House GOP Plans Early 2023 Energy Bill, Search for ‘The Next Solyndra’
by Josh Siegel and Kelsey Tamborrino (Politico Pro) House Republicans are also planning to scrutinize how the Biden administration deploys the $370 billion in clean energy measures that Congress approved in Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. — Republicans are planning a legislative push to try to boost production of fossil fuels and low-carbon sources like renewables, small nuclear reactors and hydrogen if they win control of the House in the midterm election — along with probes of how the Biden administration is spending its hundreds of billions of dollars of newly approved climate money.
The plan, described by a dozen current and former House lawmakers, aides and outside allies, seeks to build on the political momentum that the GOP claimed on energy policy this year, when jumps in fuel and electricity prices battered President Joe Biden’s popularity and complicated his climate agenda. Conservatives have used the rising costs to paint Biden and his party as hostile to U.S. energy production, even as the country remains the world’s top oil and natural gas producer.
The effort would include components of a strategy that top House Republican Kevin McCarthy released in June that called for measures to stimulate oil and gas production, ease permitting regulations and seek to reduce reliance on China and Russia for critical materials. READ MORE
