In This Issue:

Energy and Climate Debate; Congress; Administration; Department of Agriculture; Department of Commerce; Department of Energy; Department of Interior; Environmental Protection Agency; Federal Trade Commission; States; International; and Miscellaneous.

Excerpt from Energy and Climate Debate

President Obama visited a Honeywell facility in Minnesota June 1 to discuss his proposed Veterans Jobs Corps. The company is a manufacturing conglomerate that focuses heavily on energy efficiency, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced at the same facility in 2010 that the administration would push for a $5 billion extension of the 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Credit. Though the extension of the three-times-oversubscribed $2.3 billion program has not yet occurred, the president is again urging Congress to do so as part of his all of the above approach to energy policy.

The House Rules Committee approved the $32.1 billion fiscal year 2013 Energy and Water Development Act (H.R. 5325) May 30. The measure would appropriate $26.3 billion for the Department of Energy and would bar the agency from finalizing energy efficiency standards for federal buildings. The House began general debate on the bill late in the week, and five amendments, among them a provision that would have eliminated funding for the Energy Department’s energy efficiency and renewable energy office, all failed to make it into the package. Roughly 80 more amendments will likely be offered, and a final vote should come around June 4. The White House Office of Management and Budget released a statement of administration policy saying that the president would veto the measure as it currently stands. As part of the larger picture, the bill is a threat to the White House as setting a precedent of appropriations bills below, as opposed to equal to, discretionary funding levels for fiscal year 2013 mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011.