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Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)

**STATE-BY-STATE FACT SHEET** Republicans Slash Vital Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Funding for States

Washington, DC — During today’s Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee markup of the 2026 funding bill, House Democrats exposed how the bill increases costs for American households, undermines infrastructure investments, and weakens our national security.

The bill:

• Increases energy costs, jeopardizes energy independence, and hurts United States’ competitiveness by slashing the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs nearly in half, revoking more than $5 billion from the Department of Energy’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law resources, and eliminating funding for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.
• Weakens national security and leaves Americans more vulnerable to nuclear threats by cutting the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account by 17 percent.
• Abandons commitments to communities to clean up radioactive waste by eliminating funding for the Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program and cutting the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management by 9 percent.

From Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Marcy Kaptur’s (D-OH-09) opening remarks:

“Sadly, this Republican Energy and Water bill does not meet our nation’s imperative for the future. America must become energy independent in perpetuity. This bill fails to address the cost-of-living crisis and instead will result in higher energy bills for families and businesses. China is investing record levels in energy, but this bill retreats from US global leadership in the future clean energy economy. America can and must do better. America’s future relies on the new age frontiers of energy and water.”

From Appropriations Committee Ranking Rosa DeLauro’s (D-CT-03) opening remarks:

“Energy demand is higher than ever and only increasing. Cheap, reliable energy is the basis of a modern economy. We have to increase energy supply or costs will continue to rise for the American people – and we will be dependent on importing energy to meet our goals. Instead of focusing on ways to help lower energy costs, House Republicans are using this bill to further gut critical federal resources and advance their own agenda…I cannot support this bill. Instead of working with Democrats to lower prices and invest in technology that promotes our energy independence, House Republicans are pushing a bill that raises energy costs for families and businesses and eliminates good-paying jobs. We can and must come together to improve this bill to help lower costs and support our country’s energy independence and national security.”

A summary of the bill is here. A fact sheet is here. The text of the bill is here. Information on Community Project Funding in the bill is here.

A state-by-state breakdown of the amount of funding House Republicans are trying to slash from the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) programs is here.

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Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (8th District of New York)

Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries held a press conference where he emphasized that House Democrats will continue pushing back against Republicans’ One Big Ugly Law which rewards billionaires while stripping food and healthcare from the American people.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Good afternoon, everyone. Donald Trump and House Republicans have repeatedly betrayed the American people. Donald Trump and House Republicans promised to lower the high cost of living here in the United States of America. In fact, Donald Trump and House Republicans promised to lower costs on day one. Costs aren’t going down in the United States of America. Costs are going up. Life is becoming more expensive under Donald Trump and Republican control of Congress. There is nothing in the One Big Ugly Bill that will meaningfully make life more affordable for the American people. In fact, the One Big Ugly Bill will make life more expensive for everyday Americans, particularly as it relates to utility costs. Utility costs are going to go up in the United States of America as a result of Donald Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill. Costs aren’t going down. Republicans haven’t done a damn thing to make life more affordable for the American people.

Costs are too high in this country. That’s why Democrats are going to continue to focus our efforts on building an economy that actually is affordable for hardworking American taxpayers. We need to lower housing costs, lower grocery costs, lower utility costs, lower childcare costs and lower insurance costs. America is too expensive, and things aren’t getting better under Donald Trump and House Republican rule, they’re getting worse. On top of that, Donald Trump and House Republicans jammed this extreme budget bill down the throats of the American people. They will hurt millions of Americans who are going to lose their healthcare as a result of the One Big Ugly Bill. Hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down, community-based health clinics will not be able to operate and everyday Americans in every state in this country are going to die as a result of having healthcare ripped away from them by Republicans in this town. The One Big Ugly Bill rips food out of the mouths of hungry children.

Who are these people on the other side of the aisle? Who are they? And on top of it all, ripping healthcare away from the American people. The largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Ripping food out of the mouths of children, seniors and veterans, who are going to go hungry as a result of this One Big Ugly Bill. All of this is being done to reward their billionaire donors with massive tax breaks, the largest transfer of wealth from everyday Americans to billionaires in American history. And these so-called fiscal conservatives are going to explode the debt by more than $3 trillion and set this country on a path toward possible bankruptcy. Every single House Republican who voted against the best interests of their constituents and voted to reward billionaires with massive tax breaks will be held accountable.

Full press conference can be watched here.

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Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)

WASHINGTON — This afternoon, Speaker Johnson appeared as the inaugural guest of first episode of The Scott Jennings Show on Salem Radio Network. They discussed how Republicans were able to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill and how Republicans will counter endless Democrat falsehoods about the legislation.

Watch the full interview here

On passing the One Big Beautiful Bill:

I told my colleagues back in February or March of 2024, I said, ‘guys, this is what’s going to happen this fall. We’re going to have unified government. We got to plan accordingly. We’re going to do reconciliation, but let’s do it in a bigger way than has ever been done before.’ We usually use two committees of jurisdiction to draft the bill, but let’s go with 11. Let’s do 11 committees. Let’s go big, you know, let’s really make a landmark piece of legislation and have a big beautiful bill. And that’s how it all began. So, all the work and all the months and all the deliberation, countless hours of work, discussion, and debate internally. Working with the president when he was a candidate, and after he was reelected, to fashion this bill and prepare it for prime time and get it over the line. We just implemented the playbook that we designed. So, there was a lot of work that went into achieving that. 

On countering Democrat lies about Medicaid:

What’s unpopular is the false narrative that has been said and written about the bill. If everything they said was true , it would be unpopular, but it’s not true. Their whole premise is built upon this idea that we are ‘ripping healthcare away from people. We’re gonna slash Medicaid’ and all this other nonsense. None of it is true. The people that are saying it didn’t read the bill. They’re parroting false messages. Here’s the thing, we didn’t cut Medicaid. There are no cuts to Medicaid in the bill. In fact, Medicaid spending goes up on a trajectory over the next 10 years. What we did is strengthen the program for the American citizens who desperately need and deserve it.

How do we do that? By eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse by reintroducing work requirements for Medicaid. See, the problem is the resources have been drained in the program. It has an outrageous amount of fraud and abuse in the program. Every year, tens of billions of dollars are just wasted because after they expanded Obamacare, they basically allowed everybody who wanted to be on Medicaid in so many states. But you have young able-bodied men, for example, with no dependents who were literally at home playing video games instead of working, right? There are actual studies on this.

On the Republican agenda after One Big Beautiful Bill being signed into law:

We got this landmark achievement done with a big, beautiful bill, but we cannot rest on our laurels because the job is still ahead. We’re going to continue the process of what we’ve begun here. We have appropriations bills that are now forthcoming. We’re going to write the legislation at lower numbers and spend less and less of the people’s treasury because we have to be good stewards of that. We have additional rescissions bills coming forward, that’s clawing back fraud, waste, and abuse that was misspent for money that was already previously appropriated by Congress in conjunction with the White House. We’re doing that.

We have additional reconciliation bills, Scott, we have one planned for this fall, one hopefully for next spring. So we can attach one to each upcoming fiscal year. We can do three of those bills in a one, two year cycle of Congress. We’re going to do that and we’re codifying all the Trump executive orders and actions, continuing to roll back Biden regulations. Just a lot of things to do. We codified, by the way, 28 executive orders in the One Big Beautiful Bill. That’s now law. That’s a big thing, you know, this, can’t be changed by the next administration. Heaven forbid if we get another Democrat president sometime in the near future, they won’t be able to revert to the old policies because now it’s in the law. So these are very deliberate actions. It takes a lot of planning and implementation, but we’re getting it done and we’ll continue to get it done for the people. 

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Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Jim Costa Representing 16th District of California

FRESNO, Calif. – Congressman Jim Costa released the following statement after learning the passing of Henry L. Thompson, Director of Aviation for the City of Fresno. “I am deeply saddened to learn the passing of Henry L. Thompson, Director of Aviation for the City of Fresno. As a dedicated public servant, Henry’s leadership was instrumental in strengthening our region’s infrastructure,” said Congressman Costa. “I had the privilege of working alongside him to expand and modernize Fresno Yosemite International Airport, where I saw his leadership firsthand. His contributions to our community will have a lasting impact. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time.”  

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Norma Torres (35th District of California)

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Earl L Buddy Carter (GA-01)

Headline: Carter Celebrates House Passage of Bill to Make Permanent the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA) today celebrated unanimous House passage of his bipartisan bill with Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) Codification Act. The bill strengthens the statutory authority of the ITS testing center, which is essential for informing the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) spectrum policy decisions. 

The bill also directs ITS to establish an important and potentially life-saving initiative to develop emergency communication and tracking technologies for use in locating people trapped in areas where mobile connectivity may not be available due to natural disasters and other devastating events.

“The ITS is critical to achieving our goal of beating China by having effective, workable, and innovative spectrum policies and practices. I’m proud to co-lead this effort with Rep. Pettersen and am thrilled that the House unanimously voted to send this important, life-saving bill to the Senate. I’m calling on my Senate colleagues to quickly get this bill to President Trump’s desk, so we can ensure mobile connectivity during natural disasters and other devastating events,” said Rep. Carter.

“The incident at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine in my District last October was a devastating cautionary tale about what can happen in an emergency situation when people end up trapped where cell service isn’t available,” said Rep. Pettersen. “This bipartisan bill will enhance emergency communications for critical moments like the Gold Mine accident. Ensuring rescuers can effectively communicate can make all the difference in successfully saving lives.”

Read the full bill text here.

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Jack Bergman (MI-1)

Bergman Secures Major Wins in NDAA to Boost Military Readiness, Energy Independence, and Housing for Servicemembers

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Lois Frankel (FL-21)

Representative Lois Frankel (FL-22) joined 144 of her Congressional colleagues in sending a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, demanding the immediate release of nearly $7 billion in K-12 and adult education funding that the Trump Administration is illegally withholding from states and local school districts across the country. The lawmakers also requested answers regarding the Administration’s decision to withhold the funds and its failure to communicate with impacted communities.

In Palm Beach County, $32 million in critical funding is at stake—including support for academic enrichment, adult education and literacy, afterschool and summer programs, and more. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County is also awaiting $9 million in funding essential to its operations. Trump’s freeze threatens services for tens of thousands of children and jeopardizes the jobs of over 500 local educators and afterschool program staff in our area.

By law, these funds were required to be distributed by July 1. With the school year fast approaching, the Administration’s illegal delay is preventing school districts from planning and implementing vital programs—leaving vulnerable students at risk of falling behind academically and without safe, structured environments after school.

In their letter, the lawmakers requested responses to the following questions:

1. When will the Administration complete its review and release the funding Congress allocated for the upcoming school year?
2. Has the Administration provided any support or guidance to state and local education agencies during this period of uncertainty?
3. If a review of these funds was planned, why didn’t it begin earlier in the year? Was the delay or failure to release the funds related to staffing shortages at the Department of Education caused by the Administration’s own reductions in force?

For full text of the letter, click here.

Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)

WASHINGTON — This morning, Speaker Johnson appeared on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the historic One Big Beautiful Bill and how House Republicans are keeping their foot on the gas after President Trump signed it into law. 

Watch the full interview here

On the One Big Beautiful Bill adding jet fuel to the US economy:

The big beautiful bill, people call it a spending bill. It wasn’t. The only increases in spending were for those two priorities, border and national defense. Everything else was carving back and saving money from the budget, which is why you call it a reconciliation bill. So we would have actually achieved, and we will, in excess of $1.6 trillion in savings. That is an historic number. No congress, no legislative body in the history of planet Earth has ever saved so much in a bill. Now, it’s just the first step though, Maria, as we point out, we have a $37 trillion federal debt. You and I talk about this all the time. We all do. And we have to have a combination of reduced spending and greater economic growth. 

We put jet fuel into the economy with the one big beautiful bill. It will be that. Extraordinary growth, we’re projecting 3% going forward and $4 trillion in new revenue, just out of the legislation. But more is ahead. And the tariff policy and the other policies of the Trump administration have been wildly successful. In fact, we had a budget surplus, as you know, in the month of June, the first time since 2017 when President Trump was last in the White House. So more of that is ahead. Every American will feel it. And the big beautiful bill was geared and written for lower- and middle-class earners in the country. They’re going to be feeling really good as we go into that midterm election in 2026.

On House Republicans legislative agenda going forward:

We’re implementing a playbook that we designed well over a year ago, about 15 months ago. We began this process understanding and believing that we would win unified government, that we’d have the White House, the Senate, and the House in Republican hands, and that we would not want to waste this historic opportunity with President Trump coming back to the White House and us having the responsibility of fixing every metric of public policy that Biden and Harris and the Democrats destroyed over the previous four years. So, the big beautiful bill was the first big step in that. But we have multiple steps ahead of us. We have long planned for at least two, possibly three reconciliation bills, one in the fall and one next spring that would continue to allow us to do this on a partisan basis, where we only need Republican votes and we don’t have to drag Democrats along. They are in no appetite to fix any of the mess. We have to do it ourselves. So yes, that’s next. 

In addition to that, we will continue to get the country back on a path to fiscal responsibility by rescissions packages that will come from the White House that we’ll enact, and claw back spending and eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse in the multiple reconciliation packages, and in appropriating at lower levels of funding. All these things will be done while we’re codifying more of President Trump’s executive orders. He’s been very busy. We will be as well. We have a lot more work ahead of us.

On codifying President Trump’s executive orders:

Almost 30 of them were included in the big beautiful Bill. So that was a lawmaking exercise; the president has now signed them into law and they’re codified. So it’s not a temporary thing, they’ll be permanent in the law. And we’ve done a number, about 15 or 20 additional executive orders that we’ve already codified in the House. We’ll continue that process. We wanted to get as many of them as we could into the reconciliation package because we knew that we were certain that that would actually be signed into law and it wouldn’t just be a feelgood exercise. So more of that will continue going forward. The president’s been one of the most prolific, I think arguably the most successful president in the first six months of this term than any previous president. Look how many things have been accomplished? A lot of it has been done through executive order, so Congress has its role to play now as well.

Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)

WASHINGTON — Today, Speaker Johnson published an op-ed on X titled, “The True Meaning of ‘The Separation of Church and State.’”

“As we approach the 250th birthday of our great nation, it has never been more important to defend truth on every front, repair our foundations, and hold fast to who we are and what we stand for,” Speaker Johnson wrote.

Read Speaker Johnson’s full op-ed on X here or below:

Amid all the other big news this week, a landmark development in a federal court in Texas drew less attention than expected. On Monday, the IRS agreed to a consent judgment that will restore the First Amendment rights of churches and religious non-profit organizations to speak freely without losing their tax-exempt status. The court should quickly approve that proposed settlement of a lawsuit filed by the National Religious Broadcasters and Texas churches, which was brought to overturn a 1950s-era provision in the tax code known as “the Johnson Amendment.”

As a former constitutional law litigator, I – along with many of my former colleagues – have long argued that the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional. President Trump understands this well, and in his speech to the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, he resolved to “get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.” Resolving the Texas case will be key to ensuring that people of faith are no longer censored and silenced because of the tax code – and hopefully it will serve as a teachable moment about one of the most misunderstood subjects in our culture.

Most people today who insist upon a rigid “separation between church and state” are unaware the phrase derives not from the Constitution, but from a personal letter that President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.

He explained that because “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God,” the language of the First Amendment is a vital safeguard for our “rights of conscience.” Jefferson said he revered “that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Jefferson clearly did not mean that metaphorical “wall” was to keep religion from influencing issues of civil government. To the contrary, it was meant to keep the federal government from impeding the religious practice of citizens. The Founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.

The majority of the Founders, having personally witnessed the abuses of the Church of England, were determined to prevent the official establishment of any single national denomination or religion. However, they very deliberately listed religious liberty (the free exercise of religion) as the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights **because they wanted everyone to freely live out their faith – as that would ensure a robust presence of moral virtue in the public square and the free marketplace of ideas.**

Volumes written on this topic can be summarized by reference to the sentiments of our first two presidents. In his historic Farewell Address, “the Father of our Country,” George Washington, declared: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” John Adams warned directly: “Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

What these two Founders and their fellow patriots all understood from history was that there are many important rules and practices that can help build and sustain a healthy republic. But the key – and the essential foundation – of a system of government like ours must be a common commitment among the citizenry to the principles of religion and morality.

The Founders acknowledged in the Declaration the self-evident truths that all men are created equal, and that God gives all men the same inalienable rights. However, they knew that in order to maintain a government “of the people, by the people and for the people,” as Lincoln articulated, in “this nation, under God,” those inalienable rights must be exercised in a responsible manner. They thus believed in liberty that is legitimately constrained by a common sense of morality – and a healthy fear of the Creator, who granted all men our rights.

The Founders understood that all men are fallen and that power corrupts. They also knew that no amount of institutional checks and balances or decentralization of power in civil authorities would be sufficient to maintain a just government if the men in charge had no fear of eternal judgment by a power HIGHER than their temporal institutions.

A free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral virtue- not only because they help prevent political corruption and the abuse of power – but also because those convictions in the minds and hearts of the people make it possible to preserve their essential freedoms by emphasizing and inspiring individual responsibility, self-sacrifice, the dignity of hard work, the rule of law, civility, patriotism, the value of family and community, and the sanctity of every human life. Without those virtues, “indispensably supported” by religion and morality, every nation will ultimately fall.

Inscribed on the third panel of the Jefferson Memorial here in Washington, D.C., is his sobering reminder to every American: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

The experience of history teaches that these principles are universal and timeless, and they certainly apply to our nation today. Alexis de Tocqueville is credited with the keen observation that “America is great because she is good, and if she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” That has been the key to our exceptionalism. Our republic depends upon it now more than ever, and it is our job to instill and preserve it.

As we approach the 250th birthday of our great nation, it has never been more important to defend truth on every front, repair our foundations, and hold fast to who we are and what we stand for. Anyone who has been misled to believe that religious principles and viewpoints must be separated from public affairs should be reminded to review their history. Let us hope the federal court in Texas accepts the IRS consent judgment as yet another acknowledgment of these essential truths.

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