Legislation was passed 226 to 188 by the Republican-controlled House to prevent future administrations from prohibiting oil and gas drilling without the consent of Congress, giving President Donald Trump another significant win.
The “Protecting American Energy Production Act” forbids the president from “declaring a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing unless Congress authorizes the moratorium.”
Republican House members unanimously voted in favor of the legislation’s passage, while 118 Democrats voted against it.
Just weeks before he left office, former President Joe Biden banned future oil and gas drilling along 625 million acres of coastal and offshore waters, among other oil and gas-related regulations. The bill follows his actions.
The Republican who introduced the bill, Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, stated that the legislation was prompted by worries about possible fracking bans during the Biden administration.
“When President Biden took office, his administration took a ‘whole of government’ approach to wage war on American energy production, pandering to woke environmental extremists and crippling this thriving industry,” Pfluger said in a statement following the bill’s passage.
“My legislation that passed today is a necessary first step in reversing Biden’s war on energy by preventing the federal government from banning the use of hydraulic fracturing,” he said.
As part of his “drill, baby, drill” strategy, President Donald Trump has pledged to unleash energy produced in the United States since the campaign trail.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum launched internal investigations into agency actions that “burden” energy development, stripping the energy sector of “coercive” climate policies and oil lease bans implemented during the Biden administration.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Monday that Democrats bear the blame for the pain of a government shutdown, as President Trump and his budget chief moved forward with identifying federal programs to cut.
“Day 27 means it’s almost been a full month since the Democrats shut down the government. And as we near the end of this month, the pain being felt by so many hard-working people around this country is very real and it gets worse with each passing day. Last week, 1.4 million federal workers missed a full paycheck. Now, you know, many of them are furloughed and many more are deemed essential workers,” Johnson said.
“Those who are essential, for example, to keep the country safe — TSA agents we’ve discussed and air traffic controllers and Border Patrol and our troops. But so many of them now are going without pay. The families of military service members and air traffic controllers and so many of these others are now at very real risk of missing the paycheck at the end of this month,” Johnson added.
“The Trump Administration has done everything possible to bend over backwards to try to find sources of funding within the federal government to be able to cover the bases, but it is getting more and more challenging with each day,” Johnson argued.
The Speaker added, “Now, every Republican in Congress wants to stop this Madness desperately. And we have voted many times, over a dozen times, collectively 13 times to reopen the government, to keep it open and reopen it once the Democrats closed it. It’s a simple math problem. We need Democrats to help. You need 60 votes in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans.”
“The Democrats are the ones voting repeatedly to shut down the government,” Johnson declared.
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“These are just four sub points there under — under a fact number three. But there’s many more. But among the things they’re demanding — this is what the Democrats in the Senate are demanding to reopen the government. They want to give $200 billion in health benefits to illegal aliens and noncitizens paid for by U.S. taxpayers. That is in their proposal. They want billions in wasteful programs to be returned to foreign countries. So we stop these things,” he added.
The Speaker concluded, “They want to turn it all back on. They’re demanding that we do all that to get the government open for hardworking Americans again. They want to give a half a billion to left leaning news news organizations and — and they want to cut $50 billion from rural hospitals. We cannot, we will not do those things. And they know that very well.”
