Congress’ Republican leaders have handed their members a dream opportunity on a silver platter: a green light to pursue more energy and natural resources wins as part of a second budget reconciliation package later this year.
But so far, some Republican committee chairs appear skeptical that the opportunity even exists. And even if a second reconciliation bill does come together eventually, key players in Congress are indicating that energy and environment provisions may be off the table.
“I feel like the things that we could do within the parameters of reconciliation we exhausted,” said House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), speaking specifically about energy provisions.
He said Republicans “had so many wins” in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that it’s unclear “if there’s any meat left on the bone with respect to more pro-energy policies.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has announced plans to take a second stab at a party-line reconciliation bill this fall, and some of the planning has already begun.
A House GOP working group has kicked off discussions, and some members have laid down markers for provisions they want to pursue, including regulatory overhauls and fees on electric vehicles.
Still, those efforts have been slow to gain steam, and they face major headwinds with lawmakers suggesting there is little desire for chasing more energy and climate policies.
The relative dearth of activity thus far is in part a reflection of the comprehensive haul Republicans secured in the multitrillion-dollar party-line bill they passed in July. It checked most of the GOP’s boxes — repealing clean energy tax credits, rescinding billions of dollars for climate grants, rolling back emissions rules, and creating incentives for fossil fuel drilling and mining, among other provisions.
Republicans’ apparent hesitance to pursue even more energy provisions also signals a weariness among members to go through the kinds of intense intraparty negotiations they endured just a few months ago.
“It seems to me that the appetite for anything reconciliation right now, understandably, is, ‘God, please don’t,’” said Heather Reams, president of the right-leaning advocacy group Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions.
The White House and congressional leaders have yet to outline specific priorities for a second bill, and some lawmakers have thrown cold water on the idea of it coming together at all, with some warning it could actually be counterproductive.
“I think that’s going to be interesting if it develops,” said Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “It’s not developing now.”
The vision for the second bill, according to Johnson, Arrington and other GOP leaders, is a much smaller package that would contain budget policies that Republicans did not get to the first time or that they were forced to abandon because of parliamentary issues.
But conservative lawmakers, advocates and lobbyists say they are generally satisfied with what they got out of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And some of the language that dropped out of the original bill may not be revived — including related to permitting and regulations — because it still would not comply with the Senate’s strict reconciliation rules.
The allure of budget reconciliation process is that it allows fiscal legislation to pass by simple majority. The downside is the restrictions.
Democrats will have little power to stop the bill since they are in the minority. But like last time, they could request parliamentary inquiries to tank provisions that violate the Senate’s budget rules.
Democrats are also likely to continue to amplify their messaging that Republican-favored energy policies will increase Americans’ electricity bills.
“Instead of helping families, Republicans are ripping away the cheapest forms of power we have, driving up costs, killing jobs, and handing another gift to Big Oil & Gas,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News.
“Now they want a sequel?” Schumer said. “American families can’t afford an encore of Republicans’ Big Beautiful Blunder.”
Mixed signals
Republicans appear to be in vastly different places in the planning process, creating a split-screen dynamic between members who are forging ahead and others who say discussions have not yet begun.
On one side of the spectrum is the Republican Study Committee — the House’s conservative policy forum — which has set up a “Reconciliation 2.0 Working Group.” They plan to unveil a broad policy framework for the reconciliation package as soon as this week, said Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), chair of the RSC.
The group held multiple brainstorming and informational sessions with congressional staffers and advocacy groups over the summer. In early August, aides were invited to hear from staff on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, POLITICO reported.
“We’ve passed a very successful first bill. Now, what kinds of provisions can we look forward to?” Pfluger said, describing the RSC’s thinking without providing specifics. “How can we work with our Senate counterparts to move the ball a little bit more forward on some of the issues that have been hampering energy production?”
House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) has been saying for months that he has been talking to members and staff to get the ball rolling.
“Those discussions are happening, and I think it could happen,” Westerman said recently. “I can tell you we’re working on it.”
But on the other end of the spectrum, some Republican committee chairs say they have not seen any movement or begun conversations of their own, despite Johnson’s publicly stated plans for a second bill.
House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said, “I know that people are talking reconciliation, but I haven’t — we haven’t — sat down and started putting any plans together.”
Capito, the EPW chair, noted that a reconciliation bill is “not developing now” because “there’s just too many other things that are taking precedence.”
Congress has been busy with fights over nominees and fiscal 2026 appropriations bills. Controversies around the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, partisan rescissions packages and other issues have also taken up significant floor time.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, declined to comment.
Spokespeople for the White House and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Johnson referred E&E News to the speaker’s previous public statements.
Johnson told Bloomberg in July that his goal was to produce a smaller reconciliation bill in the “late fall.” He said it would probably involve just four or five committees, including the Energy and Commerce Committee and the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
Keeping the door open
The lack of visible action on a second reconciliation bill does not necessarily spell doom for the effort. Some Republican lawmakers and lobbyists are waiting in the wings, eager to pitch in when the time is right.
“Undoubtedly, if there was another bill, we would certainly take the opportunity to try to do better on renewable energy and try another path,” said Reams, of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, which supports renewables as part of a balanced energy strategy.
“It may be futile to do that,” she said, “but if there’s an opportunity and the doors open, we would take that opportunity.”
Luke Bolar, chief external affairs officer at the conservative energy nonprofit ClearPath, said that while most of the group’s top priorities were taken care of in the first bill, the advanced manufacturing production tax credit known as 45X “might be one to relook at.”
“They did include some provisions that will be good for critical minerals, which is positive,” Bolar said, “but I think there are other American advanced manufacturing technologies that could benefit from the 45X credit,” including for grid components such as transformers and conductors.
Lee and Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) want to revive their sweeping regulatory overhaul bill — a version of the “Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act” — which the parliamentarian said ran afoul of Senate reconciliation rules. The provision would have expanded congressional veto power over certain agency rulemakings.
“I feel like, had we had more time, we could have worked out some of the bugs on [‘REINS’],” Lee said after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed without his preferred language. “Even that adverse parliamentarian ruling is one that I think we could work through. That’s a potential option.”
Guthrie, who said his committee has not started putting together ideas, hinted before the August recess that artificial intelligence policy could be a priority for the Republican majority this Congress. The energy demands of the rapidly advancing technology could be at the center of upcoming conversations, he said.
“Everybody you meet with [on] AI business says, ‘Energy energy, energy,’” Guthrie told reporters. “They’ve got the brain power, they’ve got the capital, and they need energy. So that’s what we have to focus on.”
Doubts remain
While lawmakers and advocates have sporadically floated various ideas for “reconciliation 2.0,” the effort still faces obstacles.
Mustering the political will for more party-line energy provisions could prove exceedingly difficult, especially since many members and lobbyists feel satisfied with the results of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“We’re talking about a second bill,” said Westerman, “but, you know, we got a lot of stuff in the first bill.”
Kristin Whitman, senior vice president of federal relations at the American Petroleum Institute — the oil and gas industry’s loudest voice on Capitol Hill — praised the first reconciliation bill in a statement but indicated that the group is now focused on permitting reform, which is likely to be acted on outside of reconciliation.
Capito and House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) have said they would want to revive a proposal to impose registration fees on hybrid and electric vehicles in order to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, which relies heavily on gasoline taxes.
But that language, promoted by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), was dropped from the first bill because the fee structure was too difficult to enforce as written at the time.
Asked recently whether he would want to bring it back in the next budget bill, Moreno demurred.
“Not EVs,” he said. “I think that’s settled.”
