The Leader’s Floor Lookout: Week of December 8, 2025

House Republicans are implementing President Trump’s Peace Through Strength agenda, restoring our fighting force to greatness, deterring our adversaries, and ensuring our national security. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026 codifies all or parts of 15 of President Trump’s Executive Orders and over 30 legislative provisions requested by the Administration.

This FY26 NDAA specifically focuses on reforming our broken acquisition system. Our current system is slow, inefficient, and doesn’t meet the needs of our warfighters – threatening our security and keeping us stuck in the past. The FY26 NDAA includes many of the critical reforms proposed in the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery (SPEED) Act including by reducing burdensome red tape to streamline the delivery and development of new capabilities that our warfighters desperately need. It establishes the BOOST program to align promising technologies with operational needs, removes regulatory burdens, and speeds up the requirements process for defense acquisition. 
 
The legislation also prioritizes improvements to our servicemembers’ quality of life. To ensure our warfighters are supported, the legislation includes a 3.8 percent pay raise for all servicemembers, widens access to health care and childcare, and improves servicemember housing. 
 
Additionally, the bill works to counter adversaries such as China and enhance U.S. posture in the Indo-Pacific region, strengthen nuclear deterrence and missile defense, and fund Trump priorities such as the Golden Dome, F-47, autonomous systems, and new warships. The bill also fully funds the deployment of troops to the border and authorizes over $1 billion to combat drug traffickers.

While investing in innovation and streamlining development to ensure our fighting force remains the strongest in the world, the FY26 NDAA also cuts woke programs to keep our Armed Forces focused on their core mission: keeping our nation safe. Our legislation cuts DEI programs, restores meritocracy, and ends ‘Green New Scam’ initiatives, and saves taxpayers nearly $20 billion.

As threats to our national security grow more complex, we must make certain our fighting force is ready to meet the challenge, and that means delivering the capabilities our warfighters need when they need them. This legislation does just that.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers' legislation, H. Amdt. to S. 1071, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, strengthens our national defense and the lethality of our fighting force by reforming defense acquisition, improving servicemember quality of life, investing in top defense priorities such as the Golden Dome, securing our border, revitalizing the defense industrial base, supporting our allies, and cutting wasteful spending and radical Left initiatives from our military.

House Republicans are committed to implementing President Trump’s Peace Through Strength agenda and ensuring our fighting force is capable and ready to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
  

The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the main law overseeing the water quality of U.S. surface waters. It was intended to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters” and consists of two major parts: 1) authorizing financial assistance for wastewater treatment plant construction, and 2) imposing regulatory requirements for those who discharge into navigable waters, including industrial and municipal actors.

For the last several years, however, the CWA has been abused by radical leftist activists, government bureaucrats, and others to delay permitting and hinder domestic energy products for their ‘Green New Scam’ political agenda. Additionally, CWA permitting processes have become increasingly confusing and costly, preventing economic growth.

The CWA was meant to protect communities and water quality – not handicap America’s energy sector and block critical infrastructure with costly and unpredictable permitting delays.

House Republicans are taking on this harmful CWA bureaucracy through a comprehensive package of 15 bills that include targeted, common-sense reforms to cut burdensome red tape, streamline the permitting process, and enhance regulatory certainty. 

This legislation supports domestic energy producers, the agriculture sector, home and road builders, small businesses, and water utilities by allowing them to operate with regulatory efficiency and increased transparency by restoring CWA to its intended scope while protecting and promoting clean water. 

H.R. 3898, the Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today (PERMIT) Act, sponsored by Rep. Mike Collins, contains 15 bills to amend the Clean Water Act by enacting targeted reforms that will improve the permitting process for permit seekers and holders by speeding up the permit issuance process, reducing burdensome and irrational requirements, and providing regulatory clarity for permitting agencies.

House Republicans will continue our fight to remove regulatory burdens and streamline permitting, unleashing American energy production and increasing affordability.
  

Electricity demand in the United States is increasing rapidly due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the data centers that power it, domestic manufacturing, and electrification of sectors across the economy. North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) projects peak demand will grow by 151 GW by 2034.

However, while demand has been rising, so have premature retirements of crucial baseload power plants due to Democrats’ overly burdensome federal environmental regulations and energy policies implemented over the last several years. NERC reports that around 115 GW of thermal generation has announced to retire by 2034, reducing our electricity generating capabilities at a time when we need it most and further threatening our nation’s supply of reliable energy.

Many Democrat-led states have pushed for wind or solar energy by imposing “green” standards that shut down baseload power plants, despite wind and solar lacking the reliability, consistency, voltage, and frequency support needed to keep the lights on when we need it most. A recent Department of Energy report found that our projected demands for electricity, when paired with the projected retirements of baseload generating units, could potentially increase the threat of power outages by 100 times by 2030.

A lack of energy and energy reliability leads to higher costs for American households. This week, House Republicans are bringing forward legislation to make sure states are planning electric generation facilities in a way that increases reliability and affordability of energy for hardworking Americans.

Rep. Gabe Evans' legislation, H.R. 3628, the State Planning for Reliability & Affordability Act, amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to create a new federal standard for state regulatory authorities to consider requirements for utilities to have reliable and sufficient generation from dispatchable energy sources as part of their resource plans over a 10-year period.

House Republicans will always fight to ensure American energy security and reliability and to keep the power on in American homes.
  

Currently, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) acts as the lead agency in coordinating environmental reviews and federal authorizations for natural gas pipelines that cross state lines. Thanks to confusing and inefficient review processes and a lack of coordination amongst agencies, pipeline infrastructure approvals have been delayed, resulting in insufficient infrastructure to transport natural gas which makes the electric grid less reliable and increases utility prices for home heating and cooking. 

In order to issue authorizations to build and operate natural gas pipelines, FERC requires state water quality certifications. Some radical activist states have taken advantage of this requirement to block interstate pipelines, catering to extreme environmentalists instead of delivering economic benefits and energy security to hardworking Americans. 

Many large natural gas pipelines that could have transported billions of cubic feet of natural gas and strengthened Americans’ access to reliable energy have been cancelled in recent years because of bureaucratic burdens and permitting delays. This puts the energy needs of millions of Americans at risk and has made some regions, such as the Northeast, alarmingly dependent on LNG imports. 

House Republicans are bringing legislation to expand and modernize America’s natural gas pipeline infrastructure by increasing communication between agencies and streamlining natural gas pipeline reviews and approvals so Americans can access the energy they need. 

Rep. Richard Hudson’s legislation, H.R. 3668, the Improving Interagency Coordination for Pipeline Reviews Act, bolsters FERC’s role as lead agency in the natural gas pipeline review process, empowering them to oversee participating federal and state agencies through schedules, simultaneous reviews, and dispute resolutions while also streamlining the permitting process by absorbing the water quality certification into FERC’s existing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, keeping environmental protections in place while accelerating approval times.

House Republicans won’t stop working to ensure domestic energy can be transported as efficiently and cleanly as possible, ensuring the lights stay on in American homes. 

America’s bulk power system – often referred to as one of the most complex and advanced machines ever built – consists of vast networks of generating facilities, high voltage transmission lines, fuel distribution facilities, and essential infrastructure, providing a reliable and sufficient supply of electricity for all Americans. 

Electricity supports the entire U.S. economy and must be used as soon as it is generated, and demand is only increasing with the rapid growth of industries like artificial intelligence. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) projects electricity demand to grow by 151 GW by 2034, while in the same period as much as 115 GW of thermal generation has announced to retire.

In order to ensure we meet the growing demand, it is critical we constantly assess the bulk power system and work to address threats, disruptions, supply chain constraints, and any other weakness that could risk our ability to keep the lights on. Specifically, supply chain disruptions for essential grid components could hinder critical generation and transmission development. Currently, America relies on imports for 31 out of 35 critical minerals necessary for our defense and economy.

Americans’ safety and our economy depends on reliable energy and electricity. As historic levels of demand lead us closer to an energy crisis, we must do all we can to ensure we have reliable, safe access to electricity and don’t over-rely on other countries for our energy needs. House Republicans are bringing legislation to ensure the Department of Energy (DOE) proactively monitors, identifies, and mitigates supply chain risks that could undermine grid reliability and energy affordability for hardworking Americans.

Rep. Bob Latta’s legislation, H.R. 3638, the Electric Supply Chain Act, instructs the Department of Energy to hold periodic assessments of the electric generation, transmission infrastructure, and grid supply chain and consult stakeholders across the industry to produce recommendations for addressing reliability issues.

House Republicans will continue working to secure our supply chain and make sure Americans always have access to reliable, affordable electricity. 

Currently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules for investing in private markets are outdated and focus on wealth instead of financial knowledge, unfairly blocking average Americans from investing in promising startups. Additionally, most venture funding goes to cities on America's coasts, while entrepreneurs from the Midwest, South, and rural areas are overlooked. 

Meanwhile, over the last several years, public markets have shrunk, with the number of American public companies dropping from 8,800 in 1997 to less than 4,000 today. This drop costs American jobs and reduces investment opportunities for retirement savers. 

This week, House Republicans are bringing forward a package of more than 20 bipartisan bills focused on capital formation to cut federal red tape, lower the cost of being a public company, create more opportunities for Americans to invest in and build long-term net worth through the markets, and empower small businesses by reducing regulatory burdens on businesses and investors and incentivizing companies in the U.S. to go public.

House Republicans are working to improve capital markets regulation, ensure our financial markets continue to grow stronger, and increase opportunities for American investors to build wealth and save for the future.