President Trump’s nominee to be the Energy Department’s top lawyer dodged questions from senators Thursday on whether he would support the administration’s efforts to subsidize failing coal and nuclear plants.
William Cooper, Trump’s pick to be Energy Department general counsel, said he would wait to see the administration’s evidence on the need to rescue coal and nuclear before making a legal judgment.
“A lot of times these things turn not on what the law says, but what the facts are,” Cooper testified to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in his confirmation hearing.
He later added, “My role would be to advise the department on the law and ascertain what the facts are, and at the present, I don’t know what the facts are.”
That answer did not satisfy Maria Cantwell of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat.
“I get you’re going to have to look at the language, but we need the president to stop proposing to raise everyone’s cost of electricity by mandating coal,” Cantwell said.
In January, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously rejected a proposal from Energy Secretary Rick Perry to provide special payments to coal and nuclear plants at risk of retirement for their ability to store fuel on-site for 90 days. FERC, an independent body, said it found no evidence to support that lost coal and nuclear power is endangering the nation’s electricity grid.
Now, the Energy Department, on the orders of Trump, is considering a new proposal, potentially using executive national security powers to force wholesale power operators to buy power from a list of coal and nuclear plants deemed “critical” to the grid. Critics say the move would be unprecedented and costly, interfering with competitive power markets that reward the lowest cost provider.
“It is general counsel’s job to keep [DOE] within the bounds of the law,” Cantwell told Cooper.
Senators of both parties also had tough questions Thursday for Trump’s nominee to lead the Energy Department’s innovation and science research program.
In his fiscal 2019 budget, Trump proposed to eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, for the second year in a row, despite its strong support in Congress. Congress has rejected the proposed budget cuts.
“I’d like to think you’d aggressively advocate for a strong budget,” Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told the nominee, Lane Genatowski.
“If confirmed, I would be an enthusiastic supporter of ARPA-E and all their projects to continue moving forward,” Genatowski assured during his confirmation hearing.
“Not one minute was I talked to about closing it up,” he later promised Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who asked whether Trump nominated him to “put the nail in the coffin” of ARPA-E.
Senators also asked about Genatowski’s background in banking, rather than science. He was an energy investment banker at JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, among others.
Genatowksi promised he would respect science, saying “ARPA-E has a very talented group of scientists.”
