Buried In NDAA, Fossil-Fueled Provision Directs State Department To Promote Fossil-Fuel Industry
Buried within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022 (H.R. 4350) passed last week, the Democratic House of Representatives approved language creating a new position in the State Department dedicated to promoting oil and fracked gas interests.
The language is taken from the Energy Diplomacy Act (H.R. 1311), introduced by Rep. August Pfluger II (R-Texas) and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), both oil-patch members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The bill establishes an Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, responsible for “protecting and advancing United States energy security interests” and “coordinating energy activities” in the State Department. The position will “support the development of energy resources and the distribution of such resources,” “resolve international disputes regarding the exploration, development, production, or distribution of energy resources,” and “support and coordinate international efforts to alleviate energy poverty.” “Energy poverty” is a fossil-fuel industry term used to promote the development of coal, oil, and gas in the developing world.
It was introduced as part of an amendment to the NDAA on State Department operations (numbered 723 in the Rules Committee list and 286 on the House floor) by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the Foreign Affairs chair and ranking member. It passed the House as one of 111 amendments included in en-bloc amendment 124, agreed to 362 to 59 (roll-call vote 289).
Pfluger is a first-term congressman financed by the oil and gas industry, whose stated “primary concern in Congress is to protect our oil and gas industry from the radical Democrats.” Gonzalez is one of a dwindling number of oil-patch Democrats financed by the oil and gas industry who opposes climate action.
Despite its House passage, the bill will face a pro-forma markup in the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.
While the bill avoids mention of fossil-fueled climate change, it does not preclude the new role from being dedicated to supporting renewable energy development instead of fossil-fuel interests, although the language about foreign energy markets and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative would make little sense in that case.
Climate Justice Components Of Build Back Better Agenda Have Been Pared Back, With Further Cuts Possible
In its reconciliation package, the House of Representatives restored some of Biden’s requested funding for climate justice measures that had been slashed by the U.S. Senate’s bipartisan deal, but massive cuts remain.
If the White House heeds the “no double dip” deal it made with Senate centrists, the House funds will be eliminated.
Two Build Back Better climate-justice programs that were cut in the Senate’s infrastructure package (known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, or BIF) are funded at or above President Biden’s requested levels:
- Building electric vehicle charging stations, raised $15 billion to $21 billion
- Replacing the nation’s lead pipes, fully restored to $45 billion
However, most face massive cuts, with no prospect for improvement:
- Reconnecting minority communities cut off by highway projects, cut 79% from $24 billion to $4.95 billion
- Investing in electric school buses, cut 63% from $20 billion to $7.5 billion
- Road safety, including “vision zero” programs to protect pedestrians, cut 45% from $20 billion to $11 billion (only $100 million added)
- Upgrading and modernizing America’s drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems, cut 40% from $56 billion to $33.7 billion
- Repairing and modernizing public transit, cut 36% from $85 billion to $54 billion
- Broadband infrastructure, cut 31% from $100 billion to $69 billion
- Investing in passenger and freight rail, cut 5% from $80 billion to $76 billion
- Capping orphan wells, increased to $18.5 billion, 16% over Biden’s request
- Brownfield and Superfund, increased to $20 billion, three times Biden’s request
The BIF includes the Civil Nuclear Credit Program, a $6 billion bailout fund for existing nuclear plants.
The Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP) is a major climate initiative in the House reconciliation package, establishing a sort of carbon cap-and-trade system for electric utilities with the goal of increasing low-carbon electricity production to 80 percent of the mix by 2030. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has indicated his desire to modify the CEPP to lower its standards to support natural-gas plants.
House Oversight Committee Investigates Fossil Fuel Industry Climate Disinformation Campaign
On Thursday, September 16, the House oversight committee sent letters to U.S. oil executives and to industry trade groups requesting “documents on the reported role of the fossil fuel industry in a long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.” The committee also announced a hearing set for October 28, 2021 in which the executives were requested to testify.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), Chairwoman of the Oversight and Reform Committee, and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Environment, sent the letters to the top executives at ExxonMobil Corporation, BP America Inc., Chevron Corporation, Shell Oil Company, American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“We are deeply concerned that the fossil fuel industry has reaped massive profits for decades while contributing to climate change that is devastating American communities, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and ravaging the natural world,” the chairs wrote. “We are also concerned that to protect those profits, the industry has reportedly led a coordinated effort to spread disinformation to mislead the public and prevent crucial action to address climate change.”
The four companies involved reported nearly $2 trillion in profits between 1990 and 2019. They and the trade groups are now the defendants in a growing number of civil lawsuits from individuals and localities suffering the harms of fossil-fueled climate pollution.
In 2019, Rep. Khanna oversaw a hearing examining the oil industry’s efforts to suppress the truth about climate change.
In 2015, InsideClimateNews and others broke the story of how ExxonMobil led the industry in waging a climate disinformation campaign with full knowledge of the dangers of fossil fuels. Following those reports, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) spoke on the Senate floor calling for a RICO investigation of ExxonMobil’s history of deliberate climate deception. Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.) called for the Department of Justice to investigate the legality of ExxonMobil’s “sustained deception campaign disputing climate science.”
From the committee’s press release:Public reporting indicates that these companies and their allies in the fossil fuel industry have worked to prevent serious action on global warming by generating doubt about the documented dangers of fossil fuels and misrepresenting the scale of their efforts to develop alternative energy technologies—similar tactics deployed by the tobacco industry to resist regulation while selling products that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.These strategies of obfuscation and distraction span decades and still continue today. Between 2015 and 2018, the five largest publicly traded oil and gas companies reportedly spent $1 billion to promote climate disinformation through “branding and lobbying.”
Fossil fuel companies increasingly outsource lobbying to trade groups, obscuring their own roles in disinformation efforts. Recently, an ExxonMobil lobbyist was caught on video discussing the tactics employed by ExxonMobil to obstruct climate change legislation, including using API and other industry groups as the “whipping boy” to advocate for policy positions that ExxonMobil did not want to be associated with publicly.
The committee requested that the recipients produce documents and communications by September 30, 2021, “related to their organizations’ role in supporting disinformation and misleading the public to prevent action on the climate crisis.”
- The letter to ExxonMobil Corporation CEO Darren Woods
- The letter to BP America Inc. CEO David Lawler
- The letter to Chevron Corporation CEO Michael K. Wirth
- The letter to Shell Oil Company President Gretchen Watkins
- The letter to the American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers
- The letter to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark
House Working To Write and Pass the $3.5 Trillion Build Back Better Act Reconciliation Package
The House of Representatives has begun a whirlwind effort to pass the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” reconciliation bill known as the Build Back Better Act this month. Practically every committee in the House has some component of the bill, known formally as S. Con. Res. 14, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2022, under its jurisdiction.
The House Committee on Natural Resources, chaired by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-N.Mex.), was the first to handle its section, with a full-day markup last week. The committee will meet again this Thursday to vote on a few Republican amendments before final consideration of its bill.
The largest elements of the bill, dealing with health care, child care, and retirement, are being handled by the House Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by corporate ally Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.). They have two days of markup planned for this Thursday and Friday.
The Science Committee, Education and Labor Committee, and Small Business Committee also are conducting their markups on Thursday.
The Agriculture Committee is holding its markup on Friday.
- $3 billion to support the Civilian Climate Corps through the Department of the Interior
- $1 billion for tribal climate resilience and adaptation
- $900 million for national wildfire management
- $500 million for a unique Tribal Civilian Climate Corps
- $225 million for climate resilience and restoration
- $100 million for mitigating climate-induced weather events
- $100 million for tribal wildfire management
- $2.7 billion for overdue Indian water rights settlements
- $2.5 billion to clean up abandoned hardrock mines and redevelop them for productive use
- $2 billion for health facility construction, maintenance, and improvement in Indian Country
- $993 million for hospitals and health infrastructure in U.S. territories
- $500 million for tribal housing improvements
The proposed $45.4 billion Science Committee bill includes:
Department of Energy ($20.6 billion)- $5 billion for regional innovation initiatives
- $10.4 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science laboratories, including $1.3 billion for the ITER fusion project
- $349 million for the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for NREL projects including the new EMAPS program and ARIES grid simulation
- $408 million for the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy
- $20 million for the Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
- $1.08 billion in general funds for Department of Energy National Laboratories, including
- $377 million for Office of Science
- $210 million for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
- $40 million for Office of Nuclear Energy
- $190 million for Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
- $102 million for the Office of Environmental Management
- $2 billion for fusion research and development
- $1.1 billion for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy demonstration projects, including wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, vehicles, bioenergy, and building technologies
- $70 million for a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute
- $52.5 million for university nuclear reactor research
- $10 million for demonstration projects on reducing the environmental impacts of fracking wastewater
- $20 million for the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity
- $50 million for the Office of the Inspector General
- $264 million to conduct environmental research and development activities related to climate change, including environmental justice
- $798 million for Assistance to Firefighters Grants
- $4 billion for infrastructure and maintenance
- $388 million for climate change research and development
- $1.2 billion for scientific and technical research, including resilience to natural hazards including wildfires, and greenhouse gas and other climate-related measurement
- $2 billion for American manufacturing support
- $1 billion for infrastructure and maintenance
- $1.2 billion for weather, ocean, and climate research and forecasting
- $265 million to develop and distribute actionable climate information for communities in an equitable manner
- $500 million to recruit, educate, and train a “climate-ready” workforce
- $70 million for high-performance computing
- $224 million for phased-array radar research and development
- $1 billion for hurricane hunter aircraft and radar systems
- $12 million for drone missions
- $743 million for deferred maintenance
- $173 million for space weather
- $3.4 billion for infrastructure, including Antarctic bases – $300 million for minority-serving institutions
- $7.5 billion for research grants, including at least $400 million for climate change research and $700 million for minority-serving institutions
- $50 million for Office of the Inspector General
- $2.1 billion to back upwards of $4.2 billion in small-business loans to purchase renewable energy equipment, including solar panels, wind turbines, and battery storage
- roughly $450 billion in lowering the cost of child care and securing universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds
- $111 billion to lower the cost of higher education
- $82 billion in America’s public school infrastructure, for safe, healthy, energy efficient, and environmentally resilient public school facilities
- nearly $80 billion in workforce development programs
- nearly $35 billion in child nutrition programs