Full Committee Markup

Committee on Commerce

2025-06-25

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Source: Congress.gov

Summary

The meeting primarily consisted of a markup session for several energy bills, focusing on American energy independence, grid reliability, and infrastructure development, while also addressing environmental concerns and the role of various energy sources in meeting future demand. Throughout the discussions, members debated the most effective ways to power new technologies like AI and manage the transition of the energy sector, highlighting a clear partisan divide on policy approaches and priorities.[ 00:11:03-00:11:15 ] [ 00:15:13 ]

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Themes

Grid Reliability and Energy Production

Republicans emphasized the critical need for reliable, dispatchable power, such as natural gas, coal, nuclear, and hydropower, to support growing electricity demands from AI and data centers, advocating for policies that streamline permitting and empower FERC as a reliability authority. This approach aims to unleash American energy production, lower prices for households, and enhance energy security by removing regulatory burdens and ensuring timely interconnection of dispatchable resources. Democrats, however, countered that Republican policies would make the electric grid more expensive, less reliable, and "dirtier," prioritizing fossil fuels over clean energy sources, and accused them of using increased power demand as an excuse to weaken environmental regulations. They called for an "all of the above" energy strategy that includes clean energy, robust transmission infrastructure, and energy efficiency, arguing that these are crucial for a truly reliable and affordable energy future.

[ 00:11:15-00:11:33 ] [ 00:12:08 ]

Permitting Reform and Infrastructure Development

A significant theme revolved around proposals to reform and streamline the permitting process for energy infrastructure. Republicans introduced bills aimed at accelerating infrastructure development by addressing obstacles to efficient and cost-effective construction, such as expanding refining capacity, improving hydropower permitting, securing energy supply chains, increasing LNG exports, and streamlining natural gas pipeline permitting. They highlighted concerns about existing interconnection queues bogging down projects and the need to prioritize essential resources. Democrats criticized these efforts, labeling them as "pay-to-play schemes" designed to benefit large oil and gas companies, and expressed frustration over the lack of bipartisan engagement in developing genuine permitting reforms that would support all energy types, especially clean energy.

[ 00:11:49-00:12:02 ]

Role of Federal Agencies and State Policies

Discussions often touched upon the authority and independence of federal agencies, particularly the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the influence of state-level energy policies. Republicans sought to empower FERC as the federal authority on reliability, ensuring that federal regulations support the strength and dependability of the power system and bringing transparency to state actions that impact energy reliability. Democrats expressed significant concerns about FERC's capacity to handle expanded responsibilities and the potential for increased political interference in traditionally independent regulatory bodies. They also criticized Republican attempts to override state decisions regarding energy generation and environmental regulations, arguing that these actions undermine states' rights and could lead to less generation on the grid and higher costs for consumers.

[ 00:12:08 ] [ 02:28:39 ]

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Debates on Clean Energy versus Fossil Fuels and Climate Change

A recurring and often contentious theme was the debate over the role of clean energy versus fossil fuels and their impact on climate change. Democrats consistently highlighted the growth in clean energy jobs and investments, emphasizing the affordability and environmental benefits of renewables like solar, wind, and battery storage. They accused Republican policies of ignoring climate change and making energy more expensive for consumers by prioritizing polluting fossil fuels. Republicans, in turn, questioned the reliability and true cost of renewables without subsidies, especially for continuous, dispatchable power, and pointed to the need for baseload power from fossil fuels. The reestablishment of the National Coal Council also fueled this debate, with Democrats criticizing efforts to bolster coal production as backward-looking and detrimental to public health and climate goals.

[ 00:12:32 ] [ 00:12:42 ]

Tone of the Meeting

The tone of the meeting was notably contentious and largely partisan, reflecting deep divisions on energy policy. While some members expressed a desire for bipartisan cooperation, particularly on comprehensive permitting reform, exchanges frequently devolved into accusations and sharp disagreements over the motivations and impacts of proposed legislation. Republicans voiced frustration with regulatory hurdles and the politicization of traditional energy sources, while Democrats accused their counterparts of prioritizing "polluters over people" and ignoring critical climate challenges. Despite calls for unity in addressing America's energy future and competition with other nations, the prevailing sentiment was one of ideological conflict.

[ 00:12:10 ] [ 03:58:02 ]

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[ 03:58:22-03:58:25 ]

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Participants

Transcript

So let's get started so we can get the opening statements moving.  So thank you Chairman Latta and the members of the committee for your legislative work to unleash American energy and make our electric grid more reliable and affordable.  Today the full committee has taken up 13 bills that will lead to the production of more American energy, remove regulatory burdens to electric generation, and help us win the race to power AI for the good of the country.   We have had multiple hearings this Congress already during which we have heard that the US must be able to power our technology future.  For the US to win the AI race, we must produce significantly more, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week power to run AI and data centers.  We heard from witnesses   that not all electrons are one for one substitute, and that we should not be taking baseload power plants offline without sufficient and comparable replacements.  I remind my colleagues, if AI data centers running the world's most advanced models could run only on wind and solar power, they would be doing so   To fuel American energy abundance, lower prices for American households, and to make the U.S.  more energy secure, the bills before us today addresses obstacles to an efficient and cost-effective infrastructure development.  This important legislation also identifies opportunities to expand our refining capacity, to improve our hydropower permitting process, secure energy supply chains, increase LNG exports,   and streamline the permitting of natural gas pipelines.  In addition, the bills before us today will ensure timely interconnection of dispatchable resources and rightly place the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner, FERC, as a federal authority on reliability to prevent a future Clean Power Plan 3.0.   Sincerely disappointed that more of these bills are not bipartisan, cuz I know that all of us agree that winning the AI race and guaranteeing we have sufficient amounts of the right kind of power.
I know that we all agree on that and it shouldn't be a partisan issue.  I agree that wind and solar should be part of our overall strategy.   but I disagree with the idea that wind and solar storage is going to provide the type of power needed to run AI data centers.  Most energy experts and the technology companies themselves have not supported that approach, either because wind and solar with storage do not provide the necessary reliability.  Time is of the essence, and I hope my Democratic colleagues will recognize the critical importance of this issue.  I know you do, and I know we will work together   And I will put my sincere effort to everyone on the committee that we will work together because I know we all together want to put our country first and beat China in the race to AI dominance.  Thank you.  And I yield back.  I recognize the ranking members.  Congressman Pallone from New Jersey for five minutes for his opening statement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  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 frankly, dirtier.   Last month, when we marked up the Republicans' big, ugly bill, there were four provisions that created pay-to-play schemes.  One of the provisions allowed Big Oil and Gas to simply buy whatever permit they want.  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.   And 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 to 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.  And they want to use the increase in power demand, in my opinion, 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 American energy resources overseas.  And these Republican actions prioritize polluters over people.   But before we get into the details of the bills, I just want to draw attention to how they fit into a broader trend of Republican energy policy, which I think is reckless.  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're not 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, and regardless of the consequences.
And 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's 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.  So the reality is, just when we need more homegrown American energy than most,   Republicans are pursuing an energy policy that will make it harder for most Americans to get access to the energy that they desperately need.  And Republicans themselves are worried about the actual impacts of their own energy policy.

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