Mr. BATEMAN. Except I don't think there is any mechanism there-you mean in the context of the proposed legislation?

Mr. FINNEGAN. Congress instead of passing this bill

Mr. BATEMAN. Could do it the other way?

Mr. FINNEGAN. You would still have the same objective. To the extent there is borrowing authority the revenues could be used to pay back whatever the borrowings are?

Mr. BATEMAN. That is right.

Mr. FINNEGAN. You have the same result whether you have a revolving fund or this way?

Mr. BATEMAN. Except the fund to us has a public appeal that the mechanism that you describe we think doesn't.

Mr. FINNEGAN. Why does it have a public appeal?

Mr. BATEMAN. Because the public is used to the distinction for example, from a social security system, in between programs which depend on annual authorizations and appropriations and programs which are largely funded through contributions. The trust fund idea, revolving fund idea I think is one that is well embedded in the public mind.

I think what we are trying to do is reflect in this program, in part, a mechanism for the establishment of a mechanism which reinforces the notion that this is a self-financing paying its own way program.

Mr. FINNEGAN. But the problem is it is not subject to change except by act of Congress to changing the revolving fund, whereas if you have an annual authorization Congress can have it and the committees can have direct look and influence on what happens in that programing.

The other way you can't except through the appropriation proc

ess.

Mr. BATEMAN. I understand that, but this is narrowly defined, a program with a narrowly defined objective.

Mr. FINNEGAN. Who is the public in this instance? Who is the public? I suspect there are not many people in the public who understand revolving funds or the highway trust fund except they have heard it or seen it in the newspaper.

Mr. BATEMAN. Well, this is probably academic but I think the public does have a mental image of what a fund is and that it is money paid in and money goes out and it is different from the usual Government program. I am sure you are right, that in terms of technical details of how it works, in terms of congressional reviewing processing, you are absolutely right.

Mr. WARD. Is this a private enterprise revolving fund or a trust revolving fund?

Mr. BATEMAN. It is a private enterprise revolving fund.

Mr. MERCER. What we call an enterprise, governmental enterprise.

Mr. WARD. Do you know what has been the history of those? Have they paid themselves off?

Mr. MERCER. I understand one somewhat similar, TVA, I believe, does.

Mr. WARD. TVA is a private enterprise fund. Do revenues equal income or expenditures?

Mr. MERCER. I am not that thoroughly familiar. In other words, another similar one you may be familiar with, I don't know the detail about it, Bonneville Power Administration.

Mr. WARD. Yes, Southwest Power is not a revolving fund.

Mr. MERCER. No, the Bonneville is. You asked for an example. Mr. WARD. What was the precedent for this revolving fund? Mr. MERCER. Well, in my mind, in large part this drafting was picked from Bonneville.

Mr. WARD. Bonneville is operated by an independent board, is it not?

Mr. MERCER. Secretary of the Interior, I believe.

Mr. FINNEGAN. Bonneville is under the Department of Energy. Mr. MERCER. It was before we were established.

Mr. FINNEGAN. Bonneville is Department of Energy and there is an administrator for Bonneville Power Administration.

Mr. WARD. Thank you.

I looked it up in 1977, the history of revolving funds was that their expenditures exceeded their income by approximately $5 billion.

Mr. BATEMAN. That may be. You may find in this revolving fund as well that expenditures could exceed income in any given year, in this fund in the amount of $300 million, but we would expect over time for the revenues and outgoes to balance one another off.

I can't speak directly to the figure that I gave, I don't know what the circumstances were, but the limitation here is in the borrowing authority, in terms of what the difference in any given year, cumulative difference can be between income and outgo and that $300 million legislation proposes full cost recovery and overtime even if the full use of the borrowing authority is made that would be obtained.

Mr. WARD. If I could turn to another matter, your budget submission to OMB included a $75 million request for construction under your enhanced budget request. This was for spent fuel. You submitted a budget to us for $20 million. What happened to the $75 million?

Mr. BATEMAN. If we are talking about the same thing, it would be better to answer that question for the record. There is some disagreement about exactly what happened between myself and the staff member so let's submit that for the record.

Mr. WARD. All right.

[The following information was received for the record:]

The $75 million request to OMB was to provide for the necessary fiscal year 1980 budget authority to support the acquisition, modification, or construction of an away-from-reactor storage facility. This estimate was based on the conceptual design work for a new facilitiy estimated to cost between $250 million to $300 million. When a decision was made to finance the away-from-reactor storage capacity through the use of a revolving fund, the $75 million for facility acquisition was deleted from the budget. The $20 million was provided by OMB for ongoing program management and supporting studies necessary to implement the away-from-reactor storage program.

Mr. WARD. Now, one last question here from me. The WIPP facility, what is the status in terms of spent fuel right now?

Mr. BATEMAN. The project as authorized is only for defense generated transuranic contaminated waste and high level waste from defense programs as authorized. That is the mission of the project.

Now, the department has proposed a mission which included those two missions but also the permanent disposal of up to 1,000 commercial spent fuel assemblies as part of the project. The department has also proposed that the project be licensed, that all permanent facilities for terminal disposal of TRU waste be licensed. That obviously would cover this one.

So there is the mission of the project as authorized by Congress, and the mission of the project as proposed by the department. Now, at the present time the status is that the Congress has put a limitation on the department not to use any funds appropriated for either licensing activities or consideration of waste disposal other than from defense programs. So we are operating under that restriction.

We have submitted a fiscal year 1980 authorization budget request for the WIPP project in a form that is consistent with congressional limitation and prior congressional authorization. But we are attempting to work with the committees of Congress to reconcile our views of what the mission of the project is and whether it should be licensed and hopefully that will result in a project and an allocation of congressional responsibilities for the project which is acceptable to everyone. But that has not been accomplished at this point. We are in the process of trying to do that.

Mr. WARD. Which committees are you working with?

Mr. BATEMAN. At this point we are primarily working with the Armed Services Committees but there have been some informal staff discussions with other concerned committees. But nothing can happen on this project, in our opinion, without the agreement of the Armed Services Committees and that is why we are spending our time primarily with them.

Mr. WARD. I notice in your testimony before the Interior Committee you referred to meetings with the chairman of that committee and I just wanted to emphasize that that licensing of a facility is not necessarily within his sole jurisdiction. Indeed the licensing is not within his jurisdiction and it is a matter of a number of committees.

Mr. DINGELL. Gentlemen, the subcommittee thanks you for your help to us. You have been here a long time. We appreciate your patience and courtesy.

There are many questions for the record, which I am sure you will assist us with. The Chair thanks you.

The subcommittee stands adjourned until the call of the Chair. [Whereupon, at 5:35 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AUTHORIZATIONS (FISCAL YEARS 1979 AND 1980) AND ENERGY EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1979

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER,

COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Richard R. Ottinger presiding, Hon. John D. Dingell chairman.

Mr. OTTINGER. The subcommittee will come to order.

The Subcommittee on Energy and Power today is continuing to pursue the Department of Energy's authorizations.

Our review today will focus on two related subject areas. The first area is the Department's programs in the fields of conservation, solar, and renewable resources. The second area is the administration of State and local grant programs, particularly in the field of conservation. It isimportant that States and localities are prepared to implement our national conservation objectives, and that these programs be effectively administered.

Our national energy objectives are simply stated: We must initiate an orderly shift from nonrenewable fossil resources to naturally renewable resources. The only issue is the method of achieving this objective and the speed with which it can be achieved. The longer we defer in taking the necessary actions, the more socially and economically disruptive the inevitable changes will be.

During the last 4 years of relative supply stability of imported oil, Federal efforts to reduce domestic consumption have been relatively trivial. Conservation within the Federal Government has been lacking, and we hope to learn the Department's reasons for the failure to develop a comprehensive Federal conservation plan, to pursue it adequately, and to pursue it with an adequate degree of urgency. Many simple conservation measures which could have been taken have been stalled. When compared to our potential for conservation, our record has been disappointing.

Developments in the private sector are also not as encouraging as they ought to be. For example, the notice of rulemaking for performance standards for new buildings should have proposed rigorous standards to bring about maximum cost-effective conservation. Instead, they appear to have deferred to the interests of the building community, which appears to have had a very strong influence in the rulemaking process through the work performed under DOE contracts.