North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, when Chairman Upton and I first talked about energy legislation, I was encouraged that we would be working together to develop a consensus, bipartisan bill. In the tradition of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, that is what we started to do, spending months negotiating over language and finally reporting a bill from subcommittee on a voice vote in July. That bill was modest but bipartisan and was the result of good faith cooperation.

Unfortunately, that effort fell apart. H.R. 8 is not a bipartisan consensus bill. Instead, the House is taking up a backward-looking piece of energy legislation at a time when we need to move forward. H.R. 8 undermines the progress we have made in deploying the sustainable clean energy economy of the future.

Although the title for H.R. 8 suggests we are authorizing improvements in energy infrastructure, the bill provides no funding or initiatives to address some of the significant energy infrastructure issues we are facing.

Meanwhile, the bill has only gotten worse since it left the committee. It was in Upton's manager's amendment that strips out the few good provisions that remained from the committee markup. This so-called energy bill now does nothing for solar, wind, or any other clean energy technology.

On top of that, the Republicans deleted a whole title of the bill written primarily by the subcommittee ranking member, Bobby Rush, the 21st Century Workforce Initiative. That title created a new program at DOE to help minorities, women, and veterans find work and build careers in the energy industry. This was something that Republicans praised throughout the committee process. In fact, the Energy Subcommittee chairman even praised the title last night during testimony before the Rules Committee. Yet, Mr. Chairman, the bill before us doesn't have that provision.

What does that say about Republicans' so-called commitment to expanding job opportunities in the energy sector for minorities, women, and those who served our country? Unfortunately, it says all too much, and none of it is good.

H.R. 8 has one central theme binding its titles: an unerring devotion to the energy of the past. Provision after provision favors an energy policy that is dominated by fossil fuels and unnecessary energy use. It is the Republican Party's 19th-century vision for the future of U.S. energy policy in the 21st century.

Needless to say, the administration opposes this bill. If it reaches the President's desk, it will be vetoed. I, too, oppose H.R. 8, and I urge my colleagues to reject this attempt to roll back progress in energy efficiency and clean energy.

I have to say I don't usually pay much attention to comments that come from the media, but I was actually asked a couple of minutes ago to comment on the fact that some of the Republicans have said that this bill is actually something they can take to the Paris conference and talk about in a positive way. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Paris conference is seeking to address climate change and is seeking to move us towards less reliance on greenhouse gases, less reliance on fossil fuels, and more on renewables. Nothing in this bill accomplishes that goal, and it is hard for me to believe that my colleagues on the Republican side could even suggest that, somehow, this is something that they would want to bring up or talk about at the Paris conference.

Again, I can't say anything positive about this bill, and it is unfortunate that we have gotten to the point now at which there is no effort, really, to reach any of the Democrats' concerns.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This energy bill does nothing for solar, wind, or any other clean energy technology. It does nothing for energy infrastructure either since all funding in the bill was stripped by the GOP.

The bill contains an energy efficiency title that actually results in more energy consumption.

The bill contains provisions that will drive up electricity prices in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic by rigging the markets to prop up old and uneconomical coal and nuclear plants that are losing out in the market to cost-effective natural gas and renewables.

It also has provisions to help gas pipeline companies and hydroelectric licenses that will roll over environmental laws--like the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the NEPA--and undermine the rights of consumers, tribes, and States.

Of course, the version that will be on the floor will have a couple of bad additions from the Committee on Natural Resources, including the MacArthur ``pipeline through parks'' legislation that would make it easy to run pipelines through Yellowstone, Yosemite, and every other national park.

Mr. Chairman, this is a terrible bill that demonstrates that the Republican Party is solely focused on the energy policies of the past and is committed to throwing up barriers to the development of a clean and sustainable energy future.

Every Democrat should join us and the Obama administration in opposing the bill's passage.

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