Red Lines: Energy Policy Conference

Blog Articles · May 23, 2016 · Regulation

This week, the House will vote on and amend S. 2012, the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016, to include a number of previously House passed legislation. Separately, the House will also vote to go to conference with the Senate on this same legislation.

Earlier this year, Heritage Action key voted final passage of S. 2012 in the Senate because the bill contained very few meaningful conservative victories and included numerous provisions that expanded the government footprint. Even worse as the bill worked its way through the Senate it was continually made worse by Democrat and Republican amendments.

According to reports, the purpose of the House voting on and amending S. 2012 is to expand the scope of the conference. That would allow Republican negotiators the ability to bring in more conservative provisions to be part of the discussion, so the argument goes. Any final conference product that emerges should advance conservative priorities and conservative policy.

Additionally, Heritage Action will oppose and potentially key vote against any conference product that includes any of the following provisions:

  • Permanent extension of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)
  • The SAVE Act (Previous key vote on this provision here)
  • Extended eligibility for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program
  • Stafford Act disaster aid eligibility expansion for energy efficiency products or structures

There are a number of other areas of concern that taken together could trigger opposition and key vote to a final conference product:

  • Unnecessary workforce development and training programs
  • Renewable energy retrofitting in schools
  • Grants for retrofitting nonprofits energy efficiency improvements
  • Reauthorization of the Weatherization Assistance program
  • Inclusion of the Federal Smart Building Program
  • Rebate program to encourage the replacement of energy inefficient electric motors and transformers
  • Manufacturing energy efficiency technical assessments
  • Subsidies for Hydro, geothermal, hydrokinetic, biomass, and methane hydrates
  • Coal technology program for technology development and commercialization
  • Smart energy and water efficiency pilot program
  • Reauthorization of ARPA-E
  • Buy American provisions
  • Voluntary grant programs using federal dollars to incentivize energy efficiency
  • Funding for research to find useful purpose for spent vehicle batteries
  • Authorization of $250 million for National Park Centennial Challenge Fund
  • Clean Energy Victory Bond program