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

7 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.

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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'

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