McConnell to testify before congressional subcommittees Tuesday

MEDIA ADVISORY

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Rice’s McConnell to testify before congressional energy and environment subcommittees Tuesday

HOUSTON – (Oct. 25, 2013) – Charles McConnell, executive director of Rice University’s Energy and Environment Initiative, will testify before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and the Subcommittee on Environment at their Oct. 29 hearing, “EPA Power Plant Regulations: Is the Technology Ready?” The hearing will be at 10 a.m. EDT in Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. The subcommittees fall under the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which is chaired by Lamar Smith, who represents Texas’ 21st Congressional District.

WHO:             Charles McConnell, executive director of Rice University’s Energy and Environment Initiative and former Department of Energy assistant secretary for fossil energy.

WHAT:           Testimony about carbon capture technology and carbon storage programs and their prospects for market deployment and funding requirements for commercial readiness.

WHEN:          10 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 29.

WHERE:        Room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. The hearing will be available online.

The subcommittees’ hearing will explore the technological requirements to meet proposed New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for emissions of carbon dioxide for electric generating units (EGUs).

The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set NSPS based on “the best system of emission reduction” that, considering cost, has been “adequately demonstrated.” Under the proposed rule, the EPA concluded that carbon capture and storage (CSS) is adequately demonstrated as a technology for controlling carbon dioxide emissions in full-scale commercial applications at coal-fired EGUs, while reaching the opposite conclusion – that CSS is not adequately demonstrated in gas-fired EGUs. The committee’s goal is to understand the technical, economic, energy and other considerations the EPA relied on to reach its conclusions.

For more information, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at david@rice.edu or 713-348-6327.

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Charles McConnell

McConnell: http://news2.rice.edu/2013/09/03/rice-taps-mcconnell-to-direct-energy-and-environment-initiative-2.

Rice University’s Energy and Environment Initiative

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