Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee laid out a policy roadmap Monday that dovetails with the work the Senate prepares to tackle, priming the pump for a planned comprehensive energy bill.
The House panel’s framework focuses on infrastructure, increasing energy supply, accountability and energy efficiency. Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., said the policy roadmap reflects an era of growing energy supplies that’s made the United States the world’s top oil and natural gas producer.
“Our energy realities have changed dramatically — we’ve gone from bust to boom practically overnight. Today’s energy policies are lagging far behind and are better suited for the gas lines in the 1970s than this new era of abundance. We need policies that meet today’s needs and are focused on the future, and that starts with building the Architecture of Abundance,” the lawmakers said.
The House’s focal points mirror what Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski said she wants to include in broad energy legislation. The Alaska Republican said she wants to release the bill this spring and has talked with Upton and top Senate Energy Committee Democrat Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., about the effort.
Perhaps to mesh with what Murkowski had floated, the House framework parcels off the committee’s plans to handcuff Environmental Protection Agency regulations, such as the proposal to slash electricity emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. EPA policies will no doubt be a focus of the committee, but blocking the rules could endanger Senate passage of a sweeping energy bill like the one Murkowski has discussed with Upton.
Ending trade barriers will be one of the top concerns.
House Republicans have pushed for faster federal approvals of liquefied natural gas exports to nations that lack a free-trade agreement with the United States, seeing it as a potential boon to allies who are looking for an energy supplier other than Russia. Building more pipelines to strengthen energy security in North America — chief among them the Keystone XL pipeline, which the House will vote on Wednesday — will also be a priority.
Oil exports weren’t mentioned, though the framework included a reference to “export of energy commodities.” Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, has sponsored legislation to end the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude, but it’s still a politically tricky subject for some Republicans because of the concern voters have that exports would raise gas prices. Upton and Whitfield, for example, have not weighed in on whether they support ending the restrictions.
On infrastructure, the House wants to shorten permitting timelines and restrictions for building electricity transmission lines and new pipelines to transport domestic oil and natural gas being produced in shale energy regions such as the Bakken in North Dakota and Montana and the Marcellus in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It also would aim to ease information sharing between the federal government and electric utilities to improve cybersecurity defense.
The plan also calls for using national laboratories, public-private partnerships and community colleges to bolster training in manufacturing, while specifically targeting minority and low-income communities.
