Four House Democratic have asked the Government Accountability Office to determine forces that prevent federal agencies from implementing building energy and water efficiency measures that support U.S. greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

In a letter to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, the lawmakers said most of the facilities under the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) do not comply with Section 432 of the Energy Independence and Security Act.

The House members told Dodaro that the Department of Energy's EISA Section 432 compliance tracking system indicated that government buildings have hit a point of efficiency stagnation in the past four years.

They want to know the energy management approaches at agencies that have above-average rates in conforming to the law, details of reporting requirements exemption criteria and the practices used to monitor the effectiveness of conservation efforts under traditional or performance-based contracts.

The letter was signed by Reps. Kathy Castor, D-Fla.; Frank Pallone, D-N.J.; Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.; and Bobby Bush, D-Ill.

Diane Knight, lead for the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program's pathfinders and pilots at the Department of Defense (DOD), said at a Jan. 26th virtual town hall that a final rule on the unified cybersecurity standard could be released in April 2021, FCW reported Wednesday.

Request for proposals are planned for April release, with responses due by July, and awards are estimated to be made in August, according to a "national" timeline preview shared by Knight.

The implementation is dependent on CMMC training for organizations and certification of CMMC Accreditation Body-approved assessors. The training covers development of materials and authorization of organizations to facilitate CMMC classes.

Ben Tchoubineh, a CMMC board member and chair of the training committee, said out of 22 applications, 12 schools have been approved as licensed training providers. Classes and formal training content are anticipated to be available by the late spring or early summer.

The AB has certified 16 licensed partner publishers for training materials. Two pending applications remain.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has started a study that aims to explore the potential growth of energy storage technologies and the entire power system. 

NREL said Tuesday the Storage Futures Study seeks to address how energy storage technologies will play a role for the U.S. power grid and how they may affect future power system infrastructure investment and operations. 

The agency also proposed a framework that aims to help regulators, utilities and developers prepare for the future through the use of projections, analysis and trends.

The first phase of the framework states how short-duration storage could maintain the power grid's supply, while Phase 2 indicates that hybrid system configurations will potentially enhance the cost-competitiveness of battery storage technologies.

Phase 3 focuses on storage technologies that can deliver additional or lower-cost services to reach peak periods, while Phase 4 discusses how seasonal storage approaches can address mismatch of variable resource supply and demand.

"Our four-phase framework is intended to describe a plausible evolution of cost-competitive storage technologies, but more importantly, it identifies key elements needed for stakeholders to evaluate alternative pathways for both storage and other sources of system flexibility," said Paul Denholm, an analyst at NREL.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched the next increment of its 5G auction program that will allow bidders to compete for their preferred allocations in the C-band spectrum.

FCC said Tuesday the bidding program has raised $80.9 billion and will now move forward to the “assignment phase” of Auction 107 which previously saw bidders compete for 5,684 spectrum blocks during the program’s “clock phase”. Bidders that were able to secure at least one block of C-band spectrum allocations are eligible to bid for frequency-specific licenses during the assignment phase.

Jessica Rosenworcel, acting chairwoman of FCC, said the agency’s work on the auction is meant to help put forward and accelerate commercialization of the mid-band spectrum. FCC plans to conduct a six-round “mock auction” as part of Auction 107’s next phase on Feb. 4 ahead of official bidding activities on Feb. 8.