One Bill to Gut It All: H.R.1 a Corporate Wishlist Masquerading as Legislation

The House’s 1,000+ page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H.R.1) narrowly passed the House on May 22nd on a party line vote and has moved to the Senate, which will take up its own budget reconciliation proposal in the coming weeks. Now is the time to ratchet up public engagement to stop this train wreck.

Environmental Wrecking Ball

Predictably, the bill is a slasher, killing programs that benefit ordinary Americans while doubling down on benefits for polluting corporations and billionaires. Looking through a climate and environmental lens, some overarching themes include:

• eliminating funding for climate and pollution control;
• sacrificing land for dirty energy profiteering;
• and sticking it to the clean-energy do-gooders and poor communities most ill-equipped to deal with the onslaught of extractive industries and polluting facilities.

The table of contents lays out with predictable glee the intended damage in plain language with termination of tax credits for clean vehicles and clean energy across the economy, and repeal of programs to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The following are just some of the provisions:

Economy Killer

It’s an economy-killer, too. According to the Washington Post, “the bill would take away $522 billion that is scheduled to be injected into local economies across the country.” These cuts particularly impact “red” states (oops).

While the Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources segments of the bill contain the most cuts to environmental programs, the cuts and daggers are sprinkled throughout. For example, the “Investment in Rural America” section kills climate mitigation and forest conservation programs (Sec. 10105) while extending mandatory funding of $10 million per year through 2031 for biobased products (including wood) and “advanced biofuels” (Sec. 10106; current provisions here). In other words, burning trees is ok, but not protecting forests (hey, we’ve found a kind of renewable energy Republicans can get behind – as long as it kills trees and emits pollution, it looks enough like coal that they’re comfortable with it).

Pay to Play Provisions

Land grabs for dirty energy in the bill come in all shapes and sizes. Under “pay-to-play” provisions for gas pipelines (Sec. 41004), paying $10 million to the U.S. Treasury buys the applicant all necessary permits from “each Federal, State, or interstate agency” within one year of the application. If any agency fails to comply with the deadline, it forfeits the ability to include conditions in the permit, and the application is “deemed approved in perpetuity.” For LNG import or export, a $1 million DOE fee buys the applicant a determination that the project is in the “public interest”; “such an application shall be granted without modification or delay” (Sec. 41002). The bill mandates increased timber extraction in Forest Service (Sec. 80308) and BLM lands (Sec. 80309), reinstates coal leasing on federal land and expands oil and gas leasing. In addition to other widely-reported attacks on the judiciary in the bill, the land-grabbing provisions are among many provisions that eliminate the opportunity for judicial review of federal actions.

Goodbye Tax Credits: Hello Fees

Own an electric vehicle? Tax credits don’t just go away; this bill requires an annual $250 federal registration fee ($100 for hybrids; Sec. 100003). The onus is on each state to implement this measure or face punishment for non-compliance.

This is just a sampling of the bill’s “flooding the zone” horror show. But there have been some wins for the environment. Focused advocacy scuttled provisions to sell off 1.5 million acres of federal land for mineral and gas extraction and real estate development before the House bill was finalized. Other advocacy removed a provision that would have given the Treasury Department broad authority to rescind the tax-exempt status of non-profit organizations (however, these provisions could pop up again during the budget reconciliation process).

What You Can Do To Stop This Madness

There is still time to stop the environmental rollbacks and other ghoulish measures in the bill (relating to gutting Medicaid, spending billions to detain and deport immigrants, reducing food assistance – pick your poison). Whether or not they knew what was in the bill before they cast their votes, House Republicans should be held accountable. The Senate will be moving forward with its own bill and then negotiating a final package with the House over the summer. Senators need to feel the heat this June, particularly key moderate Republicans.  

This syndicated article was originally published on The Partnership for Policy Integrity.