Jared Polis: “This bill, in its current form, appropriates considerably above the administration's mark for fossil energy research and…”

“This bill, in its current form, appropriates considerably above the administration's mark for fossil energy research and development. My amendment doesn't take away all of the amount that has been plussed up. It just takes a small amount of that--$13 million out of the $645 million, which is the amount the bill is above last year's appropriations--and directs those funds to the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy fund, which is an extremely important fund that funds a lot of important activities across our country. As an example, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy fund is working with American manufacturers to apply 3-D printing, also called additive manufacturing, to renewable technologies. Blades are one of the most costly components of wind turbines, but additive manufacturing has the promise of reducing costs. There is a lot of important basic research that supports it. In addition, they are working on--it is funded by EERE--advanced technologies for microgrid projects, coordinated with the Electric Power Research Institute, to have localized grids that are connected to traditional grids--but can also disconnect--to operate autonomously and help mitigate grid disturbances, meaning more security for our national energy system when we can avoid large-scale downtime from large grid outages.…”