In This Issue:

- Energy and Climate

- Congress

- Administration

- Department of Energy

- Department of Interior

- Environmental Protection Agency

- Energy Regulatory Commission

- Nuclear Regulatory Commission

- International

- States

- Sustainability

- Miscellaneous

- Excerpt from Energy and Climate Debate:

The Senate is in session this week while House members are on a scheduled district work period. While the lower chamber is away, the Senate is likely to consider the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, the Conference Report to the fiscal year 2016 budget, and other measures. A few energy and environment hearings are scheduled, as detailed below.

Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is leading the effort to address energy tax extenders by reinstating, extending, or making permanent a handful of expired clean energy tax credits, including potentially incorporating them into a broad energy bill she and Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are discussing and beginning to hold hearings about – the first of which was held last week and focused on energy efficiency issues (see below). Earlier this year, Senator Cantwell’s staff considered how to build on what then-Senator Max Baucus proposed last Congress on an industry neutral or performance based energy tax policy. Two of the Senate Finance Committee Working Groups, the Business Income Tax Working Group, co-chaired by Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), and the Community Development and Infrastructure Working Group, co-chaired by Senators Dean Heller (R-NV) and Michael Bennet (D-CO), are claiming jurisdiction over the energy portions of tax reform. With comprehensive tax reform increasingly unlikely before the 2016 election cycle, Senator Cantwell is focusing her efforts on the tax extender pieces, including the production tax credit and the investment tax credit. She has already offered an amendment a number of times this session to make the clean energy tax provisions permanent, and plans to continue to offer the language to any moving legislation.