leads to our economic competitors getting opportunities to work off of -- they pick the fruit off trees we planted with american taxpayer dollars. and the issue here of taking patents or taking research that is taxpayer funded and having the jobs, the new jobs are made, we want in america. i introduced legislation in this regard, hr-2015 which is called the american discoveries american jobs act. which would focus the country on this question. because one of well intentioned lab personnel told me directly,

he's got four patents. he tried to build these products here in america. all of the research was paid for by american taxpayer dollars. but those jobs are some other place. and there's a lot that we need to work on in this regard. i'm a big proponent of research. i think our labs are tremendous asset. i travel with the chairman and mike simpson and others. i would just amazed at the work by thousands and thousands of phds on behalf of the american people. but we want to make sure that jobs that are created stay here. and there's a lot of work we have to do. we have to change some of the statutory language, i think, to require that if we're going to

tax someone who's working every day in my district or someone else's district and invest it in very smart people come up and they're going to go out in the commercial market and make a lot of money. that's great. we want that. but we want the jobs that emanate from that to at least be somewhere in the domestic united states and one of our 50 states, you know, so that the whole country benefits from this. so rather it's mris or lacic eye surgery or gps, all is at the base of government funded research. and we have to figure out a way to make sure that the jobs that emanate from that help us reinvigorate our manufacturing base. i'd be interested in you taking a look at the legislation. it's not obviously cast in stone. it's probably not going to pass any time in the near future. but i do think we have to work together in this regard.

>> thank you. mr. simpson whose n invoked a few minutes ago. >> and very well, i must add. ought up the other mountain first. >> actually, i'm -- well, i don't know that i'm going to bring it up. >> a couple of quick questions. first of all, when you mention the carlsbad area and how that created jobs and economic -- remember back in the beginning of whip, congress had to force whip on carlsbad? it was accepted by the people of new mexico. we were sued several times and everything else. so sometimes these things have to get done one way or another. which has been the issue with yucca mountain, obviously. has the department embraced the blue ribbon commission's recommendations and if so, will it require legislation to implement some of those provisions? and if so, will you present that to congress or will it be done by administrative fiat such as

closing yucca mountain? >> no, i think it's very clear that congress will haveo key ro wants to amendment the nuclear waste act. and so that would very clearly stated in the blue ribbon commissionment. >> it would take an amendment of a nuclear waste -- >> it depends on what parts you're talking about. for example, one of the recommendations was that, you know, there are fees collected from the power generators. and those fees are considerable amount of money. >> right. >> and they recommended that some fraction of those fees start to go to this -- if a semiprivate organization is set up because it gives, again, takes it away from the early appropriations, puts on a more professional basis. and it can start with a small fraction. but to let that begin because

those moneys are clearly collected for that reason. >> and it's recommended that that occur promptly? >> well, that would require an act of congress. >> you have proposed it? >> we of congress. h with congress, in deciding what congress would be willing to accept on those things. that's one example. another example is the commission points out you would want permanent storage sites and interim sites. >> don't let this turn into a simpson bowles where we make recommendations and nothing is pushed forward. if you're going to push it forward, push it forward and don't wait for congress. 50% of our electricity produced by coal, 20% by nuclear power. when lie at your budget, lie at huge increases in the renewal energy which is the very small part of the electrical portfolio.

and cuts in the other area producing electricity. i'm frankly disappointed where we're seeing reductions in small modular reactors, this was the new ground we were going to and head down that road. we're seeing reductions in that arena and other things. seems to me like there's an agenda of trying to push green technology when nuclear energy is green technology, hydrocarbons in the air. if you're really going to address global climate change and hydrocarbons, you had better adopt nuclear energy. it doesn't seem like we're doing that in this budget. this is the first time i've seen a refrenchment in the administration and advancing nuclear energy. the talk is all there but the budget doesn't reflect it. >> well, i think you know very well my support of nuclear energy and my support of clean coal. so we're trying to push what we can where we can do this.

i think in this century, those things will play an important part of the energy mix. >> they will play an important time. you said you plan to nuclear fuel industries joemp turn previous presidential determination how to handle these materials together? frankly, i don't want to see defense nuclear wastish an orphan left at places it currently is. >> i agree. >> how do you plan to handle them differently? >> they are different, number one we have a responsibility for both of those, for the u.s. government, a responsibility to handle both those extremes. one is they are different in the respect if you look -- if

nuclear power is part of the mix in this century, that requires more attention. that's not to say the other is not important. >> thank you, mr. simpson. mr. oliver. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you mrs. secretary for being who are today. it may surprise you, but i think you've actually put forward a fairly reasonable and responsible budget. i wanted to just clarify a few things. you referenced in your testimony that the r&d we do is 5, 6%, and that of china is something like 20%. can you tell me -- china is a very special emerging economy,

growing and emerging economy. the other two largest, japan and germany would be the third and fourth largest economies after china and the u.s. what are the r&d budgets they put forward? >> off the top of my head, i can't really say exactly how the r&d budgets, but i can say that certainly china especially has a very strong commitment to those industries which china deems would be an important part of their economic prosperity and future. and for that reason, that is why they are investing in many -- they want to diversify from coal. they are heavily dependent on coal. they are investing in nuclear reactors. they are going to be the biggest did he employer of wind and solar in the world, in their country. they also view that as something for export as well. >> okay.

well, i was just hoping i could get a sense whether or not other really mature economies like germany and france were doing numbers much more similar to us. i think all of the really fast emerging economies would be doing more r&d than we would be doing. i'll leave that. we can discuss it at another point. our r&d, some of our r&d major activities have been the engineering with frontier research centers. we have 60 of those. those have been standing for a couple of years now. do you have an ongoing program for oversight or for measuring what the output of those centers is? >> yes. >> at this point or -- >> yes. we're in the midst of starting a thorough review of the effectiveness of those so-called

efrcs. very rigorous policies and how to evaluate them based on outside scientific refereesne i. we want to make sure the ones working effectively we'd like to continue. the ones that are not, fair discussion. >> what's a fair period of time to begin to account -- >> every year they are reviewed. in this next review, a much more thorough review. you step back and look over the next couple of years. >> if they were established in '09, they could not have been functioning effectively at all until probably late '10. >> that's right. so we're about two years into

this. this started in '08, let's say '09, '10 and '11. >> the hubs also standing at the same time or are they more recent? >> they are more recent except for the three hubs which are the energy biocenters. they got started in the last administration. those were actually the prototypes of what we had. >> those were before the energy research centers? frontiers research center? >> thinking six or seven -- about the same time roughly, maybe a little earlier. bioresearch centers, again, i can get back with the details may have come a year or two earlier than that. >> you're asking for an additional hub. there are five that have been standing and you're asking for a sixth one. in your testimony you said electricity systems. can you tell me what you mean by

electricity systems? >> well, if you look at the electricity system in the united states, it's a very complex organism if you will. >> is this the delivery system? >> it's the transmission and distribution system. >> grid. >> it's the delivery system. it controls the flow of electricity. as you work to go to a modern grid you control how you flow the electricity and you want to look at where there are potential vulnerabilities in the grid. >> would that hub be responsible for trying to figure out how to reduce greatly the loss of power over distance, the delivery of power in a much partitioned manner? >> that wouldn't be -- >> mr. secretary, if you could maybe summarize in response to

that question. we want to get everybody in here before we blow the whistle. >> i'll give you the details, it's more distribution and control systems. >> mr. olver. mr. rodney alexander. >> thank you, mr. secretary. the president's budget includes interagency study that says the department of energy, epa and usgs are partnering to study environmental and health effects of hydraulic fracturing. can you tell us a little about what that might be leading to? >> as you know, the president tasked us to look at hydraulic fracturing. the conclusions of that subcommittee report were that we believe that hydraulic fracturing can be done in an environmentally responsible way, so you can take