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On Oct. 8, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz gave approval to

March 3, 2017 by James Ashley

On Oct. 8, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz gave approval to the DOE to spend $2.5 billion in the next 10 years to develop a new system to deal with the looming problem of low levels of natural gas in the underground and power plants that do not meet the nation's nuclear power requirements.

This could help to fix the grid's broken reliability standards. "This is a long shot," said a former official who spoke on condition of anonymity to be candid about the administration's plan. "At the end of the day, it's going to be very difficult for the government to continue to do something without the support of Congress."

The energy secretary's proposed power reform bill, on the other hand, would require the federal government to pay out at least 10% of the cost of its plants and put in place "new programs" to cover new generation.

The DOE, which is in charge of the program, wants a more generous set of incentives than the current one—one that includes subsidies for clean power plants. "That's not a simple piece of legislation," said the former official. "But it is a pretty powerful piece of legislation. The administration has a lot of power to do with it."

Even so, the administration's plan is not without its own critics, including some who question how and when it would work. "There is a lot of ambiguity that has crept into this," said one senior senior government official. "We're talking about a plan that has a lot of potential to be extremely unpopular, not only because it includes subsidies to get more power, but also because it's not a whole lot of money."

Another senior official said that while he doesn't think DOE would be in much of a position to implement a new power plan at the start, "I think it's a very, very big decision."