§13361 Clean Coal Technology Export Promotion and Interagency Coordination

Summary

Creates a Clean Coal Technology Subgroup inside the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee (the Committee the President set up on May 23, 1990). The subgroup must work to grow exports and use of clean coal technologies, especially in countries that can gain energy efficiency and reduce pollution from coal. It must include one member from each agency that was on the Committee’s Energy, Environment, and Infrastructure Working Group as of October 24, 1992. The Secretary will chair the subgroup and make sure its work gets done. The subgroup must talk with coal companies, rail and other transport firms, worker groups, electric utilities, equipment makers, environmental organizations that support U.S. firms, and other interested people. It must also keep working links with other parts of the Committee, with attention to places like Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. The subgroup must run programs to train users and international development staff, help set up financial assistance (including grants, loan guarantees, and no interest and low interest loans) for prefeasibility and feasibility studies and for projects, and create incentives to help U.S. firms export clean coal technologies. It must support foreign training, teach loan officers and U.S. commercial and energy attachés about these technologies, coordinate federal agency actions, review projects for consistency with the subgroup’s goals, and work with multilateral institutions. The subgroup must build a database and info system using the National Trade Data Bank and the Commercial Information Management System of the Department of Commerce, and must assess and rank foreign markets. That assessment must cover financing needs, availability of other fuels, environmental priorities, technical skills, how clean coal tech compares to conventional options, a list of U.S. vendors, and common questions about the technologies. The subgroup must share its information with Congress, industry, financiers, NGOs, foreign governments, and others it finds appropriate. Within 180 days after the Secretary files the report required by section 409 of Public Law 101–549, the Secretary must give Congress a plan that responds to that report and addresses whether federal and international financing is adequate for prefeasibility/feasibility studies and projects.