Congress

Our congressional section has the latest on energy, environmental and related legislation in the House and Senate, with must-read stories on upcoming bills, amendments, hearings and floor battles.

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Our congressional section has the latest on energy, environmental and related legislation in the House and Senate, with must-read stories on upcoming bills, amendments, hearings and floor battles.

Industry Amps Up Push For Permit Reform As Congress Appears Deadlocked

Industry groups are amping up pressure on Congress to enact bipartisan permitting reforms under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA), arguing growing energy demands to meet national economic and security goals require urgent action, even as lawmakers appear to face a widening divide over the issue. The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) sent a Sept. 16 open letter to congressional leaders of both parties calling for streamlined NEPA permitting requirements, as well as revising landmark...

EPA Downplays Congressional Directive For GHG Reporting In Repeal Plan

EPA’s proposed rule to scrap nearly all greenhouse gas reporting for industry is brushing aside arguments that Congress directed such reporting over a decade ago, with the agency also claiming it lacks a basis for requiring “continuous” emissions tracking under its Clean Air Act (CAA) information-gathering authority. EPA’s Sept. 12 proposal also acknowledges that undoing its GHG Reporting Rule (GHGRP) could complicate implementation of federal tax credits for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as well as clean hydrogen, but the...

House Panel Weighs Bills To Ease Clean Air Permits, Amid EPA’s NSR Push

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are weighing a series of bills to ease the procedural and substantive burdens industry and states face when seeking and complying with Clean Air Act permits, even as EPA advances guidance and rules to achieve similar goals for the new source review (NSR) program in particular. The committee’s environment panel is holding a Sept. 16 legislative hearing where lawmakers will consider five bills that seek to ease burdens on regulators and regulated...

As Democrats Eye Shutdown, EDF Pushes To Fund EPA At Senate Levels

As Democrats consider shutting down EPA and other government agencies when funding expires later this month, at least one environmental group is urging lawmakers to reject administration requests to slash EPA and instead fund the agency at the flat-funding levels set by Senate appropriators. “The Senate has worked on a bipartisan basis to release an environment appropriations bill that rejects the administration’s proposal for draconian cuts to funding to protect our air, water and communities,” Joanna Slaney, a vice president...

Permit Streamlining Bill Debate Underscores Ongoing Political Hurdles

As industry groups step up their campaign for Congress to enact environmental permit streamlining legislation, debate on a sweeping proposal endorsed by a key House Republican and a trio of Democrats is underscoring continued challenges to reaching consensus on a final bill. “This legislation takes a sledgehammer to [the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA)] core functions,” said House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Jared Huffman (D-CA), during a Sept. 10 hearing on several bills including H.R. 4776, a measure known...

GOP Senators Push Bill To Ease EPA ‘Events’ Waivers For Prescribed Burns

Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) are pushing a draft bill to enable “prescribed” burning of forests to more easily qualify for Clean Air Act “exceptional events” waivers, a measure that Democrats say they may be able to back if supporters fix certain “loopholes” in the current draft. During a Sept. 10 EPW legislative hearing, Republican senators strongly supported the “Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act,” (WEPA), a draft measure that would allow state air regulators to...

Industry Groups Press Congress For Action On Consensus TSCA Priorities

As House Republicans prepare to unveil TSCA reform legislation, a broad alliance of industry trade groups is urging key members of Congress to further revise the law in line with new consensus priorities the groups have agreed to after appearing to resolve divisions that had split them earlier this year. The American Alliance for Innovation (AAI), representing scores of trade groups from the American Chemistry Council to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Household & Commercial Products Association, National...

Ramping Up Climate Attacks, Republicans Target ELI’s Training For Judges

Republicans are ramping up pressure on the non-profit Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and its climate science education curriculum for judges, claiming the group secretly seeks to tip the legal scales in favor of regulating greenhouse gas emissions, which they say should disqualify it from receiving any EPA grants. While ELI has rejected the assertion, the GOP’s attacks signal an expanding strategy for countering plaintiffs in climate-related cases by attacking the impartiality of judges ruling in those cases. House Judiciary Committee...

EPA, State Officials Clash Over Federal Funds For Environmental Work

SANTA FE, NM -- State regulators and a top Trump EPA official are clashing over the appropriate level of financial support for states to implement core federal environmental laws, with states lobbying Congress to protect these resources while the No. 2 EPA official is renewing claims that states can cope with significantly less funds. EPA’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget “refocused categorical grants where the federal need still exists,” Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi said during Sept. 4 remarks here at...

House Oversight Panel Launches Inquiry Into NAS Climate Science Review

House oversight committee chairman James Comer (R-KY) is launching an investigation into the National Academies’ plans for quickly reviewing post-2009 climate science in an effort to inform the Trump EPA’s endangerment finding repeal, accusing the institution of “a blatant partisan act” against agency efforts to deregulate greenhouse gases. The move follows an August announcement by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) of an expedited review of climate science in an effort to inform EPA’s proposed recission of...

Whitehouse Backs CEQ Pick In Sign Of Continuing Pledge On Permitting

The Senate environment committee has voted to confirm Katherine Scarlett to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), with the panel’s top Democrat joining with his GOP colleagues in a sign of his continued commitment to reform environmental permitting while also seeking clarity on administration compliance with any deal. During a Sep. 3 business meeting, the committee voted 12-7 to advance Scarlett’s nomination as Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the committee’s ranking member, and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), joined Republicans...

Lawmakers Seek To Strike Defense Bill Measure Paring Back AFFF Phaseout

Two lawmakers have filed amendments aimed at eliminating a measure pending in the House defense authorization bill that would delay the Defense Department’s (DOD) phaseout of firefighting foam containing PFAS and expand an exemption for using the foam, signaling opposition to an attempt to weaken the phaseout requirements. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) -- co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional PFAS Task Force -- and George Whitesides (D-CA) filed separate but identical amendments to the House Rules Committee that would strike section...

States Renew Warnings Over Delegated Programs Ahead Of FY26 Deadline

State environmental regulators are renewing warnings that they may be forced to return delegated federal environmental programs to EPA should Congress not provide adequate funds in fiscal year 2026, just days before lawmakers return from their summer recess facing a Sept. 30 deadline to fund federal agencies. “Continued increases from state general fund, permit fees, and other funding may not be sustainable to support core programs,” says New Mexico environment secretary James Kenney, who serves as president of the Environmental...

Environmentalists Criticize Defense Bill Rollbacks On PFAS Restrictions

As Congress prepares to take up defense policy legislation when lawmakers return from their summer recess, environmentalists are criticizing the pending House and Senate bills for proposing various rollbacks on PFAS-related restrictions that they say would erode protections aimed at safeguarding military personnel and communities from the chemicals. “The rollback would deliberately gut the very protections intended to shield the people who put their lives on the line for the U.S.,” the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which has long pushed...

In Surprise, House Poised To Unveil Draft TSCA Reform Bill Ahead Of Senate

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are poised to release a draft TSCA reform bill soon after lawmakers return from their summer recess next week, sources say, a surprise given that many observers expected the Senate to go first on advancing any legislation. “The House was putting pen to paper this month with hopes of having some draft when Congress returns,” an industry source tells Inside TSCA . “Last I heard, they are ahead of the Senate.” Such...

Sen. Ricketts Proposes CERCLA PFAS Liability Protections In FY26 NDAA

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) is proposing an amendment to fiscal year 2026 defense authorization legislation that would carve out Superfund liability protections for fire suppression, wastewater and other entities in response to requirements designating two PFAS as “hazardous substances,” marking an early test of legislative support for such measures. Ricketts’ amendment , filed July 31 before senators broke for their summer recess, also proposes a new definition for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that would narrow the current definition contained...

Senate Democrats Say EPA Intentionally Skews GOP’s Climate Fund Repeal

Senate Democrats are accusing EPA of illegally clawing back billions of dollars in already obligated clean energy funding, arguing the agency is intentionally misinterpreting Republicans’ budget law that rescinds the statutory provision for the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF). “Despite these baseless attacks, the bottom line is that neither [the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)] nor Republicans understood the repeal and rescission of the GGRF to save anything more than EPA’s unspent oversight dollars. Wishful statutory interpretation on the part...

MAHA Backers Warn Of Fallout For GOP Over PFAS Biosolids Measure

Supporters of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement are pressing President Donald Trump to oppose a measure included in FY26 House spending legislation that would bar EPA from acting on a Biden-era draft risk assessment of two legacy PFAS in biosolids. In an Aug. 11 letter to the president, as well as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, they warn of potential political repercussions for Republicans in the...

GAO recommends FEMA use of EPA mapping for natural disasters

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is urging the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to use various EPA water system and wastewater system service mapping tools to help address financial assistance barriers that vulnerable communities face when it comes to prioritizing grant funding for such systems during natural disasters. GAO issued an Aug. 11 report detailing challenges that rural, low-income, and other vulnerable communities face in accessing grant funding and loans to make community water infrastructure more resilient to natural disaster...

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