Pallone Slams Republicans for Corrupt Pay-to-Play Schemes at Committee Markup of Energy Bills

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) delivered the following opening remarks at today's Full Committee markup of 13 energy bills:

Today the Committee is marking up a series of energy bills. All but one of these bills will make our electric grid more expensive, less reliable, and dirtier.

Last month, when we marked up the Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill, there were four provisions that created corrupt pay-to-play schemes. One of the provisions allowed Big Oil and Gas to simply buy whatever permit they want, and another provision allowed natural gas producers to ship American LNG abroad – including to adversaries like China – so long as the company paid $1 million for the pleasure. As of this week, there are zero pay-to-play provisions in the bill after the Senate Parliamentarian nixed the final one earlier this week. 

So now, Republicans are trying to move these bills through regular order to achieve those same schemes. It’s time for Republicans to get serious and realize that real permitting reform must include transmission and clean energy – and must be bipartisan.

But today we aren’t seeing much bipartisanship at all. Instead of figuring out how to get more power of all types on the grid, Republicans just want to prioritize new natural gas plants. They want Americans to pay even higher energy bills just to keep old, expensive coal plants online forever. They want to use the increase in power demand as an excuse to kill every EPA regulation that impacts power plants. And, to top it all off, they want to increase home energy prices just to allow oil and gas companies to send unlimited amounts of Americans’ energy resources overseas. These Republican actions prioritize polluters over people.

Before we get into the details of the bills, I want to draw attention to how they fit into a broader trend of reckless Republican energy policy. Republicans aren’t interested in addressing climate events like dangerous heat waves, or even in equipping their constituents with the tools and appliances to better cool and protect their homes. They aren’t interested in lowering energy costs or beating out China with new technologies.

All they want to do is undermine clean energy, make energy more expensive, and allow Big Oil and Gas to build whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences. This is the same party that is repealing incentives that help get more energy on the grid faster, even though demand is rapidly growing. And it is the same party that is proposing zeroing out energy assistance, even though it’s over 100 degrees outside and Americans are struggling to cool their homes.

The reality is, just when we need more homegrown American energy the most, Republicans are pursuing an incoherent energy policy that will make it harder for most Americans to get access to the energy they desperately need.

Republicans themselves are terrified of the actual impacts of their own energy policy – that’s why you saw the President desperately tweeting at the Department of Energy on Monday, begging for DOE to “drill, baby, drill.” Now, DOE doesn’t regulate oil and gas drilling, but I wouldn’t expect the President to know that. It just underscores that Republicans are afraid of Americans actually experiencing the results of Republicans’ catastrophic energy policies.

The truth is Republicans have never been for an “all of the above” approach to energy. In fact, Energy Secretary Wright made that abundantly clear when he was in front of this Committee two weeks ago. At that hearing, Democrats pressed Secretary Wright about Elon Musk’s gutting of DOE and the loss of valuable expertise. But rather than help us get to the bottom of the agency’s capacity to take on new work when thousands have been fired, Republicans want to simply pretend this problem doesn’t exist. They are clearly content to give the agency more work without any understanding as to how it will complete it with significantly reduced staff.

Today we’re going to hear from Republicans that these bills are necessary to meet the growing energy demand from artificial intelligence. I can’t be clearer about this – if you want to strengthen the grid to enable new technologies, these bills are the exact opposite of what you should be doing. If Republicans really wanted to meet growing demand, they would work with us on legislation that truly supports all energy projects, especially those that can be built quickly and that produce energy Americans can actually afford.

And with that, I yield back my time.

###