Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions''

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 161, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 35) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions,'' and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Res. 35.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.J. Res. 35, a resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions,'' sponsored by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger).

H.J. Res. 35 will repeal the disastrous rule by the Biden administration that punishes our small and midsize energy producers here in the United States. The so-called waste emissions charge starts at $900 per metric ton for last year's reported methane emissions. It increases to $1,200 per metric ton for 2025 emissions, and it increases one more time to $1,500 per metric ton of emissions for 2026 and the years thereafter.

There are about 9,000 small and midsize independent petroleum drillers in the United States. These mostly small operations are responsible for developing 91 percent of oil and gas wells, producing 83 percent of America's oil and 90 percent of our country's natural gas. We should be thanking them, not punishing them.

Mr. Speaker, if we do not act, American jobs and energy production will be lost. This is really, for all intents and purposes, a punitive tax on natural gas. These folks are not our enemy. They help make the fuel that we use to heat our homes, et cetera.

Mr. Speaker, I and other Republicans are not opposed to the regulation of methane. I see it as an asset that should not be wasted when it is practicably able to be captured, but there are cases where it is not practicable. However, we are opposed to bureaucratic overreach that, intended or not, will force some of these small producers out of business, making the energy supply in the United States less.

We should instead be making rules that work with industry to facilitate the progress that our country's energy producers have already made in reducing emissions.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. When debating this resolution, H.J. Res. 35, is it appropriate to discuss superfluous matters to the matter at hand currently on the floor?

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, let me be clear: I meant no offense and no criticism. As the gentleman from the other side of the aisle and from New Jersey knows, I love parliamentary procedure. One of the reasons that we have parliamentary procedures and rules of parliamentary procedures is to make the place more efficient.

We are talking about H.J. Res. 35 today. We are not talking about every other ill that anybody might think is going on. The focus today in this debate period is H.J. Res. 35.

That is my only point. I meant no criticism of Mr. Tonko or the Democrats in this matter. Just trying to get us on track with parliamentary procedure.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter of support for H.J. Res. 35 from the United States Chamber of Commerce, a letter from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, and last, but not least, a letter from the American Petroleum Institute. February 24, 2025.

To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports the Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval aimed at overturning the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions rulemaking. Disapproving this rulemaking would help give consumers access to affordable energy to heat their homes and businesses to power manufacturing.

Disapproving EPA's natural gas tax rulemaking is expected to reduce energy costs for consumers, making heating, cooking, and electricity more affordable for households. For manufacturers, it lowers operating expenses, enabling greater investment in production and job creation, which in turn stimulates economic growth and strengthens the overall economy. Disapproving this tax will also provide relief to small businesses and industries so they can allocate more resources toward growth, innovation, and workforce expansion.

This natural gas tax threatens to increase costs to consumers and businesses and undermines economic competitiveness. We urge Congress to act swiftly in passing this resolution of disapproval. Sincerely, Neil L. Bradley,

Executive Vice President, Chief Policy Officer, and Head of Strategic Advocacy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ____ NFIB, Washington, DC, February 25, 2025.

Dear Representative: On behalf of NFIB, the nation's leading small business advocacy organization, I write in support of H.J. Res. 35, the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) rule establishing a methane fee for oil and natural gas production, processing, transmission, and storage. This fee will increase costs for energy producers, which will be passed on to families and small businesses. A vote in favor of H.J. Res. 35, will be considered an NFIB Key Vote for the 119th Congress.

In a recent ballot, more than 88 percent of small business owners support streamlining regulations to facilitate the production and transport of oil, natural gas, and other energy sources in the United States. Small business owners also report the cost of electricity, natural gas, gasoline, and diesel fuel, as top 10 problems when asked to assess their top 75 issues.

The EPA's methane fee would apply to oil and gas facilities that report annual methane emissions above a certain threshold. In 2024, a $900 fee per metric ton of methane would kick in above the threshold. By 2026, the fee will increase to $1,500 per metric ton. This fee will increase the cost of energy production which will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher energy costs. In its rule, the EPA acknowledged that this regulation would increase the price of gasoline and decrease gas production.

Small businesses want affordable, abundant, and reliable energy. NFIB strongly supports H.J. Res. 35 and will consider support for H.J. Res. 35 a Key Vote for the 119th Congress. Sincerely, Adam Temple, Senior Vice President for Advocacy, NFIB. ____ American Petroleum Institute, Washington, DC, February 26, 2025. Hon. Brett Guthrie, Chair, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC. Hon. Frank Pallone, Ranking Member, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone: The American Petroleum Institute (API) writes in support of H.J. Res. 35, Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) relating to ``Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions'' (the WEC rule).

The WEC rule is a duplicative layer of red tape that creates a punitive tax on American energy, stifling innovation and hampering the industry's ability to produce the energy that American consumers and allies abroad rely on, and we appreciate your committee's leadership in repealing this harmful policy.

Methane emissions from the oil and gas sector are already regulated by EPA under the new and existing source rule, which prescribes extensive requirements for industry. At the same time, industry is voluntarily doing more to continue reducing our emissions, and those efforts are working. Thanks to innovation and industry actions, methane emissions fell by 42 percent between 2015 and 2023 according to the EPA, even as production increased by 51 percent to meet demand.

Operators have taken significant voluntary steps to identify and implement cleaner engineering technology solutions within their operations and facility designs. For example, since 2018, members of The Environmental Partnership, a voluntary industry initiative administered by API and whose members represent nearly 70 percent of U.S. onshore oil and gas production, have removed or replaced more than 180,000 gas-driven pneumatics, resulting in the permanent reduction of an estimated 355,421 metric tonnes of CH4 per year released into the atmosphere based on 2023 EPA reporting. Operators are also implementing vapor recovery units to capture methane emissions from higher-emitting equipment like tanks and compressors. In addition to traditional ground-based monitoring approaches using optical gas imaging (OGI) technologies, companies are also implementing the use of laser absorption spectroscopy and sensors technologies on the surface, in the sky and in space to improve leak detection efforts and further reduce emissions.

In addition to the duplicative nature of the fee, API also contends that the Biden Administration failed to implement it consistent with congressional intent for several key reasons:

The Inflation Reduction Act allowed for an exemption from the fee if (1) the final EPA rule addressing methane emissions is in effect; and (2) as determined by the Administrator, the given state rule will result in greater emission reductions than would have been achieved by the proposed rule entitled ``Standards of Performance for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Oil and Natural Gas Sector Climate Review'' (86 Fed. Reg. 63110 (November 15, 2021)) had that rule been finalized and implemented. Those conditions have been met, but the compliance exemption is still not as broadly available as Congress intended. The availability of the exemption should not have been delayed until all 50 states have fully implemented the requirements.

The WEC rule also disqualifies sites from using the compliance exemption if they have a deviation. Sites should not be disqualified from using the compliance exemption unless and until a violation (not a deviation) is proven through adjudication or admitted by the owner/operator of the site, and disqualification should be limited specifically to the emissions resulting from the adjudicated violation.

The final rule allows netting at the parent company level, but owners/operators who have made substantial investments to mitigate emissions in advance of any regulatory requirement are not currently able to include those facilities that now fall below the Subpart W reporting threshold in netting calculations.

The WEC rule requires combustion emissions to be reported under Subpart W and subject to fees, instead of under Subpart C, consistent with other industries and congressional intent around the netting provisions.

Repealing this misguided rule is an important first step towards providing industry with relief from one of the previous Administration's anti-energy policies, and we appreciate your work to advance a pro-consumer regulatory environment that embraces U.S. energy.

We urge Congress to pass H.J. Res. 35 to repeal the WEC rule, and API and its members stand ready to work together with your committee to follow this with full repeal of the underlying statutory mandate in Section 136(c)-(g) of the Clean Air Act. Sincerely, Amanda E. Eversole.

It is interesting. I heard some speakers--and everybody is just trying to talk about these issues from their viewpoint. I get it. However, I heard some speakers on the other side of the aisle say today that we are just catering to Big Oil and others.

Then I hear there were discussions with larger folks, and those are the people who are okay with it. I hear from Representatives from places like Alaska, North Dakota, and Texas whose constituents oftentimes are small mom-and-pop operations. It is hard to think of oil and natural gas that way, but that is the way it is in those regions. They say this will, in fact, hurt them and this is disastrous.

I suspect, Mr. Speaker, the reason that we have this dichotomy, this difference, is that a lot of times bigger institutions, bigger organizations, can afford to take on a new regulation. It will cost them a little bit of money. It will make the cost of production go up a little bit, but because they are large, they can spread that out over a lot of different items or a lot of different--I guess, in this case, it would be oil and gas measured in cubic feet, or whatever the measurement is these days. As a result, they can say this is a cost spread out over a large piece of the pie so it is not that big of a deal to us.

As I said in my opening, there are 9,000 small and midsize independent petroleum drillers in the United States. These, mostly small, operations are responsible for developing 91 percent of oil and gas wells, producing 83 percent of America's oil, and 90 percent of our country's natural gas.

Those are the folks who are most upset about these regulations and why we need to repeal them. We are going to break the back of those 9,000 small and midsize independent petroleum drillers who are providing us with affordable gas, affordable heat for our homes through natural gas, and affordable products made out of natural gas and petroleum.

Mr. Speaker, it is the right thing to do, and I encourage all Members, both Democrat, Republican, and any who may think of themselves as independent, to vote ``yes'' on H.J. Res. 35.

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