House GOP Pushes Bill to Unleash Energy03/30 06:09

   House Republicans are set to approve a sprawling energy package that seeks 
to undo virtually all of President Joe Biden's agenda to address climate change.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans are set to approve a sprawling energy 
package that seeks to undo virtually all of President Joe Biden's agenda to 
address climate change.

   The massive GOP bill up for a vote Thursday would sharply increase domestic 
production of oil, natural gas and coal, and ease permitting restrictions that 
delay pipelines, refineries and other projects. It also would boost production 
of critical minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt that are used in 
products such as electric vehicles, computers and cellphones.

   Republicans call the bill the "Lower Energy Costs Act" and have given it the 
symbolic label H.R. 1 -- the top legislative priority of the new GOP majority, 
which took control of the House in January. The measure, which combines dozens 
of separate proposals, represents more than two years of work by Republicans 
who have chafed at Biden's environmental agenda. They say Biden's efforts have 
thwarted U.S. energy production and increased costs at the gas pump and grocery 
store.

   "Families are struggling because of President Biden's war on American 
energy,'' said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., one of the bill's 
main authors. "We have way too many energy resources here in America to be 
relying on hostile nations and paying (high prices) at the pump.''

   The GOP bill will "unleash those resources so we can produce energy in 
America,'' Scalise said. "We don't have to be addicted to foreign countries 
that don't like us.''

   Democrats called the bill a giveaway to big oil companies.

   "Republicans refuse to hold polluters accountable for the damage they cause 
to our air, our water, our communities and our climate,'' said New Jersey Rep. 
Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

   "While Democrats delivered historic wins for the American people by passing 
historic climate legislation, Republicans are actively working to undermine 
that progress and do the bidding of their polluter friends,'' Pallone said.

   Biden has threatened to veto the energy bill if it reaches his desk, and 
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it "dead on arrival" in 
the Democratic-controlled Senate.

   House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the GOP bill "restores American 
energy leadership by repealing unnecessary taxes and overregulation on American 
energy producers,'' and "makes it easier to build things in America'' by 
placing a two-year time limit on environmental reviews that now take an average 
of seven years.

   "Every time we need a pipeline, a road or a dam, it gets held up five to 
seven years and adds millions of dollars in costs for the project to comply 
with Washington's permitting process,'' McCarthy said in speech on the House 
floor. "It's too long, it's unaffordable, it's not based on science and it's 
holding us back.''

   He pointed to a project to modify and improve Lake Isabella Dam in his 
central California district that has lasted 18 years and still is not completed.

   "Permitting reform isn't for everyone,'' McCarthy added. "If you like paying 
more at the pump, you don't want to make it faster for American workers to 
build more pipelines. If you're China, you'd rather America sit back and let 
others lead. And if you're a bureaucrat, maybe you really do enjoy reading the 
600-page environmental impact studies.''

   Most Americans want lower prices and more U.S. energy production, McCarthy 
said -- results he said the bill will deliver.

   Democrats called that misleading and said the GOP plan was a thinly 
disguised effort to reward oil companies and other energy producers that have 
contributed millions of dollars to GOP campaigns.

   Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources 
Committee, derided the bill as the "Polluters Over People Act'' and "a nearly 
200-page love letter to polluting industries.''

   Instead of reining in "Big Oil" companies that have reported record profits 
while "hoarding thousands of unused leases'' on public lands and waters, the 
GOP bill lowers royalty rates paid by energy producers and reinstates 
noncompetitive leasing of public lands, Grijalva said.

   The bill also gives mining companies "a veritable free-for-all on our public 
lands" and "makes mockery of tribal consultation'' required under federal law, 
he said.

   Under the GOP plan, mining companies will "destroy sacred and special 
places" throughout the West, "ruin the landscape and leave behind a toxic mess 
that pollutes our water and hurts our health -- all without paying a cent to 
the American people,'' Grijalva said.

   Schumer called the measure "a giveaway to Big Oil pretending to be an energy 
package."

   The House energy package "would gut important environmental safeguards on 
fossil fuel projects,'' locking America "into expensive, erratic and dirty 
energy sources while setting us back more than a decade on our transition to 
clean energy,'' Schumer said.

   Schumer said he supports streamlining the nation's cumbersome permitting 
process for energy projects, especially those that will deliver "clean energy" 
such as wind, solar and geothermal power. "But the Republican plan falls 
woefully short on this front as well,'' he said, calling on Republicans to back 
reforms that would help ease the transition to renewable energy and accelerate 
construction of transmission lines to bolster the nation's aging power grid.

   Schumer and other Democrats said the Republican bill would repeal a new $27 
billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and other parts of the climate and health 
care law passed by Democrats last year. The bill also would eliminate a new tax 
on methane pollution.