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Office of Energy and Mineral Resources outlines energy-resilience grants, nuclear task force and home rebate request
Summary
Administrator Callie Junger told the joint budget committees OEMR is largely federally funded, is pursuing nuclear-policy work via a governor’s task force and RFI responses, highlighted energy-resilience grants and a Home Energy Rebates Program request, and discussed permitting coordination and a possible merger with Species Conservation.
Noah Peterson, the Legislative Services Office analyst, introduced the Office of Energy and Mineral Resources (OEMR) budget and noted the office is housed in the governor’s office by executive order, has 11 FTP and is predominantly supported by federal grants. Peterson called out a prior $15 million general-fund transfer into OEMR’s miscellaneous revenue fund to serve as state match for federal energy-resilience projects and said the office expects many of those funds will be obligated to multi-year projects rather than expended immediately.
Callie Junger, OEMR administrator, described the office’s work administering grants for rural communities, relicensing hydropower projects, tracking geothermal lease sales and permitting coordination. "We are the liaison to the federal government making sure that they understand the state perspective on these issues," Junger said. She told lawmakers OEMR leverages dedicated funds to support projects that enhance grid resiliency and wildfire prevention.
On nuclear policy, Junger described reconstituting an Advanced Nuclear Energy Task Force by executive order and running a request for information (RFI) to the industry that drew roughly 15 responses. She said the task force is exploring an RFI response to a DOE notice about creating a nuclear life-cycle campus and that INL’s research gives Idaho a competitive advantage. When Senator Groh and others asked about reprocessing and used fuel, Junger said DOE increasingly uses the term "used fuel" or "gently used fuel" and that research at INL is looking at whether more energy can be recovered from used rods.
Representative Miller asked about thorium molten-salt reactors and the potential for manufacture of small modular units. Junger said some companies aim to reach production scales that require a local, trained workforce and that OEMR’s task-force work includes identifying workforce and education gaps to support manufacturing. She also cited financial incentives and regulatory certainty as common factors companies weigh when choosing where to site projects.
Junger described a pivot after the SPEED council went unfunded: OEMR narrowed the proposed service to provide a single point of contact for industry permits and to partner with the federal FAST-41/permitting council process to streamline multiagency environmental review; Liberty Gold was given as an early example of that coordination. She also said a policy bill is possible to codify the office and that a proposed merger with the Office of Species Conservation could eliminate roughly two positions in each office and save about $80,000 to the general fund while broadening policy capacity.
Lawmakers asked whether funds are obligated; Peterson said most of the transferred energy-resilience funds are obligated though he did not have exact spreadsheets on hand. The governor’s recommended cuts and the broader holdback discussion were referenced as part of ongoing budget deliberations. The committee took no formal votes during this hearing; members asked for follow-up details on obligations and program timelines.
