Date: 2025-05-20 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00025762
US POLITICS
NEW SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON
FAST FORWARD TO THE PAST ... House Speaker Mike Johnson’s
First Big Bill Cuts Biden’s Climate Change Funding
NEW SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON
FAST FORWARD TO THE PAST ... House Speaker Mike Johnson’s
First Big Bill Cuts Biden’s Climate Change Funding
Original article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-26/speaker-mike-johnson-s-first-big-bill-cuts-biden-climate-change-funding
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Washington news is good and bad. It is good that the Republicans have elected a Speaker after a dangerously long delay. Not so good is that the person they have elected has been a supporter of a lot of the 'crackpot' ideas and behaviors of the Republican party, most of which in my view will weaken the United States as well as being bad for the world.
But at least the House of Representatives now has a Speaker and can get to work.
Mike Johnson is relatively new to Washington. The Republicans will miss the fund raising prowess of the former Speaker Kevin MaCarthy which was formidable. Speaker Johnson does not have much history of fund raising beyond his own campaigns, and even this is connected with the energy sector in his native Louisiana.
Peter Burgess
- Measure would end rebates for energy-efficient appliances
- Slashes funds for other programs to counter climate change
October 26, 2023 at 4:38 PM EDT
The first major legislation House Republicans passed under newly installed Speaker Mike Johnson would cut billions of dollars in consumer rebates for energy efficiency upgrades included in President Joe Biden’s signature climate law.
The $58 billion measure, which funds the Energy Department and other agencies, rescinds more than $5.5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, including a $4.5 billion program for homeowners to switch to more energy efficient appliances and a $1 billion grant program to help states craft more stringent building energy codes.
The bill, approved Thursday on a 210-199 vote, also slashes the Energy Department’s energy efficiency and renewable energy office funding by 42% below last year’s levels and revokes $15 billion in loan authority from the department’s loan guarantee program.
House GOP Votes On A New Speaker
US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks outside the US Capitol after becoming House speaker in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. Republicans installed little-known Trump ally Mike Johnson as US House speaker, cementing the party’s rightward shift and ending a messy three-week succession fight that paralyzed legislative work.Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg
Representative Morgan Griffith, a West Virginia Republican, said cutting the climate spending would save taxpayers “huge amounts of money.”
While the House measure isn’t expected to pass the Democratic Senate - or receive Biden’s signature - without changes, it represents the Republican’s starting point as they negotiate spending with Democrats ahead of a mid-November government shutdown deadline. Johnson has pledged the House will vote on the remaining spending bills in the coming weeks.
Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee drafted the cuts before Johnson was elected party leader.
Earlier: GOP Speaker Nominee Johnson Has Plan to Avoid November Shutdown
Johnson, of Louisiana, is a long-time ally of his state’s oil and gas sector, and has received about $280,000 in donations from the industry, according to the watchdog group OpenSecrets. The League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group, has given Johnson a 2% lifetime achievement score, citing dozens of votes against climate legislation and other environmental bills.
Johnson has “denied that climate change is a result of fossil fuels and polluters, and appears poised to continue to cater to Big Oil and Gas allies as Speaker,” the environmental group said in a statement.