Review - S 914 Introduced – DOE Threat Analysis Center

Last month, Sen Risch (R,ID) introduced S 914, the Energy Threat Analysis Center (ETAC) Establishment Act of 2023. The bill would formally authorize the ETAC which DOE started last year as a pilot project (see here, here, and here). No separate funding is provided in the bill.

Moving Forward

Both Risch and his sole cosponsor (Sen Manchin {D,WV)} are members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. Since no new funding is authorized by the bill, I see nothing that would engender any specific opposition. I suspect that there would be some measure of bipartisan support for the bill, probably enough to achieve 60 votes for cloture if the bill were to be considered under regular order.

Commentary

The crafters of this bill did not see the lack of specific funding for the NTAC to be a problem. They expected DOE to continue to tap into the funding ($50,000 per year through 2026) provided in §18724(d). that was the reason for the reference §18724 in §2(a) of the bill. It is almost as if the crafters of the §40125(c) of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law No: 117-58) that is responsible for §18724 planned it that way.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-914-introduced - subscription required.