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''

Floor Speech

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Mr. PFLUGER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my legislation, H.J. Res. 35, to nullify the EPA's rule on the waste emissions charge, also known as the natural gas tax.

With President Trump back in office, it is time to restore American energy. It is time to restore American energy dominance, which is why I am proud to lead this CRA to rescind the ill-conceived natural gas tax.

As part of his war on energy, former President Biden took radical steps to end fossil fuels during his administration, which hurt the hardworking energy producers not only in my district in the Permian Basin in Midland and Odessa but also across America.

This Congressional Review Act is a tool that Congress uses to overturn Federal agency actions, a direct example of congressional checks and balances on the executive branch and one of Congress' most important duties.

My CRA will not eliminate the program that collects this tax, but it will remove the EPA's ability to collect it. This is an essential first step in eliminating this tax, while we work to undo the underlying statute: killing the natural gas tax once and for all. It is critical to negate these punitive regulatory requirements now to ensure that the United States can reclaim its place as the world leader in energy for generations to come.

In the waning days of the Biden administration, the EPA doubled down on Biden's disastrous energy policies, imposing a burdensome and harmful tax on oil and natural gas facilities called the waste emissions charge, also like we have been discussing, the natural gas tax or the methane tax. This natural gas tax was a blatant abuse of power and the first time that the Federal Government has ever directly levied a tax on emissions, creating a duplicative layer of red tape that would devastate American energy, if continued.

The specifics of this tax started at $900 a metric ton in '24, increasing to $1,200, and then $1,500 in the subsequent years. While the statute directs the EPA to develop a formula to impose and collect a tax based on intensity, Biden's EPA did so by ignoring well- established international standards.

Actually, one of the things I have heard here today is that industry was consulted. That is false. Industry was not consulted. In a hearing, I asked a member of Biden's Department of Energy to tell me one producer they had worked with. I asked them to name one producer they had worked with, and they couldn't come up with that producer. They couldn't come up with even one until pressed. Then they said whatever producer they thought. I went back and double-checked that. They hadn't been consulted. They hadn't been talked to.

This is an important day. Taxes, like the one we are discussing, raise energy production costs. They discourage investment. They ultimately lead to higher consumer prices and costs. Not only is this a tremendous burden on both producers and consumers but this rule also completely ignores the significant progress that the United States private sector has made over the past decade or more.

U.S. emissions have decreased by 18 percent between 2005 and 2022, making the United States the world leader in reductions of emissions, while simultaneously increasing production threefold or fourfold.

Today's vote exemplifies the principles upheld in the Supreme Court's landmark Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision. By overturning Chevron deference precedent, the court restored the judiciary's rightful role in interpreting statutes and checking agency overreach.

This is important for all of us. What Biden's administration did for 4 straight years was to overreach, to impose burdensome regulations, and to hurt innovation, the actual innovation that was reducing emissions. They destroyed that progress.

I am very proud to lead this CRA. I am proud that it will be bipartisan. I have had multiple Democrats who have told me that they are going to vote for this because it is common sense and it actually helps all of our goals: affordable, reliable energy that also helps the environment.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I thank the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce for leading this.

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