Today, Senate Republicans on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee released draft legislative text for their portion of the GOP’s sweeping megabill, a corporate and billionaire giveaway spree masquerading as tax policy. Like the House version, the Senate draft reads like a fossil fuel industry wishlist, including allowing the Department of Energy (DOE) to rubberstamp liquefied “natural” gas export facility proposals in exchange for a $1 million fee. The bill also takes a sledgehammer to the DOE’s Loan Programs Office, a bipartisan initiative created under a Republican president to finance American energy dominance. In response, Evergreen Action Executive Director Lena Moffitt released the following statement:

“This bill is a fossil fuel fever dream that makes corruption the cost of doing business, and Republicans are falling over themselves to deliver. It would turn the federal government into a pay-to-play operation where polluters can write a check to fast-track their projects while the communities they harm are left voiceless. That’s not policymaking—it’s legalized bribery. To make matters worse, they’re proposing to gut a proven federal program that finances American energy dominance and drives down energy costs.

“The price of codifying corruption will be paid by the communities forced to live next to toxic infrastructure and families already struggling with rising bills, and forces even more communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel pollution. It’s a staggering display of how far Republicans will go to serve their fossil fuel donors, even if it means locking Americans into a future of higher energy bills and toxic air. Trump’s fake ‘energy emergency’ is fast becoming a real affordability crisis, and Senate Republicans are helping him manufacture it.”

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