Hot Ferc Summer

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the work that we did to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the single largest investment in climate action in American history.

Thanks to the IRA, not only will we see expanded access to lower energy costs, but we will also lower emissions and give our children a better shot at an inhabitable planet. But if we are going to build all that clean generation and connect it to all those new loads from electric vehicles to heat pumps, we are going to have to enhance our electric grid, and that is not going to happen without an independent, fully staffed Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, as they say in the streets.

Now you all remember that last year, as we worked on what became the Inflation Reduction Act, the White House had not acted to fill a vacancy at FERC, and FERC was frozen into inaction. We needed a hot FERC summer, and this Chamber--along with Megan Thee Stallion, Fergie and Dolly Parton--delivered.

Yet now, we are on the verge of freezing again. This time, because the Senate has failed to act to reconfirm Chairman Glick.

Just at the moment when we need to expedite transmission permitting reform to ensure cheap, reliable energy and fix power markets, FERC is again on the brink of being deadlocked.

So with a little help from Rihanna this time, it is my duty to once again remind the legislative branch of our desperate need to FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC.

Climate change is urgent. Capital markets are mobilizing in response to the Inflation Reduction Act. There is no time to have us lurking.

To be blunt, Mr. Chair:

I do nuh like it, and you know I have dealt with it the nicest . . . but this delay is nuh righteous . . . and now we are in a crisis.

A deadlocked FERC would eliminate up to 80 percent of the emissions reductions created by the IRA. We need them working now to ensure that we can rapidly bolster interregional grid connections, shorten interconnection queues, and reform the siting and cost allocation processes that doom so many projects today.

Sing with me, Mr. Chairman.

We got to FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC.

You can do it. Come on.

To my colleagues in the Senate, the eyes of the Nation, and of this Chamber are on you.

We will never, no, never neglect you. We do not hold your past against you. But you need to get this done, done, done, done, done, done.

Our utilities, our electricians, our consumers, and our planet believed you when you said that failure to ensure comprehensive permitting reform was, ``not an option.'' But now they are asking whether you really believed that.

Did you really mean it when you said you would give them ``something that they'd never seen''? Or are they right now when they cry that this is just a dream of ``something that you've never been''?

It is time for the Senate to give our energy markets reasons to believe in ``all their dreams, their adoration''. They don't have ``much more patience''.

We need them to con-firm, firm, firm, firm, firm, firm.

A person who will work, work, work, work, work, work.

To ensure that we can FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC.

Mr. Speaker, ``What else I say? I am tryin', babe.''

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source