It is standard procedure for committees at the start of a new Congressional session to outline their goals for the next two years, especially when a chamber is under new management.
With Republicans assuming control of the United States House of Representatives following November’s midterm elections, the newly installed GOP leadership has been doing just that across the chamber’s 20 standing permanent committees and their 104 subcommittees and select temporary panels.
That transitional shift-change has been clearly evident this week in seminal session meetings of the 52-member House Energy and Commerce Committee and its six subcommittees and in the 45-member House Natural Resources Committee and its five subsidiary panels.
During four years of Democratic control, climate change, environmental protection, and “green” energy development were among the primary policy drivers in adopting legislation designed to coax the nation away from reliance on oil and gas, including the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and $740 billion Infrastructure Reduction Act (IRA).
During two days of nearly eight hours of hearings before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Feb. 7, and before the full House Natural Resource Committee on Feb. 8, Republicans made it clear that many initiatives passed under the Biden administration promoting electric vehicles, carbon capture, green energy, and environmental protection are on the proverbial block.
Energy Panel Plots New Course
During the near-six hour House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting, six witnesses testified on a raft of 17 Republican-sponsored bills that proponents argue are key to “restoring American energy dominance.”
Among the proposed measures that will dominate the committee’s and its subsidiary panels’ agendas in the coming months are bills prohibiting restrictions on hydraulic fracking without Congressional approval; expanding natural gas exports; repealing the IRA’s Green House Reduction Fund; and amending the Clean Air, Toxic Substances Control, Solid Waste Disposal, and National Gas Tax acts.
Within the tranche of proposed legislation on the committee’s “unleashing American energy agenda,” are bills calling for permitting reform, promoting the development of “critical minerals,” and prohibiting the import of Russian uranium.
In kicking off the day-long hearing, Republicans argued that “unleashing American energy, lowering energy costs, and strengthening supply chains” must be a priority if the United States is to be economically competitive in the 21st century and beyond.
“America has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources. We should be working towards developing a predictable regulatory landscape across-the-board that inspires innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological leadership, hydropower, nuclear, fossil energies, wind, solar, and batteries,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Cathy Rodgers (R-Wash.) said in opening the proceedings.
The nation needs an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, she and others insisted, claiming the Biden administration’s pro-green agenda is promoting technologies that either aren’t feasible or don’t have the domestic raw materials and processing capacity to now sustain.
Case in point, they note, is the promotion of electric vehicles (EVs) when more than 80 percent of the lithium needed to power EV batteries, and the capacity to manufacture them, are in China.
“Rush-to-green energy policies—both state and federal—have curtailed reliable energy and infrastructure, resulting in everything from blackouts to spiking prices,” Rodgers said. “These policies are unsustainable and lead to greater reliance on countries like Russia, or in our case, China. This is not a future any of us want.”
via zerohedge