Congressional Republicans are renewing their pursuit of a second reconciliation bill this Congress, and the demand for new energy policies — including on permitting reform — is high.
The Senate Budget Committee announced Wednesday that it will move “expeditiously” toward a new party-line budget bill that could help Republicans pass parts of their election security legislation, the “SAVE America Act,” without having to endure a Democratic filibuster.
The opportunity to pass another sweeping bill full of Republican priorities right before the midterm elections has some GOP members salivating at the prospect of tacking on their own partisan priorities, and energy-related proposals are almost certain to be in the mix.
“We would love to do anything on permit reform if we can get it to fit,” said House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.).
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Policy Committee, said, “There’s going to be a real push to figure out more of the permitting process, not just for pipelines, but for transmission lines as well.”
But the effort faces major challenges because of Republicans’ narrow majority, and calls for partisan provisions on streamlining permits for energy projects could run head-first into procedural troubles — not to mention resistance from key negotiators.
House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman said his committee has priorities it wants to see included in any potential reconciliation bill, but he conceded that some of those decisions are out of his hands. Further, the Arkansas Republican has repeatedly pushed back on efforts to turn permitting reform into a partisan exercise.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, particularly in the Senate, are actively trying to assemble a package of policies to ease approvals for all kinds of energy and infrastructure projects. The negotiations are fragile, and leaders from both parties believe a deal needs to have Republican and Democratic buy-in to last.
“We could do some of it [through reconciliation], but the vast majority of permitting needs to be done through regular order, through the 60-vote process in the Senate,” Westerman said in an interview earlier this year. “So that’s why I keep saying it has to be bipartisan.”
On Wednesday, Westerman said the Natural Resources Committee has “got policy to put in another reconciliation bill; it’s just a question of the direction leadership wants to go with it.”
Indeed, lawmakers are in the earliest stages of planning, and there is uncertainty around what kinds of proposals Republican leaders could allow in the legislation.
So far, they appear to want the bill to be focused on election security, addressing fraud, funding immigration enforcement agencies and potentially providing supplemental funding for the U.S.-Israel war against Iran.
Additionally, there are strict limits to the kinds of energy policies that would be allowed in the bill. Republicans already saw some of their energy-related ideas rebuffed by the Senate parliamentarian when they were assembling the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“I think it has to be very targeted,” said Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.). “All of the easy stuff was done in the reconciliation 1.0. [Reconciliation] 2.0 would be a lot more difficult unless we make it very narrow, deal with [the Department of Homeland Security], focus on fraud, have a very narrow focus and then move it quickly.”
The ongoing permitting talks and the ambiguity over the contours of the upcoming bill have not stopped members from floating their favored energy-related proposals.
In January, the Republican Study Committee, a 190-member group of House conservatives, released its own policy framework that contained numerous legislative ideas related to permitting, killing energy efficiency standards and overhauling the federal regulatory process. That blueprint will still be part of the conversation as Republicans try to coalesce around a legislative strategy.
Supplemental funding to support struggling farmers could potentially be included in the upcoming bill, said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.).
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said earlier this year that she will try again to pass a version of H.R. 142, the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny, or REINS, Act, through the reconciliation process.
Conservatives tried to include the rule-busting proposal in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, but it was rejected by the parliamentarian. Cammack said revised language and new momentum could work in the proposal’s favor this time.
“There were a lot of lessons learned in reconciliation 1.0 about how we can move ‘REINS’ most effectively, where some of the biggest obstacles are,” Cammack said. “So we’re taking those lessons, applying them to reconciliation 2.0, and we do see a path forward to getting it across the finish line.”
Congressional Democrats cannot stop the reconciliation bill on their own, but they can request parliamentary inquiries and challenge Republican provisions on procedural grounds.
“We are going to fight you tooth and nail throughout the reconciliation process, every step of the way,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor.
