House Republicans Challenge Democrats to Support Domestic Energy Package

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) speaks at a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 25, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

House Republican leadership touted their Lower Energy Costs Act as a “historic” move toward energy affordability and independence that eco-friendly Democrats would do well to support.

“For those that are supporting—whether its Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela, or Iran—producing more oil, they’re actually hurting the environment because nobody has better standards than the United States of America,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) noted at a March 28 press conference. “I don’t know why Chuck Schumer or anybody else that’s against this bill would want more energy made in countries that don’t have the good standards that we have in America.

“It’s about time we start standing up for America,” Scalise added. “I’m sick and tired of these people who wake up every day beating up America when nobody does it better than us. And by the way, when you’re making things in America, it lowers costs for American families who are struggling under the weight of President Biden’s failed agenda.”

Prioritizing Domestic Energy

The Lower Energy Costs Act, also known as H.R. 1, aims to reduce energy costs by boosting domestic energy production and exports while streamlining the permitting process for energy projects.

The bill also seeks to increase domestic production and processing of the critical minerals used for making components of advanced technologies, like the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and portable electronics.

Currently, China is the world’s largest producer of those minerals.

“China’s eating our lunch on mining,” noted Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “Especially on things like copper. Where we were producing three times as much copper as China in 1995, today, they’re producing 10 times more than we produce.”

Meanwhile, available resources like coal, oil and gas, and uranium will be needed for “generations to come,” Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) said, adding that those who claimed otherwise were “being dishonest.”

“The key question that we must address, then, is who’s going to be producing our energy—our fellow Americans using our very own resources here, or foreign and often hostile countries who do not now and never will have our best interests at heart?”

Noting that Republicans found the correct answer to that question to be obvious, Hageman charged that the Biden administration and Democrats preferred offshoring production of those resources to “third-world and dictatorial countries who care nothing about protecting the environment” like China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.

“It’s high time that we ignore the lies underpinning the promises of the Green New Deal and face reality,” she said. “And reality is what the Republicans are offering with H.R. 1.”

Democrat Opposition

While more than 100 organizations—including Chevron and BP—have expressed support for the Republican energy package, the White House announced on March 27 that it “strongly opposes” the bill and that President Joe Biden would veto it in its current form.

“This Administration is making unprecedented progress in protecting America’s energy security and reducing energy costs for Americans—in their homes and at the pump. H.R. 1 would do just the opposite, replacing pro-consumer policies with a thinly veiled license to pollute,” the Office of Management and Budget contended in a March 27 statement.

The bill, the administration asserted, would “pad oil and gas company profits,” “undercut” public health and environment, and raise energy costs for taxpayers by repealing household energy rebates and cutting investments in “cost-lowering” clean energy technologies.

“The Biden-Harris Administration is advancing an unparalleled expansion of American-made energy that will reduce costs, secure supply chains, and create good-paying jobs,” the statement adds, contending that the administration has already made “dramatic progress in every area.”

“The Administration wants to work in bipartisan manner with Congress to address lowering energy costs, permitting reform, and addressing energy challenges. However, H.R. 1 would take us backward.”

Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has declared the bill “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

“The House GOP HR1 package fails to meet America’s energy needs,” he wrote in a March 21 tweet. “No serious energy package would omit reforms for accelerating the construction of real transmission. No serious energy package would stuff itself with poison pills the way HR1 does.”

Nonetheless, with the bill scheduled to come to the House floor this week, Scalise challenged House Democrats to demonstrate their commitment to the environment by supporting the measure.

“A lot of Democrats talk the talk,” he said. “We’re going to see on Thursday if they actually walk the walk by voting for this bill.”