WASHINGTON, DC - The House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), today advanced five bipartisan measures and approved the committee’s Semi-Annual Committee Activity Report. All measures passed the committee by voice vote.
“These five measures exemplify the kind of legislating we do best - working to create jobs, cutting red tape, promoting American energy, making government work smarter, and protecting the ingenuity of the Internet. We accomplished all our objectives by moving these important initiatives with broad, bipartisan consensus," said Chairman Upton.
H.R. 5865, the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, will help promote the growth and competitiveness of manufacturing in the United States. The bill, authored by Reps. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), will establish a public-private American Manufacturing Competitiveness Board to advise the president on manufacturing issues and conduct a rigorous analysis of the manufacturing sector. The Board will also develop and submit to the president a national manufacturing competitiveness strategy, which will help eliminate red tape, encourage investment, and create more American manufacturing jobs.
H.R. 5859 is bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Gregg Harper (R-MS) and Bill Owens (D-NY) to repeal an obsolete mandate requiring motor vehicle insurance cost reporting. The bill eliminates a requirement for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop information on insurance rates for different makes and models of passenger vehicles and NHTSA’s rule requiring dealers to make such information available to prospective buyers. The administration has recommended Congress repeal this outdated provision and research shows consumers rarely seek this information.
H.R. 4273, the Resolving Environmental and Grid Reliability Conflicts Act, introduced by Reps. Pete Olson (R-TX) and Mike Doyle (D-PA), will ensure America’s power companies are able to comply with DOE emergency orders to maintain grid reliability without facing penalties for violating potentially conflicting environmental laws. This bipartisan legislation makes an important clarification to the Federal Power Act so that utilities will not be forced to violate the law in order to keep the lights on.
H.R. 5892, the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act, authored by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Diana DeGette (D-CO), will help facilitate the development of new hydropower projects across the country by reducing red tape and streamlining the permitting process. Hydropower is largest renewable electricity source in the United States, and new hydropower development has the potential to create 700,000 new jobs over the next 14 years.
H.Con.Res. 127 expresses the sense of Congress that the Internet should remain free from international regulation and that the United States should continue its commitment to the current “multi-stakeholder" model of governance. This concurrent resolution introduced by Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) is cosponsored by Full Committee Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), and Ranking Member Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and would reject international proposals, expected to be discussed at the December World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, to treat the Internet like an old-fashioned telephone service.
