Both Congress and the Obama administration had a busy October, with several energy and climate related happenings set to occur before year’s end.

In his final major effort prior to retiring, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) reached a bipartisan agreement, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, with other House and Senate leaders and the White House on a two-year, $80 billion budget deal that suspended the federal debt limit until March 2017 and raised spending caps for defense and non-defense programs. To pay for some of the additional spending, the measure allowed the federal government to sell more than 8 percent of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or 58 million gallons of oil, between 2018 and 2025. Some policy riders, such as those blocking Environmental Protection Agency ozone and Waters of the United States rules, may complicate the measure when it comes time to address funding specifics. Negotiations continue in both chambers on a best path forward for any possible end of the year package, which may include tax extenders, the lifting of the 40-year old crude oil export ban, and more.

The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy held a hearing October 20 to consider the economic and environmental impacts of the 2015 Paris international climate negotiations. State Department Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern testified. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) was unable to schedule a similar hearing in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, as the State Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and White House Council on Environmental Quality declined to provide witnesses. Inhofe asked the agencies October 15 to reconsider their refusals.

The Obama Administration will continue its climate theme through the end of the year as it continues its march toward international climate negotiations in Paris this November and December and seeks an ambitious global climate agreement. The White House held October 19 an event with 68 companies as they signed on to the American Business Act on Climate Pledge. The second round of signatories, combined with the initial rollout in late July, commits 81 companies to supporting an ambitious climate change agreement in Paris later this year and reducing their corporate greenhouse gas emissions through various company-specific efforts. The Obama administration has been working to demonstrate broad domestic corporate support for a global climate accord, and expects more companies to sign the pledge before the Paris summit.

As the Paris negotiations loom, nations across the globe continue their preparations. The final Paris preparatory talks ran October 19–23 in Bonn, and the negotiations themselves will take place November 30 – December 11 in Paris. After conducting 22 meetings with negotiating blocs, negotiators spent opening day of the Bonn talks adding “surgical insertions” to the text intended to eventually become a global climate agreement, but many parties fear that the language could again become unwieldy before it is finalized in December. Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action negotiating track cochairs Ahmed Djoghlaf and Dan Reifsnyder unveiled October 5 a 20-page draft negotiating text that was significantly more concise than previous versions, cutting out many of the national positions previously included in the extensive Geneva text from February, but delegations are already working to reinsert those positions. The October 5 text addresses mitigating emissions, adapting to climate change’s impacts, addressing technological development, and making transparent domestic global warming pledges. Some of the biggest issues of disagreement, including how responsibilities for developed and developing countries will be differentiated under the agreement, are like to remain unresolved until Paris itself. This year’s negotiations have been tame, as nations have largely embraced the bottom-up structure that allows them to craft their own domestic plans, and State Department Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern has indicated that any tension in Bonn should not be cause for concern, as this is a typical part of the final negotiations.

In agency news, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy announced October 7 funding up to $30 million for the Single-pane Highly Insulating Efficient Lucid Designs program to reduce heat-loss for improved building efficiency by developing innovative materials that are transparent and insulating to retrofit existing single-pane windows. At the Department of Interior, the agency scrapped plans October 16 to sell new oil and gas drilling rights in the Arctic waters, following Shell’s costly failure last month to find crude oil in the environmentally sensitive region. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that the agency had decided to abandon Arctic oil and gas leasing sales planned for 2016 and 2017 in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, citing a lack of interest, and that it would deny requests by Shell and Statoil to extend their current Arctic lease terms past the 10-year mark.