Energy

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Today, Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Speaker Mike Johnson (LA-04), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (LA-01), Congressman Jim Jordan (OH-04), Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and Congressman Brian Babin (TX-36), Chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, issued the following statement after the White House released a  federal AI framework . “AI has begun to demonstrate its potential to improve Americans’ lives. To ensure we continue to harness its potential and beat China in the global AI race, Congress must take action. Today, the Trump Administration took a critical step in releasing a framework that gives Congress a roadmap to pursue legislation that provides innovators with much-needed certainty, while protecting consumers and prioritizing kids’ online safety. House Republicans look forward to working across the aisle to enact a national framework that unleashes the full potential of AI, cements the U.S. as the global leader, and provides important protections for American families.” ###

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Congressman Bob Latta (OH-05), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, delivered the following opening statement at today’s hearing titled Winter Storm Fern Lessons: Supplying Reliable Power to Meet Peak Demand. Subcommittee Chairman Latta’s opening statement as prepared for delivery:  “Good morning and welcome to today’s hearing to examine the performance of our electric grid through the duration of Winter Storm Fern.    “Starting on January 23rd, a significant winter storm brought widespread snow, sleet, and freezing rain from New England to the Rockies and down to the Gulf of America.   “This storm was followed by an Arctic Front that kept stubbornly low temperatures across the country and additional snowstorms.   “As expected, American families bundled up, staying indoors to avoid the inclement weather and dangerous road conditions.   “When they were at home, they relied on our nation’s complex energy system to keep the lights on, their homes warmed, and fridges stocked.   “Just like any other day, families expected their lights to come on at the flip of a switch.  “While seemingly routine, an exhaustive amount of preparation, coordination, and real-time decision making occurred behind the scenes to make sure American communities had power.   “While some outages occurred, the grid held up because of the important work of some the witnesses we have before us.  “The Southwest Electric Power Company, or SWEPCO, is an electric utility across Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana.   “The Northeast Gas Association represents natural gas utilities across 11 northeastern states.   “Grid Strategies develops public policies that support a clean energy transition.  “And the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, is the regulatory authority that ensures reliability and security of our nation’s bulk power system.   “Together, these witnesses will provide critical insights into how the nation’s electric grid remained resilient through the duration of this significant weather event.   “While I’m looking forward to today’s opportunity to learn about the grid’s performance through the storm, one thing remains clear – baseload and dispatchable resources saved the day.  “Generation from coal, natural gas, and fuel oil skyrocketed while intermittent resource generation plummeted.   “Nuclear, as always, remained steady and reliable.  “Without access to these affordable and reliable supplies of baseload generation, the setting of this hearing would look much different.   “Power outages that occur in freezing temperatures cause billions in economic damage and, even more importantly, tragic deaths in our vulnerable communities.  “Our New England states illustrate an interesting example.   “Through the storm, the fuel mix in New England was carried by natural gas, fuel oil, and nuclear power.   “In spite of generous subsidies and favorable public policy choices, intermittent resources were nowhere to be found when New England needed power the most.   “Because limited gas pipeline capacity in the New England region restricts supply and raises prices, power plants had to opt for more expensive and less efficient fuel oil.   “It’s important to recognize fuel oil plants were the predominant source of generation 70 years ago.  “Importantly, outages across the country were limited – but the success of the grid through Winter Storm Fern should serve as a warning.   “That brings us to the present day – how should policy makers and regulators consider the operation of our future bulk power system.   “We stand on the precipice of tremendous growth in our nation’s electricity demand.  “The Energy and Commerce Committee has held several hearings and passed legislation to shore up the reliability crisis caused by the Biden Administration and to power next generation industries.   “Now, we are considering the implications of a generation resource mix that can appropriately meet the needs of households at all times of the year while simultaneously ensuring America leads in the future economy.  “The answer is clear – our nation needs dispatchable energy and a lot more of it.   “Given the military activity taking place in Iran and implications of energy markets through the Strait of Hormuz, now more than ever we need to utilize the bountiful resources we have here at home.  “The lessons of Winter Storm Fern should illustrate that common sense must rule the day.   “American energy dominance and independence must be achieved so we can keep our communities safe at home.”  ###

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Bob Latta (OH-05), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, led a hearing titled,  Winter Storm Fern Lessons: Supplying Reliable Power to Meet Peak Demand.   “In spite of generous subsidies and favorable public policy choices, intermittent resources were nowhere to be found when New England needed power the most. Because limited gas pipeline capacity in the New England region restricts supply and raises prices, power plants had to opt for more expensive and less efficient fuel oil,”  said Chairman Latta.  “The lessons of Winter Storm Fern should illustrate that common sense must rule the day. American energy dominance and independence must be achieved so we can keep our communities safe at home.” Watch the full hearing  here . Below are key excerpts from today’s hearing: Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01):  “The lesson from Winter Storm Fern is that we’re asking more of the grid in every region and increasingly relying on emergency tools and extraordinary coordination to navigate conditions that are becoming more common, not rarer. At the same time, we’ve layered on emergency orders, special directives, and broad must-run orders that, in some regions, effectively over-procure generation and crash prices. Those tools helped us through Fern, but they’re not a sustainable business model for a grid that’s about to serve even larger loads. Data centers, advanced manufacturing, and electrification across many levels of our economy are driving demand up quickly. Yet building the infrastructure to serve that demand, modern gas plants, nuclear, storage, new pipelines, transmission lines, or any renewable source, which Iowa does have, takes years longer than it should. Not because the technology is unproven, but because our permitting pathways are slow, fragmented, and unpredictable.” Congressman Russell Fry (SC-07):  “Reliable energy is essential to every aspect of our modern life, especially to public health and welfare. Yet power outages cost the American people $44 billion each year. Winter Storm Fern highlighted the importance of grid reliability, leaving more than one million customers without power at its peak, including 70,000 in my home state of South Carolina. These disruptions make it clear that reliability must remain a top priority, particularly during severe weather events that place extraordinary strain on the electric system. Fern also demonstrated the critical importance of dispatchable energy sources. Peak coal generation rose by 25%, and peak natural gas generation rose by 47%. Across all impacted regions, dispatchable energy significantly outperformed wind and solar generation. The grid’s performance during severe weather depends not only on these baseload and dispatchable resources, but also on real-time coordination among grid operators, generators, transmission owners, marketers, and other market participants. Analyzing how the bulk power system performs during these events is essential to strengthening reliability and ensuring the continued delivery of electric power that Americans depend on every day.” Congresswoman Julie Fedorchak (ND-AL):  “I agree with you — it should be bipartisan. Mr. Robb, how are premature retirements of baseload resources such as natural gas and coal making matters worse when we have increased demand?”  Mr. Robb:  “Thanks for the question. It makes matters worse in a number of different ways. When you lose the energy production associated with those facilities—and we saw in Winter Storm Yuri that a number of facilities operating under 202(c) orders did perform and were required to keep the lights on—there’s no question about that. The second thing is that those facilities create the special sauce that keeps the grid operating. They create frequency, they create voltage, and they create the ability to control those within very tight parameters, which is what allows the high-voltage transmission system to operate. Without that kind of generation, we don’t have the ability to operate a transmission system of the scale that we have.” ###

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Today, Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Congressman Bob Latta (OH-05), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, sent a letter to Dr. Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), highlighting the IEA’s decision to restore the inclusion of objective data analysis in the World Energy Outlook (WEO). By bringing back the Current Policies Scenario (CPS) in the report, the IEA is returning to its core mission and working to promote energy security. “Strengthening our nation’s energy security is vital to securing our grid, powering AI and domestic manufacturing, and ensuring that Americans have the energy resources they need,” said Chairmen Guthrie and Latta. “For the last several years, IEA forecasts incorrectly assumed the peak demand for oil and natural gas would come before 2030. As a result, these forecasts deterred investments by painting an inaccurate picture of what energy markets will need in the future. By finally standing up to activist pressure opposing the use of oil and natural gas to power our economy, the IEA will once again be able to provide the unbiased market forecasts decision makers rely on to provide reliable and affordable energy into the future.”   Key excerpts from the letter:   “Maintaining objective data analysis, free from activism, is imperative. The IEA has long stood as an invaluable source of unbiased data and analysis on the security of oil markets. The agency’s work carries significant weight for policymakers, the energy industry, and global financial firms. “Yet in 2020, the IEA, under pressure from climate activists eager to exploit the agency’s credibility to discourage oil and gas investment, abandoned its longstanding CPS, and began only publishing WEOs that relied on subjective scenarios that assumed different degrees of adherence to climate action agreements. These aggressive Stated Policies Scenarios (STEPS), rely heavily on policy aspirations, while ignoring market realities. “In the United States alone, oil and natural gas account for about 74 percent of the primary energy sources consumed every year, with natural gas accounting for approximately 43 percent of electric power generation. Due to artificial intelligence and other technologies, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts significant natural gas demand growth over the next several years. As you know, the EIA maintains the use of a policy-neutral baseline reference case. “Politicized and censored demand scenarios can distort policy decisions and misguide capital investment. Just last year, the Biden-Harris Administration leveraged these questionable IEA projections, while ignoring EIA data, to support banning liquefied natural gas export projects. This decision discouraged sufficient capital allocation toward critical energy supplies and emboldened Russia’s war machine.”   CLICK HERE to read the full letter. ###

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Yesterday, Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, along with Congressman Bob Latta (OH-05), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy, penned a letter to Secretary Jennifer Granholm questioning the Department of Energy’s involvement in the Biden-Harris Administration’s decision to prevent new offshore oil and gas production, leading to higher prices for consumers and harming U.S. energy security. KEY LETTER EXCERPT: “Closing off swaths of U.S. offshore areas to energy production, as the Biden-Harris Administration reportedly intends to do, will lead to higher energy prices for American families, the loss of American jobs, and greatly diminish our country’s energy security. As the Secretary of Energy, you have an obligation to weigh in on this matter and insist on a full review of the energy security and economic impacts before any decisions are finalized. “The United States stands at an energy crossroads, facing mounting global security threats and soaring demand for power. Instead of leading the world in energy production, we’ve allowed misguided “green” policies to hamstring our potential. It’s time to unleash American energy dominance again—the federal government must become an ally, not an obstacle, to our nation’s energy security. We look forward to your prompt response to this request, no later than January 10, 2025.” Read the story  here . BACKGROUND: This morning, the Biden Administration announced that more than 625 million square miles of coastline would be off-limits for energy production. Republican Members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have continuously called on the Biden-Harris Administration to end its attack on American energy production before leaving office on January 20th. The letter requests an explanation of the DOE’s involvement in the decision and whether the White House or the Department of Interior consulted with the DOE about the plans to close off access to offshore resources. Any decision to shut down access to significant American energy resources impacts U.S. energy policy and should be reviewed by the DOE. The Biden Administration’s energy policies have continued to create major harm to America’s energy production and workforce. A unilateral ban on energy production in large swaths of the U.S. coastline will have lasting impacts on American energy production and security.

“DOE is threatening domestic jobs and economic development, weakening the energy security of European allies, and strengthening our adversaries” Washington, D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee Chair Jeff Duncan (R-SC), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) sent a letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm demanding the agency stop rushing to prematurely release its anti-liquefied natural gas (LNG) study, which aims to hamstring the incoming Presidential administration. The letter also calls for DOE to lift the pause on LNG exports, which was a politically motivated decision by the Biden administration to appease radical environmental activists at the expense of American energy security and the security of our allies. KEY LETTER EXCERPTS: “Despite DOE’s prior findings and published reviews in favor of U.S. LNG exports, and contrary to DOE’s limited statutory authority under the NGA, the Biden administration’s DOE announced that it would expand its environmental review as part of a ‘managed transition’ to reduce use of fossil fuels. Recent press reports indicate that DOE is racing to complete a study on the climate impacts of LNG exports to hamper the incoming Republican administration and provide opportunities to challenge future project approvals in court.” [...] “ The results of the 2024 presidential election are clear, and DOE leadership will soon change. As a traditional part of the peaceful transfer of power, DOE should immediately stop work on any plans to expand the scope of review or add new conditions to LNG export licenses. DOE should immediately lift the ban on LNG export approvals in compliance with the NGA and the District Court order.” BACKGROUND: January 26, 2024 : The Biden administration announces indefinite “pause” on LNG export permits. Chair Rodgers immediately rebukes the decision, calling it a “gift to Putin.” February 5, 2024 : More than 150 House Republicans demand President Biden ends his de facto ban on American LNG exports. February 15, 2024 : E&C Republicans lead bipartisan passage of H.R. 7176 to reverse President Biden’s LNG export ban. April 8, 2024 : The Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security holds a field hearing in Port Arthur, Texas, with local leaders and energy workers to highlight the economic and public benefits of American energy production, including job creation. November 7, 2024 : Bloomberg Law reports that the “Biden administration is racing to complete a study that could complicate President-Elect Donald Trump’s plan to immediately approve new liquefied natural gas export terminals.” CLICK HERE to read the full letter.