CMR in 2022. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers sees the lack of a permitting deal as the "biggest barrier" to building out a cleaner electricity grid supplied by hydropower and nuclear.
Why it matters: The outgoing Energy and Commerce chair shepherded popular nuclear legislation to passage — but came up short on permitting and hydro bills.
- McMorris Rodgers had talks with Manchin and Sen. John Barrasso about including hydropower provisions in their bipartisan permitting bill, she said.
- "I was disappointed that, in the end, it wasn't included in the CR," she told Axios.
The big picture: Her state — with Bill Gates' TerraPower headquarters and an X-energy demonstration site — is bullish on advanced nuclear and finding a solution for waste, she said.
- She helped get bipartisan support for the ADVANCE Act, which aimed to lower NRC licensing and regulatory burdens for next-generation reactors, and for a Russian uranium import ban to "send a message" to Vladimir Putin.
- "Obviously, we have to address what we're going to do with the waste," she said, pointing to progress cleaning up the Hanford nuclear weapons site.
- The U.S. will be "leading this next generation of nuclear technology and being able to deploy small nuclear reactors and advanced ones that are recycling the nuclear waste."
Zoom in: Hydropower has been a tougher sell to colleagues, she acknowledged.
- "People think of hydropower as something that we did 70 years ago, rather than recognizing the potential that we have for hydropower today," she said.
- But just 3% of U.S. dams currently produce electricity. The DOE and industry sources have found the country could double hydropower capacity simply by adding generators to existing dams, she said.
- That message could get a bigger spotlight as demand rises for zero-carbon electricity, she said.
Between the lines: With the gavel of such a wide-reaching committee, she said she sought efficient legislating from the start.
- At the start of the session, she "sat down with the members individually and talked about their priorities," she said, assigning members to issues they cared about.
- She gave coffee mugs to E&C members emblazoned with the committee's founding year of 1795 and encouraged them to "grab a cup of coffee with someone across the aisle and build relationships."
What's next: She's still exploring what she'll do, but "at the top" of her list is spending more time with her husband and teenage children.
