Press Releases

House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), together with House Natural Resources Committee Republican Leader Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Republican Leader Sam Graves (R-MO), led a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) calling on them to ensure congressional China bill reforms regulatory barriers posing significant challenges to American energy competitiveness and security. 

Excerpts and highlights from the letter: 

“We write to request that any Conference Committee to reconcile the differences between H.R. 4521, the America COMPETES Act of 2022, and S. 1260, the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) be directed to address robust reforms to federal permitting, licensing, and regulatory regimes that pose significant barriers to building a more competitive economy. Specifically, we are concerned that these government-imposed barriers are preventing the United States from securing its energy future, which is the key to remaining the world’s dominant economy through the 21st century and beyond. These are issues that cannot be solved through government investments in research and development (R&D) and subsidies alone. Passing this legislation without addressing real reforms to ensure the United States is energy secure would be a missed opportunity and would fail to meet the legislation’s goal of increasing America’s global competitiveness. It would cede our future to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Russia.”

“Federal rules and regulations for permitting, licensing, and environmental reviews have made it incredibly difficult and expensive to build in the United States. Everything from laying broadband fiber and installing 5G small cells, to building pipelines and solar farms, to manufacturing semiconductors is more difficult, time consuming, and costly in the United States than other developed countries. Our inability to build cutting edge manufacturing, energy infrastructure, and a critical mineral supply chain has weakened our competitive advantage and made us reliant on foreign adversaries such as China and Russia. Both the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have exposed how dependent we are on unreliable foreign supply chains that make us susceptible to bad actors. This weakens our national and economic security. The importance of American energy security and the dangers of relying on authoritarian regimes for our energy supply chains recently has become particularly apparent.”

[…]

“We are seeing firsthand in Europe the results of relying on authoritarian regimes for energy. We cannot afford to follow Europe’s mistaken, blind rush to green, which would weaken our domestic energy security, increase our dependence on authoritarian regimes for dirtier oil and gas, and make us dangerously dependent on the CCP for the critical minerals and materials needed for renewables. Instead, we must flip the switch to unleash American energy by reducing barriers to extracting our cleaner, abundant oil and natural gas, increase the responsible mining and processing of critical minerals to build up our domestic supply chain, and reduce the permitting and licensing barriers to building and improving new and existing energy infrastructure.”

CLICK HERE to read the full letter.