Senate Republicans advanced a budget reconciliation plan Wednesday, setting up floor action on the blueprint for energy, immigration and defense policy as House Republicans squabbled over their own newly released budget resolution.
The Senate Budget Committee’s 11-10 vote along party lines marked a step forward for senators looking to quickly enact part of President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda — including expanding oil and gas drilling on federal lands and repealing EPA’s fee on methane leaks.
The budget resolutions contain instructions for committees to craft a party-line so-called reconciliation bill that can pass by simple majority. Along the way, Senate Republicans thwarted amendments by Democrats on a host of energy and environment matters.
“If you believe we need better energy policy, help is on the way,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is leading chamber’s two-bill reconciliation approach, declared at the end of the day-long markup.
Republican senators can now take their fiscal 2025 budget resolution to the floor, putting pressure on the House to advance its own blueprint for a single reconciliation bill quickly in the face of dissatisfaction from some members.
Senators’ moves Wednesday could be moot in the end. The House and Senate have to pass the same resolution to unlock the next steps in the reconciliation process, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters this week that the Senate plan, if passed, would be a “nonstarter” in the House.
Johnson and House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said Wednesday evening that they still planned to hold their markup Thursday morning, even as conservatives on the panel said they were dissatisfied with the level of cuts leaders outlined. If they sink the resolution in committee, House leaders will have to go back to the drawing board.
House and Senate Republicans need to settle on a plan quickly if they want to achieve Johnson’s ambitious goal of passing a final product by Easter.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters that the House and Senate are “going to be in lockstep,” but some senators suggested Wednesday that they do not not trust House Republicans to overcome differences.
Republican senators were wholly united during their markup. One by one, they defeated Democratic amendments on a host of issues, including numerous aimed at preserving support for renewable energy, disaster relief funding and programs to hold polluters accountable.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, introduced amendments to prevent Republicans from targeting clean energy tax credits passed under Democrats’ 2022 climate law, even though the budget resolution senators were considering does not address tax policy. That would be for their second reconciliation bill.
Both Johnson and Thune said this week they plan to use reconciliation to codify many of Trump’s early actions. That could include Trump’s executive orders seeking to boost energy production and favor fossil fuels over renewables like offshore wind and solar.
Some lawmakers are also working to ensure that the “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act” makes it into the final package. Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently changed his bio on his personal X account to “Pass the REINS Act now!”
Energy, environment amendments
Environment and Public Works Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) used his entire opening statement in the Senate Budget Committee not to bash Republican’s reconciliation plans or the Trump administration, as other Democrats did, but to talk about how climate change-driven disasters are raising home insurance premiums.
His comments kick-started senators’ debate over climate and energy proposals. Whitehouse quickly introduced the first such amendment, which would have struck the reconciliation instructions for the Environment and Public Works Committee, preventing Republicans from using their bill to repeal EPA’s methane fee, as they have promised to do.
In fact, the committee considered Whitehouse amendments against repealing the methane fee three different times, rejecting each of them along party lines.
“That [EPW] instruction is a giveaway to big polluters who won’t even maintain their pipes and wells and will only make the climate crisis and the economic effects of it worse,” he said.
Lee opposed the amendments, noting that they would undermine Republicans’ ability to find offsets to pay for tax cuts and other priorities.
“There are better ways to do whatever you want to do in this reconciliation than letting it be free for companies to leak,” said Whitehouse, raising his voice. “You know, a lot of this is in your states; it’s your folks who have to breathe this.”
Taking a page out of Whitehouse’s book, Wyden brought up his desire to see the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits protected on three separate occasions, even while discussing unrelated amendments. Republicans dismissed his arguments each time, noting that tax policy will come later.
Wyden pointed out that a majority of the investments and jobs that have resulted from the tax credits are benefitting Republican-led states. He complained that people and companies that depend on those subsidies “are being told as they listen to this debate, ‘Hey, I’m just going to get hammered in two months instead of today.’”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed an amendment that would add language to the resolution stating that climate change is “an existential threat facing the planet which is driven by the burning of fossil fuels, and that addressing this existential threat requires the substantial reduction of carbon emissions.”
It failed along party lines, with Lee countering that it would “prioritize climate alarmism over some of the objectives that we need to pursue right now, including providing energy security to the American people.”
Sanders joined all Republicans in voting “no” on a messaging amendment from California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla to promote an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy for the United States that explicitly includes wind, solar and hydrogen.
Padilla also argued unsuccessfully for amendments to strike the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s reconciliation instructions in order to prevent action against renewable energy programs and to cancel out the Agriculture Committee’s instructions to guard against cuts to nutrition assistance and agricultural conservation programs.
Budget ranking member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced an amendment that would have prohibited the financing of facilities that export liquefied natural gas to China. He argued those exports support the U.S. rival while raising energy costs for Americans.
House unveils its plan
Within hours of its release Wednesday, the House’s fiscal 2025 budget resolution appeared to be at risk of failing in committee Thursday, with some hard-line conservatives — including two members of the Budget Committee — signaling that they were dissatisfied with the level of cuts put forward.
It remained unclear Wednesday evening whether the resolution had the necessary support to advance to the full House or whether Republican leaders have a backup plan in the event that it doesn’t.
The House blueprint represents an ambitious and sweeping proposal to pass all of Republicans’ policy priorities on energy, defense, immigration — and taxes — all in one large bill.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a statement that it would “provide the foundation necessary to begin delivering on the mandate the American people gave us and President Trump to secure the border, produce more American energy, extend the Trump tax cuts for families and small businesses, and bring common sense to Washington rules and regulations.”
The resolution calls for an extension of the Trump administration’s tax cuts to the tune of $4.5 trillion and a $300 billion boost for the military and border security. That spending would be partially offset by cuts of at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
Like the Senate blueprint, it includes instructions for House committee leaders. It does not, however, contain any orders for Senate panels, which Senate Democrats quickly pointed out during their markup.
Among the resolution’s guidelines for cuts is an instruction that the Energy and Commerce Committee reduce spending by at least $880 billion over 10 years — the largest cut of any committee. Much of that reduction would target health care programs under the committee’s jurisdiction, namely Medicaid.
Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the panel’s chair, told POLITICO’s E&E News this week that his committee will also look to reach the $880 billion in cuts by repealing the so-called electric vehicle mandate, which is typically Republicans’ shorthand for EPA vehicle emissions rules that require automakers to phase out gas vehicles over time.
Asked which “EV mandate” his panel would target, Guthrie responded, “the mandate, the regulation” without specifying. He noted that efforts to repeal the IRA’s electric vehicle tax credits will fall under the instructions for the House Ways and Means Committee, not Energy and Commerce.
The House Natural Resources Committee would be tasked with finding at least $1 billion in deficit reductions. Republicans will try to accomplish that through increased oil and gas drilling on federal lands and the collection of associated royalties.
“I think we can meet or exceed our instructions there,” said Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.). “We’re ready to roll with it.”
The House Agriculture Committee would work to cut spending by at least $230 billion. That effort would likely target nutrition assistance programs and agricultural conservation programs, including those passed as part of the IRA.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would have to slash at least $10 billion.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member on the House Budget Committee, called Republicans’ proposal “simply absurd” and a “rip off” in a statement, saying it amounts to “trillions of dollars in fantasy growth and imaginary savings.”
House Republicans’ resolution would also lift the debt limit by $4 trillion, enough to postpone fights over the debt ceiling for about two more years.
Reporter Garrett Downs contributed.
