Congress and Energy Policy
February 2nd, 2021
Last week, the Biden Administration released an “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”. Part II, Section 208, titled “Oil and Natural Gas Development on Public Lands and in Offshore Waters” directs the Secretary of Interior to pause new leasing on federal lands and waters. The Executive Order was almost exclusively directed at the regulatory agencies due to the difficulty the Biden Administration will have in pressuring Congress to pass sweeping anti-fossil fuels legislation. Without the ability to pass legislation, much of the changes to energy policy will be done through regulations during the first term of the Biden Administration and could be more easily overturned should the Republicans take back to Executive branch in four years.
On the House side, the Democrats hold a slim majority, with a difference of 222 Democrats to 211 Republicans. This is one of the slimmest majorities in the past six decades. In the Senate, there are 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, with the Vice President being the tie-breaking vote. When the Senate is split 50/50, the Senate committees are evenly split between the parties and there are no tie-breaking votes in the committees. Therefore, for a bill to pass out of committee to the floor, there must usually be a compromise between the parties within the committee. While there are ways to send bills to the floor without passing through committee, if that were to occur, two powerful Democratic Senators will not support the extreme anti-fossil fuel policies of the new Administration or Senate Majority Leader. Those two Senators are Senator Joe Manchin [WV-D] and Senator Kyrsten Sinema [AZ-D], and they are considered the two most powerful people in Washington right now. (A third Democratic Senator, Senator Hickenlooper, may also oppose extreme anti-fossil fuel policies as he was previously moderate and supportive of fossil fuels.)
Senator Joe Manchin is the Chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. With Manchin in the Senate, there is little chance that the Minerals Leasing Act of 1920 (the “Act”) would be overturned. Along with oil and gas, the Act addresses coal and Manchin comes from a coal state. Additionally, it is unlikely that something as extreme as legislation supporting a permanent leasing ban will pass the Senate. It seems unlikely that Senator Manchin or Senator Sinema would vote for something so extreme. Furthermore, to pass legislation, unless the bills are part of the budget reconciliation process, requires 60 votes to overcome a cloture motion. While there is a threat that the Democrats eliminate the filibuster, that would not change the fact that any bills would need to get through committee; alternatively, if the bill goes straight to the floor, the Democrats need the support of all 50 Senators. Both Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema have opposed the elimination of the filibuster in the past.
