The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today held a business meeting to report three nominations and 15 energy and lands-related measures to the full Senate, including legislation focused on offshore revenue sharing and the deferred maintenance backlog at the National Park Service.

The nominees advanced to the full Senate for confirmation votes are:

• Mr. Dan Brouillette to be Secretary of the Department of Energy;
• Mr. James Danly to be a Member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; and
• Ms. Katharine MacGregor to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior.

“I strongly support the nominations of Mr. Brouillette, Ms. MacGregor, and Mr. Danly. All three did remarkably well at their hearings, and all three will excel in their new roles,” Chairman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. “I’m pleased all three nominees received bipartisan support from our committee, and hope the full Senate will confirm them as soon as possible.”

The committee favorably reported Brouillette a vote of 16-4, Danly by a vote of 12-8, and MacGregor by a vote of 14-6.

The committee also reported three major lands bills: S. 500, the Restore Our Parks Act, from Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Mark Warner, D-Va., and Angus King, I-Maine; S. 1081, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Permanent Funding Act, from Ranking Member Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; and S. 2418, the Conservation of America’s Shoreline Terrain and Aquatic Life (COASTAL) Act from Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.

“The COASTAL Act would address a long-standing priority for Alaska by establishing an offshore revenue sharing program for our state. For me, and for many Alaskans, this is a matter of fairness and equity,” Murkowski said. “We build the infrastructure, we produce the resource, and we bear the risks and impacts. This bill would help us meet a number of critical purposes, including the protection of our coasts; assistance for villages facing the impacts of climate change; support to our university system; and the development of lower cost and clean energy generation.”

Murkowski also spoke in support of S. 500, the Restore Our Parks Act, which is sponsored by more than 40 members of the Senate.

“This bill would help address the multi-billion dollar deferred maintenance backlog at our National Parks. There is perhaps no better step we can take to protect those treasured places than sending this bill to the President in this Congress,” Murkowski said.

Finally, the business meeting featured 12 energy-related measures, which the committee reported en bloc by voice vote.

“I’m pleased we were able to report additional energy bills as we continue to put together a consensus package for floor consideration,” Murkowski said. “Our committee reported a number of bipartisan bills in July, again in September, and today we are advancing promising measures to promote geothermal and other renewable energy sources, improve our cybersecurity, workforce development, and reauthorize the ARPA-E program.”

Among the energy bills reported today are S. 2556, Murkowski’s Protecting Resources On The Electric grid with Cybersecurity Technology (PROTECT) Act, S. 2657, the Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership (AGILE) Act, and S. 2799, the Nexus of Energy and Water for Sustainability (NEWS) Act.

Murkowski thanked her colleagues for working cooperatively to ensure bipartisan results at this business meeting and announced the committee intends to hold another one, focused primarily on lands-related measures, in mid-December.

Archived video, a full list of bills reported by the committee, and a rundown of the business meeting are available on the committee’s website.