Dems make their energy affordability pitch

0:00A nation isn't just built, it's powered by people like us. In 2024, Chevron increased its U.S. production nearly 20% to help keep energy reliable. Since 2022, we spent $44 billion with local suppliers supporting good jobs across all 50 states. And this year, we're planning to invest about $10.5 billion in American energy projects to help build the future right here at home. We put in the work because America depends on it. Learn more at chevron.com slash America. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Politico Energy Podcast where we explore the stories and people shaping energy and climate policy. I'm Josh Siegel, an Energy Reporter covering Congress and one of your co-hosts. Democrats are offering their first look at how they would tackle energy policy should they regain power in Congress next year. The pre-election offering from a group of House Democrats includes a menu of policies to support clean energy and reduce emissions.

1:00But it frames them in terms of affordability and it contains little mention of climate change. Their push comes as Republicans are desperately looking to show their voters that they're acting to address high energy costs that become a major issue in their reelection races. But Republicans hit some roadblocks this week and their attempts to provide relief at the pump while also trying to address energy costs associated with data centers. Here to talk about all that drama this week is Emilia Davidson, a fellow Congress supporter at Politico. It's Friday, September 18th. Emilia Davidson, welcome back to the show. Thanks for your time. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so Democrats unveiled some policy proposals this week on what they'd like to achieve in the next Congress on energy. So tell us about this effort. So the effort came from the sustainable energy and environment coalition or SEIC. It's kind of the big coalition of Democratic House members that work on energy and environment

2:03issues. And they announced a project at the beginning of the year. They've been working on it for a bit longer. Project just called the Thriving Economy Project. That's meant to be a long list of proposals that they could potentially take up if they take back the House in 2027. So that was officially released earlier this week. It's an over 250 page document with what they say is over 800 different policy proposals that could be used as sort of a roster of options for Democrats should they take back the House. It's not officially yet endorsed by leader Hakeem Jeffries or, you know, the Democrats that are going to officially be setting the agenda. But those leading the charge, namely representative Kathy Kaster, who led this project, say that this is going to be the agenda setting document when it comes to energy and environment. Again, if Democrats do get to set the agenda having control of the House of 2027. Yeah, it's interesting that in all these hundreds of pages, they don't really go into climate change a whole lot at least overtly.

3:04That was my read. And they kind of focus on issues that are really pressing right now for voters like data centers, affordability, maybe policies that are more achievable in that split government if it happens. What did Democrats tell you on sort of why they went that route? Yeah. So they've been really transparent from the onset of this project that, you know, they understand that again, even if Democrats do take back the House and have agenda setting power for the next two years, they know that President Donald Trump is still going to be in office. So they want to, you know, enact policies that potentially have the power to get signed to law by the president. Some traditional democratic, you know, climate priorities might not necessarily be ones that could get across the finish line with the current White House. So part of the purpose of this project was they wanted to come up with sort of new different ideas that had the potential to have bipartisan appeal. Part of why they called it the thriving economy project. They wanted to make it as economic as possible. So pretty few climate mentions, also very few mentions of wind and solar power.

4:08That's sort of, you know, again, things that the White House has not always been super amenable towards. So they were looking more for smaller policy proposals that it felt like could be actionable, you know, no matter what the Senate state of play is or get, of course, you know, understanding that the White House is going to, of course, be Republican controlled. Gotcha. And yeah, this effort from Democrats comes as Republicans themselves are pretty desperate to show voters they're trying to do something about high energy costs as the midterms approach. So I mean, this doesn't seem to be going very well for them based on what we saw this week. I mean, what was some of the drama that you covered? Yeah, those in the oil industry are predicting that prices are going to rise even more in the coming months, gas and diesel prices. But Republicans have not really been able to coalesce around one policy option when it comes to it. There was a bit of a flare up even on the House floor earlier this week in which the House Freedom Caucus, so far right members of the Republican conference tried to get some action that about suspending the gas or diesel tax, but Republicans could not come to a consensus

5:11around exactly what such legislation would look like. The House ended up leaving for its long campaign recess ahead of the midterms elections without passing any gas related legislation. Yeah, one thing they did do before they left is they easily passed this Republican lead, bipartisan bill called the Rate Pay or Protection Act, which is really the first effort we've seen moving Congress to address energy costs from data centers. So there was some drama though on the Senate floor Thursday where we saw the bill not advance even though it was very bipartisan in the House. So what happened and why is it interesting? Yeah, so Josh and I covered this just on Thursday in which essentially there was a huge bipartisan vote Wednesday night to advance, like Josh said, this landmark piece of legislation called the Rate Pay or Protection Act. It would have been Congress's first major stab at addressing voter concerns about data centers and their energy use. But Democrats early in the week started sounding the alarm that they didn't necessarily think

6:13that the bill went far and often in terms of enforcing, making sure that data centers actually have to pay because it was based on essentially the bill would have guided the states, told states that they should consider certain guardrails on which some Democrats did not think was a prescriptive or forceful and absolution. So that didn't stop the bill from passing the House, like I said in a widespread bipartisan vote, 417 to 3 on Wednesday night. But then Thursday, the Republican senators hoped to fast track the bill through the Senate, and no pass it by voice vote. But Martin Heinrich, who's the top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, stood up and essentially blocked the bill from passing, saying that it was sort of messaging alone and that if Congress wanted to act, they need to do something that had a little more teeth, that had a little more of that enforcement mechanism. So him shutting down that bill, sort of dashed Republican's hope of getting something through quickly ahead of this midterm campaign period. Yeah, I thought it was really interesting.

7:14And clearly there's a political element to all this, but what does it tell you around like as much as there's this bipartisan interest in addressing data centers, whether it's energy costs, water consumption, environmental issues, like actually advancing bipartisan policy, which is a goal it seems from both sides. Next Congress, like how hard that might be. Yeah, I think this again, it shows even a bill with this huge bipartisan vote in the House. Even before that, it had cleared the House Energy Committee completely unanimously, but even a bill like that, not really being able to get fast track through the Senate. Like you said, it shows how hard it is to get anything bipartisan. All these energy issues might herald some concerns for Democrats, so if they have it, they take back the House and looking at this bipartisan menu of options, things are not necessarily always as easy as they seem. Of course, I think this being right before the November midterm elections, ups the stakes, so to speak, it was a vulnerable Republican Senator from Ohio, Senator John

8:18Houston, who was trying to carry the right pair of protection act through, would have given him a big win to go back to Ohio where there's a lot of data center concerns and tell his constituents, look what I got done, look what we were able to do to protect you guys from the electricity costs having to do with data centers. So it's not altogether surprising that in such a politically-target environment, that might not be something so easily that Democrats would want to get across the finish line. Yeah, totally. Of course, the Republican bill gives a lot of deference to states, whereas Heinrich did offer his own proposal that would really have FERC dictate rules that would require tech companies to pay for these electricity-related upgrades for their data centers. So I think that just shows you a kind of a difference in approach between the parties as well. Yeah, exactly. It'll be interesting really to see what comes next, because there's a number of other data center proposals floating around the right pair protection act. Like I said, it was certainly Congress's biggest swing so far at tackling this issue, but

9:20there's Democratic-led proposals like what you said, Senator Heinrich offered as an alternative. There's also a couple other bipartisan proposals that again would maybe go a little bit farther in terms of giving the federal government enforcement power to make sure that data centers are, you know, footing the bill for any electrical grid upgrades. So I think this isn't obviously the last we're going to hear on this issue by any means. It's probably not even the last week here before the midterms, you know, the Senate is still in session, at least for another week or so. So I definitely don't think this is the end of the story, though it might be the end of the right pair protection act for the time being. I love that. All right. We'll leave it there Amelia. Thanks for your time. Thank you so much. All right. That's it for Politico Energy. For more news on energy in the environment, subscribe to our free Global Energy Newsletter Politico Surge. And explore Politico Pro for additional energy newsletters and more extensive coverage. And if you like this show, please give it a follow and review on Apple, Spotify, or

10:22wherever you get your podcasts. And subscribe on Politico's YouTube page. Dana Beckman is the publicist for the show. Nicholas Serone is the show's booking producer. Yee Jo Shen is the show's video producer. Philip Frobois is the show's audio producer. Debra Khan, Matt Daly and Veronica Tehera are the editors of the show. Our theme music was made by Pran Bandi. And Nirmal Michael is the show's executive producer and co-host. That's it for us. I'm Josh Siegel and see you back here on Monday. A nation isn't just built. It's powered by people like us. In 2024, Chevron increased its U.S. production nearly 20% to help keep energy reliable. Since 2022, we spent $44 billion with local suppliers supporting good jobs across all 50 states. And this year, we're planning to invest about $10.5 billion in American energy projects

11:25to help build the future right here at home. We put in the work because America depends on it. Learn more at chevron.com slash America.