Q&A: Top Energy-Water appropriator talks 2025 spending fight

By Andres Picon | 06/21/2024 06:43 AM EDT

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) will help lead tough negotiations around the fiscal 2025 Energy-Water bill.

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.).

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chair of the Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee, during a hearing in March. Francis Chung/POLITICO

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann is “thrilled” with how this year’s Energy-Water bill turned out, and he says he’s confident lawmakers can produce a similar product this time around.

As the chair of the House Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee prepares to begin a stretch of tough negotiations next week on fiscal 2025 levels, the Tennessee Republican is exuding optimism.

“We’ll be prepared for anything,” Fleischmann told POLITICO’s E&E News recently in his office. “We are going to build on the successes of the 2024 bill, which was, I think, in many ways an unprecedented success.”

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It helps Fleischmann that for the second year in a row, Republicans will be able to leverage their House majority to achieve some conservative wins. It also helps that House appropriators seem to have spared his subcommittee’s bill from the steepest of proposed cuts.

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