The week ahead: Obama’s climate plan arrives

Also Tuesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will consider a slate of energy efficiency bills for schools, nonprofit organizations and other entities.

On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will dive into the political and lobbying battle centering on a federal biofuel-blending mandate.

The hearing on the renewable fuel standard comes after committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the panel’s top Democrat, released a series of white papers on the mandate.

The House Budget Committee on Wednesday will discuss the impact of the U.S. shale energy boom on the economy and jobs.

Marty Durbin, president and chief executive with America’s Natural Gas Alliance, will testify.

The House Appropriations Committee will take its turn at the fiscal 2014 energy and water spending bill at a Wednesday markup.

Federal oversight of chemical facilities will receive a look at a Thursday Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.

The panel will explore whether regulatory gaps contributed to conditions that helped incite deadly explosions at chemical plants in West, Texas, and Geismar, La.

Off Capitol Hill, American Petroleum Institute (API) CEO Jack Gerard will discuss energy policy in a Monday conversation with Public Citizen, a left-leaning consumer advocacy group.

“Public Citizen and API are at odds on most key issues, including addressing climate change, the roles for conservation and energy efficiency measures in national energy policy, and tax reform. Gerard’s talk and the follow-up discussion will offer an opportunity to hear contrasting views and test the integrity of competing assertions,” an advisory states.

Former Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) will shed light on how the newfound supply of U.S. natural gas is shifting the domestic energy market.

Dorgan, now a senior fellow with the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, will deliver his comments Tuesday at a roundtable hosted by the American Gas Association.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell will discuss public lands policy, conservation and ways to get children to enjoy the outdoors during a Tuesday conversation at the Center for American Progress.

An advisory for the event states, “These places that belong to each and every one of us are critically important to meeting modern challenges such as ‘nature-deficit disorder’ and the obesity epidemic.”