Key Vote YES on H.J. Res. 35 and H.J. Res. 20

The American Energy Alliance supports H.J. Res. 35, providing for congressional disapproval of the EPA methane fee and H.J. Res. 20, providing for congressional disapproval of the Department of Energy rules on gas fired tankless water heaters. Both these rulemakings were part of the previous administration’s efforts to increases energy costs and limit consumer choice in pursuit of its ideological goals.

The EPA methane fee is nothing more than an unnecessary tax on energy. Energy producers already have a strong economic incentive to minimize methane leakage throughout their processes because natural gas is marketable product. Piling an EPA tax on top of that existing business rationale is unnecessary. It raises compliance costs without providing any additional incentive to further reduce emissions. Ultimately, end consumers pay the cost of this tax on their heating bills as the tax is passed through. Thus the true goal of this regulation is increasing the cost of reliable energy sources in an attempt to advantage more ideologically preferred energy sources.

The Dept. of Energy water heater rule is an obsolete relic of another time. Energy efficiency standards were created 50 years ago when politicians feared we were running out of domestic energy sources and dangerously reliant on the Middle East. That world is long past and the U.S. is the world’s leading natural gas, as well as leading oil, producer. Additionally, technology development has made appliances enormously efficient in energy use, so efficient that these current rules, as restrictive and destructive as they are, would only theoretically save customers a few dollars a year. Such meager supposed savings, at the cost of convenience and consumer choice, in pursuit of obsolete goals expose the pointless destructiveness of this rule. Indeed, the rule isn’t about saving customers money, it is about trying to force customers to stop using the energy sources that the previous administration disliked. It was an inappropriate and unnecessary rule to pursue.

YES votes on H.J. Res. 35 and H.J. Res. 20 are a votes in support of free markets and affordable energy. AEA will include these votes in its American Energy Scorecard.