President Joe Biden’s liberal Green New Deal agenda is devastating our nation. Biden’s war on coal and fossil fuels has put West Virginians out of work, driven up energy prices, and empowered our enemies. West Virginia can play an essential role in America’s revival. We need to get our country back on track by unleashing the full potential of American energy production.
The federal government should not pick winners and losers by favoring renewables with subsidies and punishing fossil fuels. America needs affordable, reliable energy, and we can’t meet our energy needs with just solar panels or windmills. We are paying for Biden’s liberal climate agenda at the pump and with our taxes.
President Joe Biden and Senator Joe Manchin’s $700 billion Inflation Expansion Act increased taxes on West Virginia’s coal industry. This tax and spend bill also hired an army of 87,000 new IRS agents to audit small businesses and working families. These policies have cratered our economy, worsened inflation, and dragged America into almost $32 trillion in debt.
I have fought to cut bureaucratic red tape and roll back Biden’s anti-energy taxes. That is why I introduced an amendment to the Lower Energy Costs Act (H.R. 1) to repeal the Biden-Manchin tax on coal mining operations. The Lower Energy Costs Act included comprehensive permitting reform, and House Republicans passed this bill. However, Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats have refused to vote on these much-needed reforms.
During the recent debt limit negotiations, House Republicans fought to overhaul our outdated energy permitting process and reduce the reckless spending driving inflation and America’s debt crisis.
I supported a plan to reduce the federal deficit by over $4.8 trillion and claw back hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy handouts supported by Manchin. This plan, also known as the Limit, Save, Grow Act, included a complete overhaul and streamlining of the permitting process for oil and natural gas. It would have also removed fees imposed by the Inflation Expansion Act on energy projects and revitalized West Virginia’s coal industry by repealing the moratorium on new coal leasing. Unfortunately, President Biden refused to negotiate on these common-sense reforms, so they did not make it into the watered-down bill that ultimately passed the House of Representatives and the Senate. The American people deserve better.
(Mooney, of Charles Town, is a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing West Virginia’s northern Second District)