Subcommittees

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Today, Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Congressman Bob Latta (OH-05), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, sent a letter to Dr. Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), highlighting the IEA’s decision to restore the inclusion of objective data analysis in the World Energy Outlook (WEO). By bringing back the Current Policies Scenario (CPS) in the report, the IEA is returning to its core mission and working to promote energy security. “Strengthening our nation’s energy security is vital to securing our grid, powering AI and domestic manufacturing, and ensuring that Americans have the energy resources they need,” said Chairmen Guthrie and Latta. “For the last several years, IEA forecasts incorrectly assumed the peak demand for oil and natural gas would come before 2030. As a result, these forecasts deterred investments by painting an inaccurate picture of what energy markets will need in the future. By finally standing up to activist pressure opposing the use of oil and natural gas to power our economy, the IEA will once again be able to provide the unbiased market forecasts decision makers rely on to provide reliable and affordable energy into the future.”   Key excerpts from the letter:   “Maintaining objective data analysis, free from activism, is imperative. The IEA has long stood as an invaluable source of unbiased data and analysis on the security of oil markets. The agency’s work carries significant weight for policymakers, the energy industry, and global financial firms. “Yet in 2020, the IEA, under pressure from climate activists eager to exploit the agency’s credibility to discourage oil and gas investment, abandoned its longstanding CPS, and began only publishing WEOs that relied on subjective scenarios that assumed different degrees of adherence to climate action agreements. These aggressive Stated Policies Scenarios (STEPS), rely heavily on policy aspirations, while ignoring market realities. “In the United States alone, oil and natural gas account for about 74 percent of the primary energy sources consumed every year, with natural gas accounting for approximately 43 percent of electric power generation. Due to artificial intelligence and other technologies, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts significant natural gas demand growth over the next several years. As you know, the EIA maintains the use of a policy-neutral baseline reference case. “Politicized and censored demand scenarios can distort policy decisions and misguide capital investment. Just last year, the Biden-Harris Administration leveraged these questionable IEA projections, while ignoring EIA data, to support banning liquefied natural gas export projects. This decision discouraged sufficient capital allocation toward critical energy supplies and emboldened Russia’s war machine.”   CLICK HERE to read the full letter. ###

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The following op-ed by Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, appeared in the Washington Examiner this morning. “The energy prices that dramatically increased during the Biden administration are continuing to rise, and the attempts by Democrats to pin the increase on President Donald Trump’s policies willfully ignore how their reckless decisions during the previous administration have led us here. “Since the Working Families Tax Cuts was signed into law, Democrats have tried to claim that Republican policies would cause energy prices to rise for families. This is false. The legislation strips subsidies for parts of the far-left energy agenda that have been driving up prices. On the contrary, the tax cuts law will save the average household $2,900 in 2026. “The truth is that building the electricity grid on unreliable, taxpayer-subsidized wind and solar — as Democrats have advocated for the last decade — has driven up costs. As energy producers and grid operators have told us in hearings this year, subsidizing intermittent sources of electricity essentially requires building two systems to keep the lights on. One is the costly wind and solar system touted by liberal donors and the renewable energy lobby. The other is a reliable backup system necessary for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. “Subsidies for wind and solar projects, as well as regulations aimed at hampering natural gas and coal generation, have been driving up rates and undermining reliability. It was the Biden administration that restricted energy supplies, forced the end of fossil fuel generation in favor of costly intermittent power, and failed to provide for increased demand from artificial intelligence data centers, advanced manufacturing, and the growing consumer economy. “With those harmful policies of the past four years already built into state and utility planning decisions, families are continuing to see the legacy effect of rising costs in their household bills. The energy grid cannot be rebalanced to provide affordable, reliable power in a matter of months; it takes years. “Energy prices rose nearly 30% under the Biden administration, 13 times faster than the previous seven years. That spike came from the far-left policies that rewarded Democrats’ anti-fossil fuel special interest allies and the green energy sector. The Obama and Biden administrations wielded the regulatory state to stifle the production of reliable baseload power, all while like-minded states continued to phase out reliable baseload power generation as well. “Democrats are now claiming even more wind- and solar-powered electricity needs to be brought online quickly to meet our needs, which flatly ignores the effects we’re already seeing from these policies leading to rising costs and unreliability. Simply put, intermittent resources cannot reliably provide power during times of peak demand, especially during extreme weather events. “This is not to say that there is no role at all for wind and solar energy, but the reality is that these sources must be supported in the background by natural gas, coal, hydropower, or nuclear. Adding more wind and solar inputs while closing and restricting more reliable power only drives up costs and increases risks of brownouts and blackouts. Just compare two of our largest states: natural gas-dominant Florida has seen electricity rates that are half those of renewable-dominant California. “The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has heard testimony from grid operators that the current imbalance in the grid, caused by the retirements of reliable generation and a massive oversupply of intermittent wind and solar, is unsustainable and that there is a major need for more baseload power in the coming years. This is leading grid operators to take emergency steps to expedite the build-out of fossil fuel generation over wind and solar to rebalance the grid and avoid costly blackouts. “In a recent report, the Department of Energy warned that outages could increase 100 times by 2030 if power plant retirements and the increase in overall demand for electricity continue at their current pace. Even as more renewables have come online, our grid is not prepared to meet the increased demand from AI data centers and domestic manufacturing. That is why the Working Families Tax Cuts created the Energy Dominance Financing Program, investing in projects that provide power 24/7, 365 days a year. “By ending costly subsidies for unreliable sources, such as wind and solar, and leveling the playing field for natural gas, coal, nuclear, and hydropower, Republicans are making sure America gets the ‘best of the above’ energy for a balanced, reliable grid to serve families and industry far into the future. “To be clear, it will take time for these policies to materialize into actual construction projects, but we have cleared some of the regulatory blockers that are allowing industry to start making these investments. We cannot go back to the policies that prioritized radical environmental agendas over families and brought higher prices, blackouts, brownouts, and a grid that cannot meet increased demand. “The people know better. Alongside our president, House Republicans are working to restore reliable and abundant energy, lower electricity costs, and restore America’s energy dominance.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Congressman John Joyce, M.D. (PA-13), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and Congressman Gary Palmer (AL-06), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin requesting information on how far-left organizations received billions of dollars in the final days of the previous administration through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF).  “In the final days of the Biden-Harris Administration, the EPA put their far-left allies ahead of the American people, giving away Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants worth nearly $30 billion to recipients who were not equipped to receive such large amounts of funding,” said Chairmen Guthrie, Joyce, and Palmer. “By requesting documentation about this grant process from the EPA, Republicans on the Committee on Energy and Commerce are continuing our work to root out waste, fraud, and abuse while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”  This letter follows requests sent to eight nonprofits who were awarded more than $20 billion earlier this year through the GGRF. Key excerpt from the letter: “The Committee finds the potential for financial mismanagement particularly worrisome, as some of the grantees’ previous revenues were only a small fraction of the GGRF funds they received, which raises questions about whether the grant recipients can adequately manage grant amounts that are significantly larger than their previously documented revenue.” “The Committee seeks to ensure that the federal government is a good steward of taxpayer dollars and to continue supporting EPA’s efforts in combatting waste, fraud, and abuse within the GGRF program. To assist with the Subcommittee’s investigation of GGRF and support the Administration’s efforts, the Committee requests the following documents no later than November 19, 2025: The complete grant file for the three NCIF grantees and the five CCIA grantees, including the application submitted by the organization with all supporting documentation and appendices, any additional information requested by EPA, and any memos on changes to the grant terms and conditions. The scoring breakdown and rational for each score for all the NCIF and CCIA applicants included in the final rankings lists for the top-ranked applications, including any changes to scoring or rescores and rationale for why those changes occurred. Any checklist or guidance for EPA grants employees on what steps they should be taking to conduct appropriate pre-award due diligence and to ensure all required paperwork and documentation is submitted and verified. This should include briefing materials used to advise the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Chief of Staff, General Counsel, Associate Administrator for Mission Support, and Associate Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation about the selection of NCIF grantees and CCIA grantees. Any reports received from Citibank or the U.S. Treasury regarding the account balances or transactions histories of the GGRF accounts for the three NCIF grantees and the five CCIA grantees and any of their sub-awardees. Any progress reports received from the three NCIF grantees and the five CCIA grantees. The names of all panel chairs, senior review panels, selection officials, and all individuals involved in the review panels for all the NCIF and CCIA applicants included in the final rankings lists for the top-ranked applications.” Background: The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create and implement a $27 billion GGRF program. Of this appropriation, $20 billion was awarded to just eight grant recipients; with $14 billion awarded to three grant recipients under the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) program and $6 billion awarded to five grant recipients under the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA) program.  CLICK HERE to read the full letter. Read More About this Ongoing Investigation: “SCOOP: Biden-era grant program described as ‘gold bar’ scheme by Trump EPA administrator under scrutiny” –   Fox News “EXCLUSIVE: Key Committee Demands Docs in Biden ‘Gold Bars’ Probe” – Daily Caller ###