42 U.S.C. § 16183 — Energy and water for sustainability

(a) Nexus of energy and water for sustainability (1) Definitions. This section defines several terms: - "Department" means the Department of Energy. - "Energy-water nexus" means the connection between the water needed to make fuel, electricity, and other energy, and the energy needed to move, clean, and treat water and wastewater. - "Interagency RD&D Coordination Committee" (also called the "NEWS RD&D Committee") is the committee created under paragraph (3)(A). - "NEWS RD&D Office" (Nexus of Energy and Water Sustainability RD&D Office) is an office at the Department of Energy, run together with the Department of the Interior, that handles leadership and administrative work for the Committee. - "RD&D" means research, development, and demonstration. - "Secretary" means the Secretary of Energy. (2) Statement of policy. States mostly control how water is shared out and used, and where energy facilities get built on non-federal land, except where federal law overrides that. It is now the country's policy that, whenever the federal government manages energy-water nexus issues, it must coordinate closely with other federal agencies and with state and local governments, and share information with the public as effectively as possible. (3) Interagency RD&D Coordination Committee. - (A) Establishment: Within 180 days after December 27, 2020, the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of the Interior must jointly create the NEWS RD&D Office and the Interagency RD&D Coordination Committee to do the jobs listed in (C). - (B) Administration: The two Secretaries jointly run the Office and co-chair the Committee. They decide together who is on the Committee and how it is staffed. - (C) Duties. The Committee must: (i) be a forum where federal agencies build shared goals and plans for energy-water research, working with the National Science and Technology Council; (ii) issue a strategic plan on energy-water research within 1 year of December 27, 2020, and every two years after that, made together with relevant state and local governments; (iii) bring together and coordinate the research work of relevant federal agencies; (iv) build shared methods for collecting, sharing, and managing data on the energy-water nexus, and help agencies find funding opportunities, share existing programs through joint grants, and find domestic or international partnerships for this research; (v) find ways to make the best use of existing research programs, including state and local ones; (vi) make the results of this research public; (vii) recommend better ways to collect and share federal water-use data and use monitoring networks; and (viii) work with people outside the federal government, including researchers, state, local, and tribal governments, utility regulators, and industry, including by holding technical workshops. - (D) Strategic plan. In writing the strategic plan required by (C)(ii), the Committee must: (i) avoid duplicating other federal research programs, including those of the National Laboratories, as much as possible; (ii) consider including specific research needs, such as (I) new ways to save water or reuse it in energy generation and fuel production, (II) new ways to save energy in collecting, delivering, treating, or reusing water, (III) new ways to generate energy from water or wastewater systems, and (IV) modeling and analysis of the whole energy-water system; and (iii) send the plan to the relevant Senate and House committees. - (E) Rules of construction. (i) This section does not give the Committee power to make regulations or set standards. (ii) Nothing in this section can be read to force state, tribal, or local governments to take on new costs. - (F) Additional participation. In writing the strategic plan, the Secretary must also consult a wide range of people from research institutions, industry, utility regulators, and state and local governments who know about energy-water technology. - (G) Review; report. Five years after the Committee and Office are created, the NEWS RD&D Office must review how useful and effective the Committee has been, and send Congress a report describing that review and recommending whether the Committee should keep going. (4) Crosscut budget. Within 30 days after the President submits the federal budget, the Committee's co-chairs (acting through the NEWS RD&D Office) must send Congress a report showing, program by program, project by project, and agency by agency, all federal spending, including through grants, contracts, and transfers, on energy-water research. It must show (A) the budget proposed for the coming year, (B) what was actually spent and obligated last year, and (C) what is expected to be spent and obligated this year. (5) Termination. (A) The NEWS RD&D Office's and Committee's authority ends 7 years after December 27, 2020. (B) Ending that authority does not stop other ongoing energy-water planning or research work. (b) Integrating energy and water research. The Secretary must build these ideas into the Department's energy research programs by: (1) pushing research on energy and energy-efficiency technologies that (A) minimize fresh water use, (B) use water more efficiently, and (C) use nontraditional water sources; (2) thinking about how a changing climate could affect water supplies used for energy generation and fuel production; and (3) better understanding the energy-water nexus, as defined in (a)(1). (c) Additional activities. The Secretary may fund other research, development, and demonstration activities needed to carry out the goals in (b).