House approves Republican fracking, drilling bills

The measures are part of the chamber's

March 21, 2024

The House on Wednesday passed two bills promoting oil and gas drilling: one that would support fracking and another that would lower costs to drill on public lands.

The bills are a part of the GOP's "energy week." While Republicans said the effort was meant to highlight "the value of American energy," most Democrats dismissed the proceedings as unserious.

The House passed H.R. 1121, the “Protecting American Energy Production Act,” from senior Energy and Commerce Republican Jeff Duncan of South Carolina.

The bill would prohibit an administration from banning fracking and give more power to states. Fifteen Democrats, mostly from major energy producing states, supported the bill.

The House also passed H.R. 6009, “Restoring American Energy Dominance Act,” from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), which would repeal a Bureau of Land Management rule that increases the money oil companies must pay before they can drill on public lands. Three Democrats supported it.

The White House strongly opposes the measures, which will almost certainly not be taken up in the Senate.

Even still, Republicans are leaning in on messaging. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) declared Wednesday that the energy bills on the House floor this week would focus on “lowering energy costs for America, standing up for American energy, and standing up against the radical extreme policies of Joe Biden that threatened to shut off American energy.”

On Thursday, the House will vote on an anti-carbon tax resolution and pipeline-focused permitting bill — the only energy week bill the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been lobbying members to support.

'Not a serious ... effort'

The votes demonstrates that House Republicans are mostly united on energy issues — something that cannot be said on foreign policy or government funding.

They are trying to paint a clear contrast with Biden and congressional Democrats, aiming to pit affordability and abundance against elitist ideals and strict regulations.

“House Republicans know the value of American energy, but President Biden obviously does not,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Wednesday. “It’s such a stark contrast.”

Almost completely unmentioned was the subject of climate change.

For their part, Democrats were quick to dismiss the entire thing.

“It’s not a serious legislative effort,” said Rep. Jared Huffman of California, a top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. “It’s the same old performative stuff that we see from these guys — kind of rehashing parts of H.R. 1," the GOP's signature energy bill that passed the House last year.

"They just trot out a fossil fuel bill every couple of months," he added. "I guess to look busy because they can’t actually legislate or even keep the lights on at this place.”

As a counter to Republican messaging, Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) noted the U.S. last year produced more oil and gas than any other country ever and exported unprecedented amounts of liquefied natural gas to allies across the world. At the same time, he said, last year was a record for utility-scale solar, wind and energy story installation across the country.

“My friends on the other side of the aisle claim to be champions of an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy,” he said. “But they are completely silent about these massive accomplishments that are not only driving significant investment to areas across the country, but are producing cheap, clean, American energy.”

'Energy dominance' resonates

Before Wednesday’s votes, Republicans and Democrats trotted out familiar talking points.

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), chair of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, bashed Biden for a campaign promise to end new oil and gas drilling on public lands. “This was candidate Biden, and we know what he’s done from his three-plus years in office,” he said.

Democrats pushed back. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), another member of Natural Resources, said the issue of oil development was too important to leave “100 percent to a patchwork of state laws.” More broadly, she said increased domestic oil and gas drilling was merely benefiting Big Oil, not American communities.

Though “energy week” is largely messaging, it offers a preview into what a Republican-controlled government might try to accomplish next year, if they get the chance, Huffman added.

“That’s maybe the only part of this so-called energy week that we should take seriously — is a preview of what they would do if they had the ability to do it,” he said. “And as much as we have given away the store to the fossil fuel industry for the past 100 years, they would do even more.”

Indeed, earlier in the day Wednesday, Johnson gave a shoutout to former President Donald Trump for coining the term “energy dominance” when he entered the White House.

Johnson said he was a freshman on Capitol Hill in 2017 when Trump came to visit the Republican conference — and "American energy dominance" rather than merely "energy independence" was a key theme he recalls seven years later.

At a recent event, the speaker indicated to the crowd he and Trump are working very closely and talking regularly, according to a person in the room who was granted anonymity to speak freely. Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the consultations but the speaker himself suggested Wednesday

he would fully embrace Trump-style energy policies: “He introduced the term, we applauded it, and he achieved it."


By:  Kelsey Brugger
Source: E&E Daily