U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Advances PROVE IT Act of 2023

The U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works voted on Thursday, January 18th, to advance the Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable Emissions Intensity and Transparency (PROVE IT) Act of 2023 to the Senate floor with a 14 to 5 bipartisan vote.?

Committee Chairman Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE) opened the business meeting of the EPW Committee by explaining and advocating for the passage of the Act. He explained that the PROVE IT Act requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct a study comparing the greenhouse gas emissions of manufacturing several key commodities here with the same commodities in other countries. These include iron, steel, aluminum, various fossil fuels, plastics, and more. Senator Carper stated the goal of the Act is transparency, as well as to “boost the competitiveness of American manufacturing and help incentivize cleaner production in the United States and overseas — a win-win for our climate and our economy.”

Ranking Member Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) began debate on the bill claiming that the DOE’s data would be redundant, and that the EPA already has similar data. She also expressed concerns about vague language concerning the DOE’s authority to implement the bill and Democrats potentially using the study’s results to justify a carbon tax. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) disagreed with these claims and argued that the bill contains no language that grants authority to implement such a tax. Senator Cramer also claimed that the bill would be a tool to defend the U.S. against possible European carbon tariffs, by allowing the government to present its own data defending the high environmental standards of American manufacturing.

Senator Capito introduced the first two amendments discussed in the meeting. The first would shift responsibility for the study to the EPA to consolidate relevant data. It would also create a 60-vote threshold rather than 50 votes if any budget reconciliation package was brought forward that attempted to pass a carbon tax using the act as a justification. The amendment failed in a 13 to 6 vote, and a follow-up amendment containing only the reconciliation measure failed in a 10 to 9 vote. Senator Carper claimed the reconciliation measure was a “poison pill”, although Senator Cramer disagreed due to the bill already limiting regulatory actions that agencies can take using the data.

Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) also introduced an amendment by claiming that Congress should be “more prescriptive with the executive branch”. It stated that when studying biofuels under PROVE It, the DOE would be required to apply the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies (GREET) Model, a framework from within the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory focused on transport fuels. Senator Carper argued that the DOE already uses that model at their discretion and that limiting them to one approach could damage the bill’s support and credibility. The amendment failed by a 10 to 9 vote.

NEMWI will continue to track this bill as it moves to the Senate floor. A recording of the committee meeting can be found here.