Rep. Marcy Kaptur is gearing up for a fight with the incoming Trump administration and Republicans who seek to dramatically cut government programs, Daniel writes.

Why it matters: Kaptur, the top House Democratic energy and water appropriator, is the first line of defense for nearly $60 billion in annual funding to the Energy Department and other agencies.

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, co-leads on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), are already sharing with GOP lawmakers their vision of spending cuts. Musk backs ending tax credits for EV sales.

What she's saying: "I'm very concerned about extremely wealthy people who have business in mind violating the rules and trying to exert pressure on the executive agencies and departments because of their own financial interests," Kaptur told Daniel in her office.

• Of Musk, she said: "I don't see that his interest is the public interest. Seems to me he has a lot of private interests, and we need to know what they are."

The big picture: Kaptur, the longest-serving congresswoman in history, has been a fierce opponent of Republicans' DOE cuts.

• She slammed a Republican-approved energy/water bill in July that would have cut by 43% the agency's energy efficiency and renewable energy programs and reprogrammed $8 billion from the Loan Programs Office to fund nuclear projects.

Zoom in: The next session will likely bring even tougher battles.

• Kaptur plans to frame the panel as funding essential infrastructure amid the need for more energy, staving off drought, and competition for resources.
• She criticized the House GOP leadership as "very unstable" and behind on passing funding packages as well as the farm bill.
• But she regularly speaks with Republicans who are concerned about keeping funding and whose thin House majority gives Democrats unusual influence.

Between the lines: Kaptur said she has common ground with Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, the panel's GOP chair, on funding research to repurpose nuclear waste and maintain the industry as a power source.

• "We talk about this a lot, and this country needs a solution," she said. "We have to find an answer for that, particularly because there's an agenda now to build more nuclear power plants."

The bottom line: "The newbies will come to discover the deliberative process," Kaptur said of Musk, Ramaswamy and their allies.

Negotiations on a permitting overhaul are running out of time to get a bill attached to a likely CR next week, Nick and Daniel write.

Why it matters: It's the last best chance for some kind of deal that combines the Manchin-Barrasso bill with Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman's NEPA proposal.

• "We're up against the clock," Westerman told Daniel.

What we're hearing: Leadership has discussed permitting, but at this point talks are still centered on the committee chairs.

• "I don't feel like we're to a point where I can go to the speaker's office and say 'We got a good deal, you should look at it,'" Westerman said.
• Negotiators are working on EPW Chair Tom Carper, who objects to Westerman's broader NEPA overhaul proposals.
• But Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito told Nick they haven't made much recent progress on that front.

Between the lines: Getting a deal now might be easier than next year, given the narrow GOP margins.

• "I'm going to be a lot more open this year than I am once we get into next year, because I think next year a lot of this is going to be force-fed to us," Rep. Jared Huffman, who's bidding to be Natural Resources' ranking member, told reporters.
• Industry and advocacy groups are also making a last-ditch push for it to get done.

🎉 Curtain call: The Good Samaritan hardrock mining bill sailed through the House by voice vote yesterday.

Why it matters: The bill would set up a pilot program to let nonprofits and state agencies clean up 15 of the thousands of abandoned hardrock mine sites around the country.

• The White House said President Biden will sign it.

Context: Conservation groups spent two decades trying to get this idea through Congress over objections about softening liability and Clean Water Act rules.

• The bill is a proof of concept that advocates hope will lead to many more future cleanup projects.

👀 And stage-setting: Members of the House China committee today rolled out three bipartisan bills aimed at bolstering friendly mineral supply chains.

Why it matters: It's a marker for the next Congress on domestic mineral production and countering Chinese influence in the global industry.

Zoom in: The bills flesh out the ideas that Rep. Rob Wittman and the panel's Minerals Policy Working Group have been discussing.

• One bill, authored by Wittman and Rep. Kathy Castor, would let the Interior Secretary enter into agreements with foreign governments on mineral supply chains.
• Another, from Wittman and Rep. Haley Stevens, would direct new efforts on battery recycling and put export controls on recycled lithium-ion battery material.
• Committee Chair John Moolenaar also has a bill with Rep. Ritchie Torres that would make mining and minerals supply chain experience a consideration for skilled worker visas.

💸 1. Foreign fee follow-up: Sen. Bill Cassidy is out with a new discussion draft version of his proposed Foreign Pollution Fee Act, a marker for next year's tariff and reconciliation discussion.

⚡️ 2. State-ment pick: President-elect Trump tapped Jacob Helberg to be the State Department's top official for economic growth, energy and the environment.

🗣️ 3. Biden's last frontier: Alaska's senators called the Biden administration's leasing plan for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a "complete failure," contending that it contradicts what they intended in the 2017 tax bill.