A Republican senator on Thursday sent a message to any Democrats thinking about running the clock on efforts to pass the first comprehensive energy reform bill in nine years: Compromise now or miss out on a deal.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said in his opening remarks at the first conference committee that it took a lot of bipartisan work for the Senate and House to pass comprehensive energy reform bills to even get to conference. Now that they’re in the room, Democrats are expected to reject provisions in the House bill that they think go too far in promoting fossil fuels and don’t address climate change.
Barrasso said these Democrats may want to run out the clock on the committee and try and get a better deal in the next Congress that might have more Democratic members. But he warned them that would be a risky play.
“Do not assume this opportunity or this offer will be available in the next Congress,” he said in the conference committee meeting.
Both the Senate and the House have passed the comprehensive energy reform bill, but passed two very different versions. While the Senate’s bill included priorities of both parties, including provisions to expedite natural gas exports and increased investments in renewable energy, the House bill passed with a vote close to party lines and doesn’t include many Democratic priorities.
That means Democrats are expected to try watering down the House bill, and some Democrats hinted early in the meeting that lawmakers should focus on a bill that President Obama can support.
“This country is experiencing a very dramatic transformation in energy, so we need to make sure we are updating the policies at the national level to allow that transformation to take place,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
Still, many of the lawmakers who spoke during Thursday’s meeting encouraged lawmakers to find a way to strike a deal. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said lawmakers should prove skeptics wrong and find a compromise.
“This is our chance to modernize our energy policy,” said Murkowski, who is the chairwoman of the committee. “It’s our opportunity to update policies that have not been updated now in almost nine years.”
The bill passed in the Senate expedites the approval of natural gas exports, requires increased energy efficiency in buildings and increases the research on energy-storage technologies. It would also make several small changes that aim to increase electric grid reliability while keeping costs low.
The House version of the bill contained some of those proposals, but Democrats slammed it for language they say will increase fossil fuel dependence. Democrats also don’t like how the House bill stripped out some of the proposals to increase renewable energy use and energy efficiency, and how it doesn’t address climate change.
Murkowski said her plan is to work with members of both parties, and both chambers, in the way that she worked with Cantwell when writing the Senate bill. She said that led to a bill that was popular on both sides of the aisle, as evidenced by the 85-12 vote on the bill in April.
Among the priorities listed by Republicans are expediting natural gas exports, clearing up red tape on energy infrastructure permitting issues that would allow more pipelines to be built and reducing regulatory burdens on sportsmen and hunters.
Democrats want to see the permanent re-authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which invests royalties from the fossil fuel industry into conservation projects on public lands, increasing the amount of renewable energy investment and killing some of the House provisions they believe will increase the effects of climate change.
But not every issue is controversial, and members of both parties pointed to bipartisan priorities that could be addressed relatively easily. They named drought in California and the rest of the west, wildfire-funding reform, modernizing energy infrastructure and increasing cybersecurity in the energy sector as potential areas of agreement, or at least easier negotiation.
“In my mind, everything should be on the table and there is enough good, low-hanging fruit that we can come up with a good package at the end of the day,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
