State Planning for Reliability and Affordability Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Pallone for yielding me the time.
Madam Speaker, only in Washington, D.C., can politicians who vote to give tax breaks to the biggest oil companies and fossil fuel companies on planet Earth come down to the floor of the House and argue that their legislative efforts are going to lower electricity prices.
Only in Washington, D.C., can politicians stand by as energy projects in their own districts are decimated by their inaction and then claim that they are championing efforts to improve the reliability of the grid.
My colleague from Colorado made a lot of references to local utility efforts in our home State. What he failed to mention in his quest to improve reliability of the grid is that several projects in his own district were eliminated by the Trump administration just 5 weeks ago. My colleague from Colorado, like virtually every single Member of the Republican Conference, did nothing to stop it, nothing.
By the way, we are not talking about small projects. This is the headline. ``Colorado company may close after Trump administration cuts funding for nearly 3 dozen energy projects in the State.''
I will quote this article, Madam Speaker: ``In all, DOE eliminated $7.6 billion in projects in 16 States, all of which are led by Democrats.''
Here is the kicker: ``But some of the projects are in Republican congressional districts, including a $27 million grant in Colorado's Eighth Congressional District, which Representative Gabe Evans, a Republican, represents.''
Gabe Evans is the author of this legislation we are debating today.
I will quote another article. This is the local utility, Madam Speaker, in Fort Lupton, which I believe is the sponsor of this legislation's hometown. I will just quote: ``The Fort Lupton Microgrid project was submitted with the goal of increasing the reliability of the city's municipal water treatment plant.''
This is another project, $6.1 million, Madam Speaker, that was unceremoniously cut 1 month ago by President Trump.
If we want to get serious about the reliability of the grid and if we want to address the ballooning electricity costs that are a direct byproduct of the bill that Republicans passed earlier this summer, then a good way to start would be to tell the Department of Energy to stop eliminating energy projects in Brighton, in Fort Lupton, in Fort Collins, and in Longmont, the communities I represent and the communities that my colleague from Colorado represents.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for his indulgence.
By the way, Madam Speaker, just so that we are clear, this bill does absolutely nothing as a practical matter. I welcome Chairman Guthrie's response on this front. It does nothing to impose new standards, it does nothing to compel State public utility commissions to adopt new standards, and it does nothing to require these commissions to implement new standards.
It simply says that commissions must consider them.
This is basically a press release. That is what this bill is. We could have spared everyone the time and just got on with it so that we can actually get to the substance of addressing the inflation cost crisis that Republicans have unleashed on Coloradans and on Americans writ large, but, no, we are here to debate this very carefully constructed press release that ultimately will accomplish nothing if it is ever signed into law.
Madam Speaker, I am voting ``no,'' and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
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