Latest news with #JulieFedorchak
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Rep. Fedorchak plans another online forum
U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., talks to voters through a virtual town hall meeting on March 25, 2025. (Amy Dalrymple/North Dakota Monitor) U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., will host another online public forum, with topics including the 'one, big beautiful' budget bill being considered by Congress. Rep. Fedorchak vows to protect Social Security during virtual town hall The forum will be at 7 p.m. CDT June 10. People wanting to participate in the conversation must sign up on Fedorchak's website by noon that day. The forum will be livestreamed on her website and on her official Facebook page but will not be interactive. 'I'm especially looking forward to sharing what the One Big Beautiful Bill means for our state,' Fedorchak said in a news release. Fedorchak said earlier this month that changes to Medicaid, including work requirements, included in the bill are needed to keep the program viable. This will be the third online forum hosted by Fedorchak, who is in her first term as North Dakota's only member of the U.S. House. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
E&E News
23-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Hill energy tech group eyes legislation, bipartisan expansion
A new Capitol Hill working group tasked with developing legislation that could help tackle an expected boom in energy demand from artificial intelligence is starting to gain momentum. The working group — spearheaded by Republican Rep. Julie Fedorchak of North Dakota — is starting to garner lawmaker interest after Fedorchak received nearly 100 responses to a request for information on powering the future of AI. 'We knew there was growing interest in how to meet AI's energy demands, but the depth and breadth of these responses exceeded our expectations,' Fedorchak said. Advertisement The congresswoman said people and companies she's heard from are tied to utilities, data center operators, energy producers, cybersecurity experts and tech innovators.
E&E News
20-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Republicans ax pipeline provisions in reconciliation bill
House Republicans removed two contentious provisions from their party-line megabill bill Monday that would have allowed pipeline developers to pay for accelerated permitting. The budget reconciliation legislation, however, still has what Democrats call pay-to-play policies concerning natural gas exports and National Environmental Policy Act reviews. The changes were included in an updated version of the package posted on the House Rules Committee's website Monday. More changes are likely before the legislation hits the floor as soon as Wednesday. Advertisement The House Energy and Commerce section of the megabill incorporated the 'Promoting Cross-Border Energy Infrastructure Act' from Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.).
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fedorchak emphasizes need for new Medicaid requirements
U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak speaks in the North Dakota Senate chamber on Feb. 18, 2025, as Lt. Gov Michelle Strinden presides over the session. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor) North Dakota U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak described Medicaid as an 'at-risk program' unless reforms are adopted to curb rising costs. But North Dakota advocates for Medicaid recipients said Thursday they worry about people slipping through the cracks and new administrative burdens being added to the state. Fedorchak, a Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, voted in favor of reforms to Medicaid during a meeting that ended Wednesday. During a virtual press conference Thursday, Fedorchak said the overhaul will ensure the program remains solvent for people with disabilities, pregnant women, elderly people whom she said the program was designed for. U.S. House panel passes GOP plan that cuts Medicaid by $625B, adds work requirement 'In my opinion, I don't think this will result in fewer people receiving those benefits,' Fedorchak said. 'It will result in the people who qualify for them receiving them.' According to the Congressional Budget Office analysis, which was shared with States Newsroom, about 10.3 million people would lose access to Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, with 7.6 million people becoming uninsured during the 10-year budget window. Those receiving Medicaid benefits would need to submit to eligibility requirements twice per year. In addition, people without disabilities between ages 19 to 64 would be required to work, volunteer or attend school for 20 hours per week to retain their benefits, she said. 'This is a very important and humane requirement,' she said. 'We want to help people become independent … this program should help encourage and incentivize able-bodied people to find a job, or be engaged with the community.' The Medicaid work requirements will not apply to pregnant women, foster youth under age 26 and tribal members, Fedorchak said. Those considered 'medically frail,' which include people who are blind or disabled, those with a substance-use disorder, or serious or complex medical conditions, would also be exempted from the work requirements. The exemptions also extend to the parent, or caregiver, of a dependent child, those who are incarcerated or released from incarceration within 90 days, those impacted by natural disasters, or people living in counties with an unemployment rate greater than 8%, or an unemployment rate 150% higher than the national average. 'There's a lot of very reasonable, I think, and appropriate exemptions included in this for folks who might not be able to reasonably meet these requirements,' she said. Kirsten Dvorak, executive director of The Arc of North Dakota, an organization that promotes the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said she worries about people 'falling through the cracks' because of the additional Medicaid requirements. She added she finds the inclusion of 'able-bodied' in the bill text concerning. 'How do you define able-bodied?' Dvorak said. 'Our disability community, through whatever means, is being attacked right now. And our community is nervous.' Dvorak said many people with disabilities work in North Dakota communities, in some cases due to job coaching services that are funded through Medicaid. She also questioned who was going to do the additional paperwork for the people with disabilities to continue receiving their services. Some members of the disabled community are under corporate guardianships because they don't have anybody who can make decisions for them, she said. About 108,000 North Dakota residents are eligible to receive Medicaid benefits as of April, including more than 54,000 people under age 21, according to data from the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services. No tax on tips, child tax credit and business tax cuts survive in big House GOP bill LuWanna Lawrence, a spokesperson for HHS, said the department is in contact with Fedorchak and North Dakota's congressional delegation about what the proposed legislation would mean to the state. 'We are closely monitoring the budget process at the federal level. At this time, we cannot speculate on potential impacts,' Lawrence said in a statement. Verifying the work requirements and additional Medicaid eligibility requirements is likely to require more state workers to process the paperwork, said State Senate Minority Leader Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo, a member of the Senate Human Services Committee. Hogan said she would not be surprised if state health officials approach the Legislature during the interim to request additional funding and staffing. On the proposed work requirements, Hogan said many people receiving Medicaid benefits work in low-paying service jobs that do not offer health insurance. She questioned what would happen if a person worked 18 hours one week and 22 hours the next. 'Do you lose your benefit? It's really complicated to document, particularly for lower-end workers,' she said. 'The ability to actually implement these administrative responsibilities feels like a punishment for being poor.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
House GOP cuts, but not kills, wind and solar tax credits
House Republicans are narrowing in on a compromise within the party over the fate of some clean energy tax credits, and it's less extreme than the wind and solar industries' worst fears. Draft budget legislation released Monday by the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee targets nearly all of the clean energy tax credits in the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, with some listed for immediate repeal and others given new phaseout deadlines and hung with additional supply chain restrictions. Some of the proposed cuts, especially to EV credits, have been long-anticipated. On others — including credits for hydrogen and nuclear power, as well as a provision that allows the credits to be traded between investors — the draft takes a more aggressive posture than what will likely be able to survive scrutiny by more moderate Republicans in the full House and their peers in the Senate. But on the so-called 'tech-neutral' production and investment credits, which primarily benefit wind and solar, a consensus is forming around the idea that they should be phased out earlier than originally planned but not killed overnight, Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) told Semafor. The wind and solar credits, she said, are 'providing the wrong incentive and signal to investors in energy projects. Right now, in the US, we need a lot more generation, but we don't need a lot more wind and solar, because that's what's already flooding the queues.' For renewable energy developers, the bottom line from the committee's proposal is: Prepare to say goodbye to wind and solar credits sooner than you might prefer. Because of the exceptionally wide Republican majority on the Ways and Means Committee, and because many of the IRA's more vocal Republican backers don't sit on it, the draft that will go up for a vote today is probably in its most conservative iteration. It advances the phaseout of the wind and solar credits by three years relative to the IRA, and requires that they be operational by 2032, rather than merely under construction, to be eligible. Compared to the outright, immediate repeal a group of 38 House Republicans demanded this month, that's not so bad. The political animus many Republicans felt toward the IRA, as a manifestation of Biden's 'green new scam,' has been tempered by all the alarm bells that are now ringing about electricity shortages, which even President Donald Trump has framed as a national 'emergency.' Against that background, it's less palatable to reflexively vote against tax incentives that put more electrons on the grid. Still, negotiations going forward will likely focus on the timing and the degree to which use of the credits should be constrained if the hardware contains parts from China or other problematic countries; it's hard to imagine a bill reaching Trump's desk in which the credits go unblemished. 'The goal for [Ways and Means committee chairman] Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) is to cut enough from the IRA for conservatives, but still create a product that can potentially survive in the Senate. I think he's gotten really close to the mark on that goal,' said Emily Domenech, senior vice president at the consulting firm Boundary Stone and former advisor to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Congressional Republicans, Domenech said, are more interested in solving the country's energy problems through permitting reform than through spending taxpayers' money. But it's clear that if the solar and wind credits disappeared overnight, US power prices would jump up, because for most utilities renewables are the cheapest and fastest way to add power. So what Republicans are offering is a test of whether gas turbines or other power sources can catch up in the next few years. The renewable energy industry is already bracing for a phaseout of tax incentives. In fact, the cuts proposed yesterday were sufficiently less draconian than industry investors had feared that the share prices for some large US solar companies jumped. Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said her main goal in the Congressional budget negotiation is to secure 'as long as possible, for as much as possible, with as much consistency as possible.' She declined to comment on whether the solar industry will ever be ready to thrive without tax support. But she said uncertainty about the credits' fate is already causing the $70 billion US solar industry to hit the brakes on spending and construction. 'Federal incentives for clean energy development are some of the best tools we have to protect American energy independence, shore up domestic manufacturing, and attract cutting-edge industries to the U.S.,' said Tom Starrs, vice president of government and public affairs at EDP Renewables North America. Whatever Republicans manage to get past Democrats in the House, the battle will likely get tougher in the Senate, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) told reporters. 'Dismantling the IRA clean energy tax credits will kill jobs, it will create chaos in the business community, and it will raise energy costs for families already struggling to get by,' she said. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are still divided over whether to pull back California's legal ability to set its own vehicle emissions standards, my colleague Burgess Everett reported. A growing number of US clean tech companies are thinking about relocating to the UK or Europe. Other Republican budget proposals this week asked for sweeping cuts to federal grants and loans that had been designed to entice large climate tech commercialization investments in the US.
