'How Do You Justify Those Costs': Tim Walberg Tears Into Energy Sec. Granholm Over 'Political Goals'

6 months ago

During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) questioned Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about electric vehicle infrastructure and new climate policies enacted by the Biden Administration.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Secretary, for being here. I just came from questioning

00:05 Undersecretary Sue. So I guess I'm all primed for secretaries. All right. I'm hoping your answers

00:11 will be fuller and more complete than hers were. So I'm not cursing the project.

00:18 Under President Biden, the Department of Energy has completely shifted its mission regarding energy

00:26 security, reliability and affordability. The department's spending priorities, which sway

00:31 heavily towards renewables and the administration's overall anti-fossil policies, will increase costs

00:37 for consumers and crowd out opportunity for expanding nuclear and advanced

00:42 fuel fossil technologies necessary for American manufacturing resurgence.

00:47 President Biden says he wants everything made in America, but his environmental and energy

00:53 policies say opposite. As the chair noted earlier, manufacturing isn't the only thing

00:59 impacted by these policies. Retail rates for our constituents are also going up significantly,

01:05 surpassing the rate of inflation. I just have to look at the Wall Street Journal article that found

01:11 that electricity prices here increased by 30 percent since 2021, 50 percent higher than the

01:19 overall inflation rate that was that was the case. Families are paying more. And what are they

01:27 getting out of it? And so the department has set aside billions for interstate transmission projects

01:33 that serve the renewable goals of differing states. However, those projects have faced serious delays

01:39 or have been canceled by one developer's own admission. The project was not viable. Transmission

01:46 build out already necessitates increases in retail rates that everyday Americans have to pay.

01:52 Madam Secretary, how do you justify those costs as you push build out based on political goals

02:02 and not reliability or economics? Beyond that, why should taxpayers pay for these projects that are

02:08 not viable on their own? All right. So first, nice to see you. We need to make sure that we

02:17 have a reliable grid. I agree right now. The PUCs across the country are putting onto rate payers

02:24 the cost of making that grid reliable, shoring it up. It was built in the 50s and 60s. It is old.

02:31 And a lot of these utilities go to the PUCs and rate base the upgrades to the grids. One of the

02:38 things that we had suggested previously with this administration was to get to have that be part of

02:44 an infrastructure project, a national infrastructure project that we take on as a nation to have a

02:50 reliable grid through, for example, you know, investment tax credits for building up the grid.

02:57 We don't have that. And so that's why these prices are going up. The president, the administration

03:03 is obsessed about lowering prices. And that's why the focus has been on how what can we do

03:10 to in in the scheme of things. We saw lowering prices take place before this administration

03:16 took office and they were going down significantly because of greater independence.

03:20 Well, you can't complain. You can't compare anything that happens today with what happened

03:24 four years ago because we were in the middle of a pandemic and everything dropped through the floor.

03:29 The legitimate comparison is before that. But no doubt before that, there was still investment in

03:38 grid, but not as much that is necessary. We need a bigger investment in our national grid

03:44 and we need to have it paid for. Well, that's we're promoting the opportunity of the free market

03:52 of our private sectors to do the jobs that they're capable of doing without the excessive

03:57 regulation. And I would say respectfully, interference from the federal government

04:02 that just isn't working. Well, that's why tax credits are a great thing, because they are

04:07 government enabled, but private sector led and we offer we operate in partnership and

04:12 taxpayer support sector. Yes, of course. Taxpayer for the infrastructure that we need,

04:17 the roads we drive on. Let me jump in one other thing. Are paid for by the taxpayers.

04:22 The EV mandate that we have jumping to that area and the grid security, which you've mentioned.

04:28 Based on the success of the IRA and IJA, as well as the dependence on consumer restricting

04:37 solutions like managed charging, forgive me if I'm skeptical of those two entities.

04:44 The White House also estimated that these laws would help build 500,000 EV charging stations

04:50 by 2030. In the last two years, they built seven. How are we going to complete that?

04:57 And what does that mean to the to the citizen? So number one, we are at 171,000 charging stations,

05:08 largely driven by the private sector at the moment, and the goal is to get to 500,000.

05:13 What the the electric vehicle initiative is was doing the National Electric, the NEVI,

05:18 National Electric Vehicle was to give funding to the states to be able to fill in the gaps where

05:22 the private sector is not gone. And in order to do that, that means that a charging station is

05:27 going somewhere where it has not been before, where there may not be electricity because

05:31 they're filling in a gap. And so seven, seven gaps. Well, but here's the thing is that it takes 18

05:38 months on average to get the electricity, the plant, the planning and the permitting for one

05:43 charging station. So now all of them are all of them have gotten their money. They've all I have

05:49 got 35 states that have released solicitations for the installation of let's reduce all that time.

05:55 21 states. It's all at the states and you know, continue to press on all of your governors and

06:02 your offices to make those happen quickly. Mr. Tom's expired. Now go to Miss Miss

'How Do You Justify Those Costs': Tim Walberg Tears Into Energy Sec. Granholm Over 'Political Goals'

Category

Transcript

Recommended