Republicans Pass Christmas Gifts for Billionaire Polluters, Leave Hardworking Americans in the Cold Republicans Pass Christmas Gifts for Billionaire Polluters, Leave Hardworking Americans in the Cold
Washington, D.C. – Today, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) took to the House Floor and slammed Republicans for prioritizing handouts for corporate polluters and special interest groups instead of doing anything to address rising costs or the impending affordable health care cliff.
“This is our last day in session before Republicans close up shop and send everyone home for a couple of weeks. The majority could be using this time to do something – provide actual solutions to the health care cliff the country's about to go off; address the [un]affordable cost of all manner of goods and utilities that have been set in motion by their wrong-headed policies, but no,” Ranking Member Huffman said on the House Floor.
“Instead of doing anything to help Americans make ends meet, we are here on the Floor giving more gifts to Big Oil, multibillion-dollar foreign mining corporations, and special interests like the NRA. So, I guess Merry Christmas to all of them and a big lump of coal for everyone else.”
Republicans’ Christmas Gift List for the NRA and the Oil, Gas, and Mining Industries:
- A sledgehammer to the National Environmental Policy Act to greenlight oil, gas, and mining projects while boxing out renewables like wind and solar – some of the most affordable and reliable energy sources out there.
- Unlimited access to public lands for foreign mining companies to pillage and dump toxic waste on the taxpayers’ dime.
- Open season on endangered gray wolves for trophy hunters and the NRA.
On the SPEED Act, Ranking Member Huffman said, “The bill takes a sledgehammer to the National Environmental Policy Act, one of our foundational environmental laws. NEPA was enacted in 1970 on a bipartisan basis to require federal agencies to do something that seems very basic: to understand the consequences of their actions, and to listen to affected American communities before approving major proposed projects. The SPEED Act does great damage to all of those things. […] I'm not opposed to reforms to make NEPA more efficient, especially for the buildout of clean energy and essential infrastructure. But the SPEED Act abandons transparency and accountability while ignoring the single biggest permitting problem facing the energy sector right now: the Trump administration's all-out war against wind and solar, which includes a total refusal to permit these projects. […] Trust me when I say that even if the House passes this bill today, it is going nowhere in the Senate. What a missed opportunity to tackle a serious issue that Democrats were very interested in working in good faith to find some solutions on."
Leading up to final passage, the SPEED Act faced a gauntlet of opposition and turmoil, highlighting just how disastrous this legislation is. Instead of engaging with Democrats in good faith negotiations on permitting reform – Republican leaders caved to their most extreme faction’s demands in the 11th hour to continue enabling Trump’s war on clean, affordable energy.
This move siphoned off support for the legislation and resulted in multiple groups criticizing it and, in some cases, pulling their support.
Background
H.R. 4776, the so-called SPEED Act, is a dangerous attempt to gut America’s foundational environmental law under the guise of “permitting reform” to greenlight bad projects that will ultimately hurt American communities. This bill silences communities, sacrifices public health, and limits government accountability to benefit polluting industries. For more than 50 years, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has been the nation’s bedrock environmental review law and first line of defense against ill-informed, reckless federal decision-making by requiring federal agencies to “look before they leap” and understand the environmental, health, and community impacts of major federal projects and actions before approving them. The SPEED Act rewrites NEPA primarily to favor preferred, polluting industries while failing to fix the Trump administration’s clean energy permitting blockade that is worsening the electricity and affordability crisis.
H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, would expand the mining industry’s control over America’s public lands while weakening the federal government’s ability to manage those lands in the public interest. Despite being framed as a narrow, technical fix, the bill would effectively grant the mining industry open-ended access to public lands, allowing companies to choose as much land as they want, for as long as they want it, with almost no restriction.
H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, would prematurely strip Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states. Specifically, it would reinstate the 2020 Trump administration delisting and override the ESA’s science-based process—which has kept 99% of listed species from going extinct. After the last delisting, politically driven state actions quickly decimated this keystone species, which is critical to a functioning ecosystem.
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