Massive House GOP Energy Bill Praised, Pilloried in Marathon First Hearing

The bill carries the designation of House Resolution 1 (HR 1) and is sponsored by Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), highlighting its importance to Republicans after narrowly regaining the chamber during the 2022 midterm elections.

Among myriad initiatives, HR 1 would loosen oil and gas regulations, expand leases on public lands, invest in pipelines and refineries, push for greater export capacity of U.S. energy, and incentivize mining, especially for critical/strategic minerals.

According to proponents, the massive measure retains the push for renewable energies such as solar, wind, and nuclear power that are promoted in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law [BIL] and Inflation Reduction Act [IRA], but seeks to slow the forced rapidity of a transition to green energies that the House GOP maintains is responsible for inflation and weakening the nation’s energy independence.

According to opponents, the proposed ‘Lower Energy Costs Act’ is a short-sighted backslide to dependence on finite fossil fuels that endangers an environment under strain from climate change, and delays necessary steps to develop the renewable energies that will define the global economy by mid-century.

Those polar-opposite views regarding HR 1 and the nation’s energy policy were evident in stark contrast during the bill’s first hearing on March 27, a three-and-a-half-hour point-counterpoint slogfest before the House Rules Committee.

In his drive to abruptly transition away from oil and gas, President Joe Biden has “shut down the Keystone pipeline line. He has shut down fracking,” Norman continued. “He has passed every regulation known to man to stop this economy dead in its tracks. Numbers don’t lie. [Democrats and Republicans] are on different wavelengths.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky) said in most instances, he doesn’t like omnibus bills assembled from 18 different pieces of legislation but in HR 1’s case, they “belong together” in one package and need to be adopted quickly because, as the 2022 midterms showed, voters are demanding action.

“We’re sitting here today in the majority, in large part, because the minority, when they were the majority, ignored the basic fundamental question of ‘what are you doing to lower energy costs?’” he said. If Democrats “spend less time on January 6 and more time for on [energy policy], we wouldn’t be in the majority. Elections have consequences.”

Meanwhile, Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said that if House Republicans spent less time “talking about ‘wokeism’ in schools, banning books and lessons” in classrooms, they’d realize the BIL and IRA are fostering technological breakthroughs in sustainable energy, are taking “bold steps to reduce pollution,” and “generating good-paying jobs that make home-grown energy possible.”

Democrats during the hearing referred to HR 1 as “The Polluters Over People Act” with McGovern maintaining “it doesn’t lower energy costs or make us less energy dependent and lines the pockets of corporations that rip off consumers. The bill makes it easier for companies to pollute and get away with it.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said the fact that the new Republican majority made the Lower Energy Cost Act HR 1 is “most emblematic” of the GOP’s priorities.

“To put it bluntly,” he said, HR 1 is “a 175-page love letter to gas, mining, and other polluting industries.”

Grijalva said the GOP is pandering to “Big Oil,” which he accused of “price-gouging … and hoarding thousands” of leases on public lands while complaining about the Biden administration’s moratorium on leases, imposed because oil and gas companies were not developing the leases they already had.

“Big Oil doesn’t need to be incentivized” at the expense of taxpayers and to investments in communities affected by extraction, he said, claiming HR 1 is “doubling down on the rip-off of the status quo.”

Bills incorporated into HR 1 mandate 30-day federal approval of “cross-border energy infrastructure,” or pipelines; call for removal of “public interest” as a categorical review when the U.S. Department of Energy weighs natural gas export proposals; repeals the federal Natural Gas Tax; prohibits a president from banning fracking by executive order; and requires the National Petroleum Council to research U.S. refinery capacity and needs.

Two resolutions incorporated into HR 1 say there should be “no restrictions” on oil and gas exports and express disapproval of Biden’s revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit.

Democrats said the omnibus bill rolls back “bedrock” protections in the landmark Clean Water and Clean Air acts adopted more than half-century ago under the Nixon administration, which have proven effective in protecting the environment, eliminates “greenhouse gas” containments and removes requirements to “capture” and utilize methane gas.

HR 1 defines “Dumping of toxic waste as the highest and best use of public land,” Grijalva said.

Massie found it amusing to hear Democrats praising former conservative Republican President Richard Nixon, adding that “I would disagree that these are bedrock environmental laws” since they are no longer recognizable from their adopted iterations.

The acts are hardly “bedrock,” he said. “I would define them shifting beach sand” that changes with every new administration, suggesting that lawmakers in the early 1970s, “had they seen what would become of those laws,” would not have adopted them.

“The consequences should be obvious to everyone,” Cole said, citing a 29.3 percent energy cost increase in 2021, including more than 40 percent hike gas prices, followed by another  7.3 percent increase in 2022.

“President Biden’s policies have made everyday life harder for American families,” Cole said. HR 1 seeks to “end this sad state of affairs and unleashes American energy resources” to ensure American families “don’t have to decide between putting food on the table or fuel in the car.”

HR 1 also would thwart Russia and China’s “weaponize energy and control supply lines for critical minerals,” calling it an “all-of-the-above energy policy” that also promotes solar, wind, nuclear, and other reenable energy sources.

Norman said the United States has a “150-year supply” of oil and natural gas but the Biden administration would apparently rather see the nation import its energy than develop it domestically.

“Who are we supposed to depend on? Name me the countries?” he asked before answering his own question. “Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. That is who we are beholden to as a direct result of this administration’s actions.”

McGovern said HR 1 repeals critical provisions in the IRA “that hold polluters accountable” and “gives handouts to ‘Big Oil, [which is] already reporting record profits.”

He said making Americans more reliant on oil and natural gas “will actually raise energy costs” because the fuels are traded on a global market susceptible to work events—like Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

HR 1 “makes it easier for mining companies to strip public lands of resources and foot taxpayers with the clean-up bills, McGovern said.

“This is the same dirty energy policy, same pro-polluter policy” that Republicans have supported for years and will put “the country back decades” in developing the energies that will define the 21st century, he said, noting a Congressional Budget Office [CBO] analysis estimates HR 1 would increase the nation’s deficit by $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion a year.

Reps. Brice Westerman (R-Ark.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) challenged Democrats’ interpretation of the CBO’s analysis.

Westerman said under current law, states get 37 percent of revenue from offshore energy development. HR 1 would give coastal states “a 50-50 share of these revenues,” and that is where CBO says the $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion federal revenue decline will come from.

“I think most people would say that is a fairness issue,” he said, noting the same 50-50 split is accorded for wind energy development. “If you are producing the energy that is producing the revenues, you should get a bigger share of the revenues.”

Roy said CBO’s analysis “doesn’t include the dynamic when you slash permitting and fees,” adding the 0.6 percent increase in U.S. energy production under the Biden administration is inducing “stagflation” that will ultimately increase the deficit by more than $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion a year.

HR 1 has already been “vetted extensively” in committee reviews of its component bills, Westerman said. “Unlike the deceptively named bills” adopted when Democrats ruled the House the last four years, “this legislation does exactly what it says it will do—lower energy costs.”