The Debt Ceiling Debate Is About More Than Debt

The plan “would cost Americans trillions in climate harm,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the Democratic chairman of the Budget Committee. “And it would shrink our economy by disinvesting in the technologies of tomorrow.”

Republicans have positioned their fossil fuel efforts as a solution to a supposed production crisis in the United States. “I have spent the last two years working with the other side of the aisle, watching them systematically take this country apart when it comes to our natural resources,” Representative Jerry Carl of Alabama said last month before voting to pass the energy bill now embedded in the debt ceiling bill.

Government statistics show a rosier picture for the industry. Oil production in the United States has nearly returned to record highs under Mr. Biden. The Energy Department projects it will smash records next year, led by output increases from Texas and New Mexico. Natural gas production has never been higher.

White House officials warn that Republicans are risking a catastrophic default with their demands attached to raising the borrowing cap. “The way to have a real negotiation on the budget is for House Republicans to take threats of default, when it comes to the economy and what it could potentially do to the economy, off the table,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday.

Mr. McCarthy has defended his entire set of demands as a complete package to reorient economic policy. But he mentioned energy only in passing in his speech to Wall Street.

The issue he called a crisis — and the basis he cited for refusing to raise the borrowing limit without conditions — was fiscal policy and debt. Debt limit negotiations, he said, “are an opportunity to examine our nation’s finances.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/us/politics/debt-ceiling-energy-policy.html