House lawmakers clash over climate spending cuts

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee spent hours Tuesday evening torching Republicans’ efforts to use their sweeping party-line bill to roll back billions of dollars for clean energy and environment programs while boosting fossil fuels.

The markup of the committee’s portion of the GOP megabill — which was still going Wednesday morning — saw Democrats push a barrage of amendments aimed at provisions that would repeal funding for climate initiatives and allow natural gas producers to pay to expedite project approvals.

Democrats also sought to put Republicans on the record opposing climate, clean energy and manufacturing subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act that many of them have supported or benefited from, even if they did not vote for the underlying legislation.

“Republicans are stealing money from their own communities,” said Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), who is a co-chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), another SEEC co-chair on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the GOP proposals “complete nonsense.” He added, “When the American people hear about the specific funding being cut, they will agree.”

Republicans handily rejected each of the amendments along party lines, but only after several hours of debate that got heated at times. Democrats called their counterparts “hypocrites,” and the Republicans responded with assertions that they are simply trying to address waste and fraud in federal energy and environment spending.

“What we’re trying to do is to make sure that policies go forward that make sense, and I’m not sure that a lot of these programs do that,” said Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), chair of the Environment Subcommittee.

Energy and Commerce Republicans are hoping to pass the legislation through the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to skirt the Senate filibuster and approve budget-related policies with a simple majority.

Democrats and advocates who protested the markup focused most of their time and energy on the committee’s proposed Medicaid reductions, but the energy and environment portions are likely to continue to draw criticism in the weeks to come.

Those sections of the reconciliation bill are now set to head to the House floor for a vote as soon as next week. A number of senators said Tuesday they intend to make changes.

The Energy and Commerce Committee is proposing what Democrats are calling “pay-to-play” permitting provisions and assaults on vulnerable communities.

It would allow fossil fuel developers — and not clean energy companies — to pay fees to fast-track their regulatory reviews. The legislation would repeal about $6.5 billion in obligated funds from Democrats’ 2022 climate law. And it would repeal several rules designed to tamp down on planet-warming emissions.

'Feels like a shakedown'

The energy section of the bill featured plenty of combative debate, most notably on a provision that would allow the Department of Energy to automatically deem a potential liquefied natural gas export facility to be in the "public interest" — normally a key regulatory hurdle — if the applicant pays a one-time fee of $1 million.

Ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J) said the policy was an unheard-of overstep of DOE’s authority and potentially even a corrupt move by the Trump administration to give oil and gas companies a leg up while cashing in on the $1 million application fee.

“I've never seen that in any piece of legislation in my life,” Pallone said. “What they're saying is it's in the public interest for you to pay, and it's in the public interest for you to give us a million dollars.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), in response to the provision, introduced an amendment that would require DOE’s inspector general to certify that the bill would not result in increased risks of corruption that jeopardize the integrity of the federal permitting process. She agreed with Pallone that she had “never seen anything like this” during her time in Congress.

Republicans defeated that amendment in a 24-28 vote, arguing that the federal government has always assumed liquefied natural gas export terminals are in the public interest. That is, Republicans said, before the Biden administration put a pause on approvals to evaluate the climate and price impacts of such LNG projects last year.

Republicans also pointed out that, under the bill, LNG export terminals would still have to go through the normal permitting process headed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission after the public interest determination was granted.

“It is false when [Democrats] say that it's not going to go through a process; it will go through a process,” said Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas). “The FERC process includes a rigorous environmental review, including [the National Environmental Policy Act], that will still be adhered to.”

Still, Democrats said the Secretary of Energy should be able to evaluate whether a project is in the public interest on the project’s merit, especially if a potential terminal is planning to ship natural gas to adversarial countries like China or Iran. They also said the provision favors big companies that could afford the application fee and may not survive legal scrutiny as a result.

Another provision in the bill would allow natural gas pipeline developers to receive an "expedited permitting process" from FERC if the applicant pays $10 million or 1 percent of the project's projected cost.

“It kind of feels like a shakedown of the folks who do this work,” said Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas). “You shouldn't have to pay $10 million dollars to get your permits reviewed, and I’m not sure companies would take advantage of this anyways.”

There was also significant disappointment from Democrats regarding the rescission of IRA funds for DOE programs under the bill, especially from the Loan Programs Office and transmission initiatives.

Several Democrats said the clawbacks of programs that have aided clean energy, along with the user fee issue for fossil fuel projects, could dampen the prospects of a bipartisan permitting reform package later in the year, if the bill goes forward as constructed.

“So instead of making it easier to build everything, once again, we are cutting off our feet in the race to energy resilience,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), who has pushed for a bipartisan permitting deal. “This is the definition of picking winners and losers, and it is not the way we will receive a resilient, energy-abundant future.”

Energy Subcommittee ranking member Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) introduced an amendment that would delay the bill from taking effect until the U.S. Energy Information Administration studies potential price impacts. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) introduced an amendment to rescind tariffs on the energy supply chain forwarded by the Trump administration.

Both amendments failed in party-line votes Tuesday night.

Hypocrisy accusations

Democrats followed their criticism of the package’s energy provisions with pointed rebukes of the Republicans’ climate and environment proposals.

The bill, if enacted as written, would rescind billions in unobligated funds from an array of environmental programs enacted by the Inflation Reduction Act while also repealing the original authorizing language — a move that budget experts say is unheard of in the reconciliation process.

Democrats on Tuesday attempted to turn the Republicans’ own provisions against them, pointing to instances in which conservatives requested grants for environmental programs in their communities and took advantage of climate and clean energy funding buckets that they are now trying to eliminate.

Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) asked Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) — whose district is home to a Hyundai electric vehicle plant that benefited from IRA subsidies — if he believes “all of that [IRA funding] was waste, fraud and abuse, or only the projects you did not like.”

California Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last year asked EPA to award a city in his district an environmental grant for disadvantaged communities, a request that was first reported by POLITICO's E&E News. That grant program would see its unobligated funds repealed under the GOP proposal.

Menendez offered an amendment that would have prevented the bill from targeting funds to help reduce air pollution at schools. He asked, “How is making the air our children breathe dirtier promoting government efficiency?”

Several Republicans noted that funding that has already been awarded and obligated would not be rescinded, but they also raised concerns about the way IRA climate programs have been implemented, especially the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) suggested it’s important for Congress to target environmental justice programs tailored for communities disproportionately affected by pollution because those programs sometimes don’t align with fossil fuel development that can bring investment and jobs to those communities.

“Sometimes environmental justice is really a way to keep poor people poor,” he said.