Wisconsin Republican Rep. Scott Fitzgerald told Newsmax on Wednesday that the House GOP majority will likely come together and eventually pass a bill that was defeated this week and prohibits federal funds being used by federal agencies to ban natural gas stoves and furnaces.
"The policy hasn't changed and obviously, they are good bills that need to be passed by the House of Representatives," Fitzgerald said while appearing on "American Agenda" Wednesday. "What kind of spilled over into this week was the battle that happened last week over the debt ceiling."
Around 12 Republicans, mostly part of the Freedom Caucus, voted with 208 Democrats Tuesday to defeat a rule that would not allow federal agencies to regulate, or eliminate, gas stoves and furnaces, Reuters reported.
Fitzgerald said the defeat of the measure was caused by dissatisfied GOP Freedom Caucus members who are still upset with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for reaching a debt ceiling increase agreement with Democratic President Joe Biden.
The deal, despite raising the debt limit and preventing national default, did not do enough to reduce spending by more than the $1.3 trillion included in the agreement, Reuters' report said.
"We're not going to live in the era of the imperial speaker anymore," Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a member of the Freedom Caucus, told Reuters.
The failed vote Tuesday would have prohibited the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission from declaring the natural gas appliances "hazardous" or restricting their sales, the report said.
"So, the rule did not make it through," Fitzgerald said. "The Speaker is obviously working with individual members to try and get that bill back on the floor, and I anticipate that will happen at some point."
Fitzgerald added that even though McCarthy's deal on the debt limit may have left a "bad taste" in the mouths of some Republicans in the House, it is not likely they will try and remove him from the speakership.
"I don't see that at this point, but there certainly is kind of a bad taste in some members' mouths over the way that the negotiation went last week," Fitzgerald said. "If you look at the final version of the bill, I supported it. I know a lot of other members, colleagues of mine from Wisconsin did, because we thought it made sense. It certainly got us something that we would not have gotten if we hadn't put ourselves in that position."
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