Republicans to Fight Clean Power Program With ‘Byrd’ Budget Rule

Republicans intend to challenge a key climate-change program in the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending package with the same maneuver that helped knock out immigration reform.

They plan to seek a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian that the Clean Electricity Performance Program violates the so-called Byrd Rule prohibition on using budget reconciliation measures to advance policy changes with “merely incidental” budgetary impacts.

If successful, the gambit would thwart a major climate initiative seen as key to meeting President Joe Biden’s goal of de-carbonizing the nation’s electric grid by 2035. The program would compel utilities to switch to clean energy by ...