House Republicans plan to move forward with a major energy and permitting reform package that contrasts the GOP’s policies with the Biden administration’s efforts to clamp down on oil and gas production.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) appeared Thursday on FOX Business Network’s “Kudlow” to outline the new package, which will be known as H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act, once it’s formally introduced in the House – a signal of the issue’s importance to the new Republican majority.
“The only way you can really curb inflation, you’ve got to lower energy costs,” McCarthy told host Larry Kudlow. “We need to double all-the-above what we’re producing today, but we need to not just be energy independent, this about exporting too to our allies. We should make China dependent on our natural gas because you know what would happen? The world would be cleaner because our natural gas is 41% cleaner than Russia’s natural gas.”
“God has blessed us, we are abundant in energy, I don’t know why we don’t use it – it would lower the cost of energy, which would help lower inflation because it would lower the cost of everything from food on down. It would give people more cash on hand, it would create more jobs in America that are good-paying. There’s no downside to this, it’s just upside all the way through,” McCarthy said to Kudlow.
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Scalise, who will be the lead sponsor of the bill, told FOX Business, “American workers and families are fed up with President Biden and Congressional Democrats’ war on American energy that has resulted in record high gas and utility prices.”
“Voters sent Republicans to Congress to put an end to the Democrats’ Green New Deal Agenda, and our energy package will show the country how we can be energy independent again and lower costs for those hard-working families who are struggling with paying too much for gas and electricity costs because of President Biden’s anti-American energy agenda,” Scalise said.
GOP lawmakers aim to achieve two primary goals with the package: increasing production and exports of American energy; and reducing regulatory burdens that make it more difficult to build infrastructure for energy production, transportation, and processing through comprehensive permitting reform.
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In particular, the permitting reform components of House Republicans’ H.R. 1 will have impacts that reach beyond the energy sector. It would expedite hard rock mining projects that yield rare earth minerals that are used in advanced technologies like semiconductors, batteries, and renewable energy technologies.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would also be reformed under the House GOP’s energy and permitting reform package. NEPA is a law requiring environmental reviews for construction projects. Critics of the current law’s structure have argued its regulatory framework is outdated and caused permitting delays affecting a wide variety of projects – including those enacted under the recent bipartisan infrastructure law.
House GOP lawmakers plan to include a comprehensive overhaul of NEPA that would streamline the process to provide greater certainty across types of projects, from pipelines and manufacturing facilities to oil and gas drilling operations, while retaining its public comment and stakeholder engagement procedures.
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The broad package is expected to contain around 20 individual bills, a number of which have been marked up by relevant committees and subcommittees in recent weeks.
Those bills will be consolidated into H.R. 1 as committees continue their work for the rest of this month. The House GOP is planning to bring H.R. 1 to the floor for a vote in the last week of March.
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While Republicans don’t expect Senate Democrats or the Biden administration to embrace the package, they have expressed a hope that the permitting reform provisions could spur bipartisan negotiations on the topic with lawmakers like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) who put forward a narrower proposal last year.
That could allow members to fashion a bipartisan permitting reform package that’s enacted into law before the end of the 118th Congress.
