President Donald Trump’s onslaught of energy executive orders intended to turbocharge domestic oil and gas production and ease environmental standards could complicate congressional Republicans’ big legislative ambitions.
That’s because Trump’s Day 1 orders could undercut the GOP’s budget reconciliation process — a massive, party-line measure packed with energy, border and tax provisions.
Republicans are looking at a host of revenue raisers and spending cuts — or offsets — in the legislation they want to push through in the next several months. But there is some concern Trump’s actions could take some of those offsets out of the equation.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Monday there were potentially “some things that [Trump] could do administratively that could take off the table for purposes of a reconciliation offset.”