The White House on Monday issued a threat to veto the sweeping clean energy legislation House Democratic leadership has teed up for a vote this week.
The House bill would “undermine the Administration’s deregulatory agenda and empower the government to select favored solutions while reinstating big-government policies and programs,” the White House said in a statement of administration policy.
The White House also slammed the House bill as increasing government spending, overlooking needed changes to environmental permitting, and creating a green bank that would fund “projects similar to well known failures like Solyndra.” Solar panel manufacturer Solyndra went bankrupt after receiving hundreds of millions in federal loans during the Obama administration.
The House bill, known as the Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act, is a compilation of dozens of smaller clean energy-related bills, many of them bipartisan.
Nonetheless, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer framed the legislation as Democrats’ next big step to tackle climate change.
“As the wildfires ravaging the west and the historic storms devastating the Gulf Coast heartbreakingly show, there is no time to deny the reality of the climate crisis,” Pelosi said in a statement when the bill was introduced Tuesday. “Urgent, science-based action is needed now.”
The legislation seeks to boost research spending for renewable energy, as well as low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture and storage and advanced nuclear power. The bill would also aim to strengthen energy efficiency codes for buildings, invest in modernizing the electric grid, and expand access to electric cars.
It’s unclear what the White House veto threat means for a similarly sweeping, though less aggressive, energy package led by Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. That bill has robust support from energy industry groups, many environmental groups, and conservative clean energy groups.
Prospects for that bill’s passage improved slightly two weeks ago when Senate Environment Committee leaders reached a deal on an amendment to limit potent greenhouse gas coolants that had killed a floor vote in March.
The White House statement doesn’t address the Murkowski-Manchin measure, but it does generally criticize some policies that appear in both that bill and the House package.
For example, the White House said the House bill would increase energy costs by “requiring State and local governments to establish strict building codes that are not grounded in available technologies, and mandating a rigorous transition from hydrofluorocarbon use in the private heating and cooling sector.”
