Ranking Member Ross Opening Statement at Hearing on Subsurface Energy
Energy Subcommittee Ranking Member Deborah Ross' (D-NC) opening statement as prepared for the record is below:
Good morning and thank you, Chairman Weber, for convening this hearing. And thank you to the expert witnesses appearing before the subcommittee today to talk about the current landscape of subsurface energy and critical materials research. It has been nearly three years since this subcommittee last held a hearing on this topic. But it is still clear that understanding how we can safely and sustainably harness our natural resources is critical to our ability to support a clean and resilient future.
For decades, the department of energy and its national labs have administered essential research into Earth’s natural processes. The foundational work advanced by the department has long focused on the extraction of fossil fuels from the ground. However, this research is also important for addressing problems like mitigating environmental contamination and storing carbon underground. It is particularly important to our renewed focus on geothermal energy development – both conventional and next-generation technologies.
Geothermal energy is growing into an invaluable source of clean power to support our energy security. This subsurface research plays an essential role in our ability to safely extract minerals for clean energy technologies and national security, as well as to create American-made alternatives that can serve those same purposes.
In my home state of North Carolina, Duke University’s critical minerals hub and NC State’s minerals research lab are leading this kind of research – from studying how we can extract critical materials from unconventional resources to studying the environmental impacts of mining. This fundamental materials research, paired with work on the electric grid and geopolitical analysis, will help us create a sustainable and secure critical minerals supply chain here in the U.S.
Lastly, I would be remiss not to highlight how important continued federal investment in these research areas is. Universities, national labs, and private sector innovators like those represented in our witness panel today rely upon steady federal investment stewarded by expert staff.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about the current research challenges they face across the range of subsurface rectors they represent and how the federal government can make the biggest impact in supporting their work. Thank you, and I yield back.
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