Over the past couple of days, the GOP-led Congress took action to repeal a pair of rules from the final months of the Biden administration that implemented a methane emissions fee and energy conservation standards for gas-fired water heaters.
The House voted 220-206 on Wednesday to pass a joint resolution from Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) that provides for congressional disapproval of the EPA’s methane emissions fee on oil and gas facilities. One member voted “present.”
On Thursday, the House voted 221-198 to pass a similar measure from Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) that takes aim at the Energy Department’s rule on energy conservation standards for gas-fired instantaneous water heaters. Two members voted “present.”
“House Republicans are rolling back burdensome and misguided rules the Biden administration shamelessly exacted on the American people on its way out the door,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said in a statement obtained by The Daily Wire.
Emmer went on to say, “For four years the Biden administration, aided by Congressional Democrats, waged war on American consumers all in the name of their radical, unfounded climate agenda — House Republicans say no more.”
The resolution focused on the methane emissions fee passed through the Senate 52-47 on Thursday. President Donald Trump’s advisers have recommended he sign it into law, according to an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) statement of administration policy.
“I applaud the Senate’s swift passage of my CRA to reverse the Biden-era’s harmful natural gas tax,” Pfluger said in a statement, adding later, “I am thrilled that this legislation is now headed to the President’s desk to eliminate this harmful tax once and for all!”
The OMB has also released a statement in support of nullifying the Biden-era water heater rule, after which Palmer expressed his thanks and said any similar rules in the future “should be rescinded so that consumer choice is protected and prices remain affordable.”
Democrats who opposed the resolutions echoed the Biden administration’s claims that the rules on the methane emissions fee and water heaters finalized in the weeks after the 2024 election would help stop the “climate crisis” and lower energy costs.
After the lower chamber passed Pfluger’s resolution, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said, “House Republicans are leveraging the Congressional Review Act to support President Trump in undoing the damage of the Biden Administration’s war on American energy.”
Johnson also said of the Biden-era methane emissions fee: “This overreach has driven up energy prices, hurt domestic natural gas production, and increased reliance on foreign energy — without delivering any so-called environmental benefit.”
On the first day of his second term in the White House, Trump signed the national emergency declaration, which ordered agencies to boost domestic energy production and infrastructure. Trump has also established a “National Energy Dominance Council.”
