The U.S. House of Representatives adopted procedural changes Jan. 9 that could make advancing new climate and energy policy even tougher in a divided Congress.

The rules package, which the GOP-majority House passed 220-213, includes concessions that newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made to members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus in order to become speaker. McCarthy won his speaker bid early Jan. 7 on his 15th attempt for the leadership position in the new Congress, reflecting intraparty divisions among House Republicans.

Despite winning the gavel, McCarthy agreed to pursue new rules that could weaken his authority as speaker. The package allows just a single House member to call for a new speaker at any time.

"This will make it hard for a Republican speaker to find any room to cut deals with Democrats or even moderate Republicans," said Eric Washburn, who served as a senior policy adviser to former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and was a past staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "It is a recipe for getting nothing done, which may be just fine with the Freedom Caucus."

The rules package could also slow consideration of new legislation and cap government spending increases.

Rules package

Under the new rules, just one House member can call for a vote to replace McCarthy as speaker, allowing lawmakers to tie up the House floor in order to gain legislative leverage.

The one-vote rule "is clearly designed to keep the ... speaker in check and tethered closely to the Freedom Caucus," Washburn said in an interview. "If the speaker acts in a way that the Freedom Caucus objects to, the House floor agenda will be congested with an endless series of votes to recall the speaker."

The rules package also requires a 72-hour waiting period between when a bill is introduced and a final vote. In the last Congress, the waiting period was one legislative day.

Furthermore, the package seeks to block consideration of bills that would increase mandatory government spending. In addition, the press office for U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who is a Freedom Caucus member, tweeted Jan. 8 that McCarthy separately committed to cutting discretionary spending to fiscal year 2022 levels. However, such a cut would be unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.

President Joe Biden recently signed legislation funding the federal government through fiscal year 2023, postponing such spending fights until late this year. But lowering spending to 2022 levels would represent a cut of more than $130 billion, or 8%, from the recently passed fiscal year 2023 appropriations bill, according to the League of Conservation Voters.

"This rules package completely ignores the vital role of federal spending in promoting public health, fighting environmental injustice, and tackling the climate crisis," the League of Conservation Voters said in a Jan. 9 letter to House members urging them to reject the rules bill.

The rules package's prospects looked uncertain heading into the Jan. 9 vote, with some Republicans saying they may not back it.

During a Jan. 8 interview with the CBS News program "Face the Nation," U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said she was "on the fence" about voting for the bill. Mace said she liked the rules bill, calling it "the most open, fair and fiscally conservative" package the House has had in 30 years. But she did not support "a small number of people trying to get ... deals done for themselves in private" for backing McCarthy as speaker.

Mace, however, ended up backing the legislation.

Among other potential agreements not included in the rules package, McCarthy is reported to have offered Freedom Caucus members three seats on the rules committee for supporting him as speaker.

The committee has historically been split 9-4 between majority and minority party members. If the Freedom Caucus holds a third of Republican committee seats, "they will have a lot of influence over what comes to the floor and the terms under which things do," said Molly Reynolds, a governance studies senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Looking at energy

Major energy and climate legislation already appeared to be a long shot this Congress, given the divide between a GOP-controlled House and a Democrat-majority Senate.

The two parties have frequently clashed over the Biden administration's efforts to decarbonize the energy sector, with Republicans blasting Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August 2022. And although both parties have said they want to lower permitting hurdles for new energy projects, they are at odds over how and for which types of infrastructure.

"The most significant thing affecting the legislative process ... is not the House rules package, it's divided government," Reynolds said in an interview. "Republicans have profoundly different legislative priorities than Democrats, which will shape what gets considered in the House."

Other policy experts think that Republicans and Democrats could work together more to get around the Freedom Caucus and pass legislation.

Companies, including in the energy sector, "don't want dysfunction," said Dennis Cardoza, a former House member from California who served on the House Rules Committee. "They may not like all the regulation that government provides, but the only thing worse than overregulation is having chaos for the business community."

Cardoza said he could see smaller-scale energy legislation passing the House, but the process "just won't be as smooth and tidy as it was in the past."

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