Oversight of the department of Energy Research and development enterprise. Welcome, mr. Secretary. Were delighted youre here today. This committee has jurisdiction over the department of energys vitally important science and Energy Research and development activities. The laboratories and facilities so i hope we see you much more frequently from now on, and i look forward to working with you throughout this congress. With the budget season mostly behind us, id like to bring just a few minutes and a few items to your attention. Ill start with the good news which is that despite the administrations best effort to make draconian cuts across the board to deo research and Development Programs, most actually fared well in the house of representatives. Im particularly pleased to see the increases to the budget for arpae and the long Programs Office both of which have yielded truly transformative results for Energy Technologies of all types. Im also quite happy that the house supported a subst
Optimizationing. Californias deal is with the following automakers, bmw, volkswagen, honda and ford. Governor newsom got them to agree to boost the fuel economy standards to new cars to about 50 miles per gallon by the year 2026. President trump proposed freezing the standards at about 37 miles per gallon by the year 2020. These numbers according to dan kaman, professor of energy at uc berkeley and former climate adviser for the Obama Administration are a compromise. They said we will back off a little bit on our annual improvement numbers and give an opportunity for the u. S. Epa to get on board with this. Reporter and in the long run benefits consumers. If anything a price to depress gas prices because overtime well see more and more manufacturers taking on electric vehicle targets. Members of the Republican Party along with big energy have been quick to fire back. Tom pyle, president of the American Energy alliance provided this statement to abc7 news saying in part these four autom
Them. They took on way too much. Reporter now they are under criminal investigation by the california contractors state license board, and it faces an avalanche of suits from homeowners who say the company owes them a combined 3 to 4 million. Attorney richard freeman. I have a half dozen clients from whom money was taken and not one thing was done. Not one piece of earth moved. He absolutely took their money as late as april of 2019 and gave them nothing. Morally despicable. Reporter last may, pam defended the companys motives. Were not some fly by Night Company and we didnt go up there as ambulance chasers to go up there and do Something Like this to almost 100 people is just, just unconscionable. Reporter thats carol. She estimates they owe her 90,000. Since then shes hired another contractor and filed suit. It will be finished when i see the contractor in jail. Thats when it will be finished. Reporter so the next question is what happens with the Sonoma County district attorney. We
Test. Test. Test. And part of that reason is because of the research that is going on at our National Labs. And im going to, again, ask paul to share with you, just because hes fresh out of seeing some of this and has to do with the Battery Storage. And the progress being made on Battery Storage is really fascinating. And ive always said that Battery Storage is the holy grail. If were able to get to that point where we can use our renewables, solar and wind in particular to power these batteries that have long time storage, and what were finding now is that the the elements that are being used to create some of these batteries are not Rare Earth Minerals and theyre elements that we have right here in the United States, so were going to be in control of our future substantially more on the Battery Storage if you just kind of give them a glimpse of whats going on here and i think thats pretty exciting stuff. So a couple of examples, the complex, r d business, beyond lithium ion batteries
We are delighted youre here today. This committee has jurisdiction over the department of energys vitally important science and Energy Research and development activities. The laboratories and facilities , so i hope we see you more frequently and i look forward to working with you throughout this congress. With the budget season mostly behind us, id like to bring just a few minutes and a few items to your attention. Ill start with the good news which is that despite the administrations best effort to make cuts across the board to deo research and Development Programs most faired well in the house of representatives. Im particularly pleased to see the increases to the budget for arpae and the long Programs Office both of which have yielded truly transformative results for Energy Technologies of all types. Im also quite happy that the house supported a substantial increase in the International Fusion project which i advocated for as well. I went to visit that project a couple years ago,