Trump DoE Nom Rails Against 'Federal Permitting Regime' Amid 'Unprecedented' Energy Demand

2 days ago

During a Senate Energy Committee hearing last week, Deputy Energy Secretary nominee, James Danly, spoke about the growing demand for energy in the Untied States.

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

00:00Thank you, Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Heinrich, and members of the committee.

00:05It's an honor to appear before you again today. I sit before you humbly as President

00:12Trump's nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Department of Energy. Before I get to

00:16my comments, I just want to recognize my family and friends. Behind me sits my

00:20wife, Frankie. The last time I appeared before the committee, just like this time

00:24my son, James, who's an active, talkative, rambunctious ten-year-old, is not in

00:27attendance, but he is watching, I'm told, the hearing as it's happening. For both

00:33Frankie and James, I want to recognize the sacrifices that families of the people

00:37who serve in public service make. Those sacrifices are profound. So thank you,

00:42both Frankie and James, for your support and indulgence over the years that I've

00:45been in government and when I was in the Army, especially when I was in Iraq. I

00:49also have friends here, including colleagues throughout my career, among

00:53them the lawyers who first taught me energy law, and my advisors from my time

00:56at the Commission. As the committee is aware, the Department of Energy performs a

01:01number of critical functions. The National Labs ensure that the United

01:05States is and remains at the cutting edge of science and technology. The

01:08Department is responsible for taking care of and auditing and overseeing the

01:14weapons stockpile. It manages environmental cleanup at legacy waste sites, and it

01:19promotes the development and deployment of energy sources and

01:22infrastructure. I believe that my prior roles as General Counsel, Commissioner, and

01:27Chairman at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission give me a unique and

01:30important vantage point on how to achieve the President and Secretary's shared

01:34vision of ensuring affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the American

01:38people. The utility and natural gas sectors, the subjects I regulated while at

01:42FERC, are a critical component to achieving those goals. Right now we face

01:47profound challenges. Demand for energy is growing, and we cannot face the difficulty

01:52in producing and delivering it to Americans to ensure the country's safety and

01:57prosperity without tackling a number of very difficult problems. There are also

02:02great opportunities. America is blessed with the most abundant energy in the

02:05world. We have the best technical minds to harness that potential, and we have a

02:10private sector that stands ready to invest capital, build infrastructure, and

02:13produce the energy that we desperately need. We stand on the brink of an energy

02:18renaissance in which we can replace growing energy scarcity at home and abroad

02:22with energy abundance for the United States and its allies, improving the lives of

02:27our citizens while ensuring our geostrategic position. There are a couple of

02:33subjects I'd just like to touch on before I finish. First, our energy problems and

02:42scarcity are driven in large measure by failure to develop needed infrastructure.

02:46America struggles to build things these days. We have an acute need to build all

02:50manner of infrastructure across the country, but the federal permitting regime

02:54has become an impediment to that development. Interminable delays, legal

02:59challenges that threaten the permits that are already issued, and a

03:03continuously changing regulatory landscape have come to chill investment. And the

03:08result of that is that projects take longer to build and are

03:10increasingly expensive, or worse than that, they never get built in the first place.

03:13It will be difficult to achieve our goals of ensuring affordable, reliable, and

03:18secure energy to the American people without tackling the problem of federal

03:21permitting. Second, and relatedly, we have an acute need for electric

03:25generation. The United States is experiencing unprecedented demand for

03:29electricity, and that demand is increasing at an accelerating rate. Data centers, AI, and

03:35re-industrialization have brought load onto the system at a speed that we have never

03:39seen before. Maintaining our strategic position in the world absolutely requires

03:44that Americans have access to affordable, reliable, and secure energy in abundance.

03:48I've spent the better part of a decade directly regulating the energy markets and

03:52the reliability of the bulk electric system, and I can report that we have

03:56systematically failed to compensate baseload generation in order to ensure the

04:00retention of existing assets and incentivize the arrival of the new generators that we

04:05need to meet the growing demand. This challenge has to be solved. Third and

04:12finally, we need to recommit ourselves to America's preeminence as the world's

04:15leader in science and technology. The national labs, which are the crown jewel of

04:19the department, have been the source of countless advances over the years, both in

04:24pure and applied science. These advances and discoveries have driven commercial

04:28development, spawned new industries, and ensured American prosperity. Recently, the

04:33national labs have made advances in quantum computing, nuclear reactors, and

04:37fundamental scientific research that promise a new era of science and

04:40engineering. We have to recommit to that mission to ensure that America continues

04:44to maintain its scientific and technological edge that the citizens of the

04:48United States have relied upon for so many decades. Again, Chairman Lee, Ranking

04:52Member Heinrich, and members of the committee, I appreciate the

04:55opportunity to appear before you and I look forward to your questions. Thank you,

04:59Mr. Danley.

Trump DoE Nom Rails Against 'Federal Permitting Regime' Amid 'Unprecedented' Energy Demand

Category

Transcript

Recommended