Mike Johnson Doesn’t Even Know He’s Canceling a $500 Million Investment in His Own District 

Trump has already canceled 42 projects across 28 Republican-led districts, representing more than $3 billion in investment that would have lowered costs and created jobs

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Mike Johnson is so busy doing Donald Trump’s dirty work protecting tax breaks for billionaires that he’s ignoring the needs of his own constituents. When asked this morning about the list of projects that Trump is considering canceling, including $500 million for a project in Speaker Johnson’s district, he claimed he “hadn’t seen it yet.” The project would have created jobs and invested millions of dollars in the Speaker’s own “economically challenged Louisiana congressional district.”

“Mr. Speaker, the call is coming from inside the house,” said Climate Power communications director Alex Glass. “Republicans are so busy fighting to end Americans’ access to affordable health care that they aren’t standing up for jobs and investment in their own districts. At a time when the Trump agenda has forced prices up, Speaker Johnson and Republican members of Congress are now also causing long-term economic pain in their own districts. When are they going to do their jobs and finally stand up for the people they’re paid to represent?”

Examples of other canceled projects in GOP districts include: 

• AZ-06 (Representative Juan Ciscomani): 1 project representing $2,053,837 in investments
• CO-08 (Representative Gabe Evans): 2 projects representing $33,124,821 in investments
• CO-03 (Representative Jeff Hurd): 2 projects representing $120,000,000 in investments
• CA-40 (Representative Young Kim): 1 project representing $1,200,000,000 in investments 
• NY-17 (Representative Mike Lawler): 2 projects representing $26,236,446 in investments 
• CA-22 (Representative David G. Valadao): 2 projects representing $3,999,845 in investments 

POLITICO: Johnson unaware his district risks losing $500M for carbon removal

Republican lawmakers from Louisiana and Texas on Wednesday shrugged off news reports that their states could together lose $1 billion in federal funds for megaprojects that could suck carbon dioxide from the sky.

Two direct air capture hubs being planned for the Gulf Coast of Texas and western Louisiana would be capable of removing 1 million metric tons of climate pollution from the atmosphere annually and storing it underground.

That’s the equivalent to the annual emissions of nearly three gas-fired power plants, according to EPA data, and would make the hubs the largest carbon removal projects on the planet.

The hubs were funded through a $3.5 billion direct air capture program created by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and are being developed by Occidental Petroleum and a consortium led by the scientific nonprofit Battelle.

The fate of the projects was thrown into doubt on Tuesday when their awards were included in an unconfirmed Department of Energy cancellation list that made the rounds in Congress and on K Street.

But the leaked document appears to have not made it to the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose economically challenged Louisiana congressional district would be home to Battelle’s Project Cypress.

“I haven’t seen it yet,” he told POLITICO’s E&E News when asked about the list of proposed DOE funding cuts. Johnson added that he hadn’t spoken to Energy Secretary Chris Wright about the status of the hub award…

Johnson’s response echoed his comments in May, when the president’s budget request first called for zeroing out “Green New Scam funds committed to … removing carbon dioxide from the air.” Four days after the White House released that proposal, Johnson told E&E News that “I haven’t had a chance to look at that yet, so I can’t comment on it.”

The median household income of Johnson’s district was just over $59,176 in 2023, according to the Census Bureau. That was more than 26 percent below the national average of $80,610.

Across the Capitol, Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) also told E&E News he had not seen the list.

“We can talk after I look at it,” said Cornyn, who is running for reelection against more conservative primary challengers.

The rumored cancellations come more than a week into a funding fight that has shuttered vast swaths of the federal government. The Trump administration confirmed plans to cancel nearly $7.6 billion of clean energy projects, including almost half of DOE’s other direct air capture hub awards.

Direct air capture plants generally use carbon-absorbing materials, fans, electricity, heat, and piping to pull carbon dioxide from the sky and store it permanently underground.

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, scientists have determined that the world would need to deploy direct air capture and other carbon removal technologies at a massive scale by mid-century while also slashing the use of oil, gas and coal.

Those warnings have been dismissed by President Donald Trump, who rejects mainstream climate science and has sought to bolster fossil fuel production.