House Republicans rallied around an amended version of a popular Senate energy bill that Democrats blasted en masse during a floor debate Wednesday afternoon.
The bill in front of the House is a Senate energy package that passed with 85 votes in April, was strongly supported by both parties and has tentative approval from the Obama administration. It was widely expected the two bills would be worked out during a conference committee, but House Republicans instead fused the energy bill that passed the lower chamber in December to the Senate package.
That move was unpopular with Democrats who called the legislation a “wish list” from the fossil fuel industry that would be unpalatable to the Senate and President Obama.
Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the bill is a necessary update that is years in the making.
“This has been a multi-year, multi-Congress effort and a lot of work has been done to make sure the future of American energy is truly comprehensive,” he said.
The amended version of the bill attaches the North American Energy Security Bill, the House’s energy package, to the Senate energy bill that passed the upper chamber in April. In addition, several hydropower bills were also added onto the package before it went to the House floor.
Upton said the amended bill modernizes the country’s energy infrastructure, allows easier export of liquefied natural gas, strengthens energy security, improves efficiency and helps reduce the impact of environmental regulation on businesses.
One of the most important provisions in the bill is making it easier for natural gas to be exported, Upton said. That will help undermine countries such as Russia that use their energy resources as a political weapon.
“This allows us to provide for an energy lifeline to our allies across the globe,” he said.
However, the bill was immediately condemned by Democrats who wanted to proceed with the Senate legislation.
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said the Senate was on the right track with its bipartisan bill. But the House amendment to that bill set the wrong tone going into a conference committee and had dangerous policy riders.
He said the section eliminating the presidential permitting process for energy projects crossing international borders would bring the Keystone XL pipeline back to life. He added there are problematic changes to the way the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permits pipelines in the bill.
Pallone added that the “highly partisan” House bill stood no chance of getting through the Senate and onto Obama’s desk.
“Voting once on these fundamentally flawed ideas should have been quite enough,” he said. “We don’t need to make a mockery of the conference process.”
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said the bill didn’t go far enough in addressing problems with the country’s energy infrastructure. He said the bill “fails to modernize energy infrastructure, fails to invest in jobs and clean energy, they failed to cut carbon pollution.”
“The underlying bill … does little more than take us backward in terms of energy policy while also creating loopholes to help industry avoid accountability and to avoid regulations,” he said.
Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., argued that Democrats were upset that they couldn’t get everything they wanted into the bill.
He said some of the riders, which Democrats criticized as ideological and “poison pill amendments,” were really just common sense. He said one provision to allow federal buildings to use fossil fuels as energy after 2030, which is currently banned by federal law, is a smart move.
But, Democrats are taking a hard, environmentalist position in negotiations, he said.
“If there was a time in the future when we needed fossil fuels, because fossil fuels still provide 50 to 60 percent of all the electricity in America … this provision simply says we’re going to allow it,” he said. “We’re not mandating it, but the government has the option (under the amendment) after 2030 of using fossil fuel in government buildings.”
