Reliable Power Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Pallone for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3616. It is another Republican bill that fails to address skyrocketing electric bills that are a part of the overall affordability squeeze that is gripping the country right now.

What should we be doing on the floor of the House right now?

We should bring up the discharge petition to make sure that healthcare costs don't skyrocket for 20 million Americans and 4.7 million Floridians back home in the Sunshine State.

Now that the discharge petition has the necessary number of votes to come to the floor and extend those lifesaving and cost-saving ACA tax credits, we should be doing that instead. That would have a real impact. That would send a great sign to folks back home who are struggling with the rising cost of living and are wondering how they will pay for their health coverage next year. That would really help our neighbors back home. Alas, we are not doing that.

At a time when prices are up, inflation is up, and despite the Republican promises to do something about it, all of their bills and their policies are making it worse and making life even more expensive. Household electricity prices are up across America by about 13 percent and a lot higher in some places.

Why is that the case? First of all, the big, ugly bill that Republicans passed in July to provide tax breaks to the wealthy and well-connected took away tax credits to keep cleaner, cheaper energy producing across America. They ripped away rebates for households to help them afford the cost of upgrading their homes, making their lives more energy efficient.

Also, these arbitrary Trump tariffs are at the highest levels since the 1930s. We see it in our grocery bills, but it is also impacting electricity costs. Costs are way up for poles and wires and things that we import for our electricity systems. Those are being passed along to consumers.

The Trump administration has canceled hundreds of projects across America, some that were permitted and approved, ready to bring cleaner and cheaper energy onto the grid to help keep electricity prices lower. All of that is a recipe for skyrocketing electricity bills.

What do Republicans in Congress do? They keep bringing these random bills to the floor to boost the profits of polluters. This bill is a good example of that.

This bill would elevate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission above any other Federal agency, give it unprecedented veto power, and transform it and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation into political actors. That is a world away from the independent agencies that they are now where they act in the public interest and not in the interest of polluters.

Mr. Speaker, FERC doesn't even want this power. They lack the capacity and the staff for this highly technical work.

When we discussed this bill 2 years ago, David Ortiz, then FERC's Director of the Office of Electric Reliability, testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that FERC couldn't execute on the bill because FERC does not have the capacity to assume other agencies' expertise. That was before FERC lost 11 percent of its staff-- hardworking public servants--due to resignations and layoffs under the Trump administration.

This bill doesn't do anything to provide FERC with the staff or funding they would need to implement the bill. No, it doesn't. Polluters simply want to short-circuit any oversight of their higher costs and pollution. That is what this is about.

FERC already has the power to intervene and comment on agency rulemaking dockets if they think there could be a reliability issue, as does NERC, as does any of the grid operators, and any utility. This polluter-friendly bill is a way to sabotage cleaner and cheaper energy, however, and energy storage. It is a recipe for higher costs and electric bills for American families.

Regional grid operators have the necessary expertise and staffing to maintain reliability on their grids already. Regional operators know that there are cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable energy sources available, not just expensive coal and gas.

There are modern grid solutions that the committee has refused to take up this year. That is another reason electric bills are so high. There are solutions like energy storage, demand response, grid- enhancing technologies, and regional and interregional coordination that can provide reliability at a lower price with less pollution.

Republicans also don't want us to know that, while this bill gives FERC more responsibilities that it cannot meet and does not want, the Trump administration has been busy gutting the agencies that are already working to ensure that we have a reliable grid.

For example, the Trump Department of Energy eliminated the Grid Deployment Office last month. That was an office created under the bipartisan infrastructure law to manage important and cost-saving investments to make our grid more reliable. Over $3 billion in grid deployment investments were cut in October.

The real Republican mantra should be a less reliable grid with higher costs because that is what this year has produced. Republican energy policy is creating a less reliable environment for businesses, making it harder for companies to invest in America.

Just yesterday, Ford announced they were laying off all 1,600 employees at their battery manufacturing plant in Glendale, Kentucky. In October, on top of the grid modernization cuts at the Department of Energy, DOE canceled 321 awards, totaling $8 billion in funding. The largest award was $316 million to support the manufacture of components from recycled EV batteries in Kentucky. That would have helped us compete with Chinese batteries.

Mr. Speaker, $197 million was supposed to help a plant in St. Louis producing 30,000 metric tons annually of critical minerals products. Mr. Speaker, $117 million was intended to support production of synthetic graphite, including construction of a large plant in Alabama. Also, $31 million was cut that was going to build an advanced glass factory at the site of an old coal plant in Detroit.

As a result, the United States will have less capacity to support real and reliable power. This bill does not solve problems. It doesn't tackle the affordability crisis. It makes it worse. It doesn't even support more reliable power. Republicans are just trying to slap a new permitting reform label on bad ideas that they have never been able to pass into law.

Here we are, the last week in session this year, Mr. Speaker, and Republicans have not brought a single bill to the floor of the House that would lower costs for hardworking families. They have no new ideas here. They have no ideas on how to make energy more affordable for everyday Americans and no ideas to help us out of this healthcare crisis.

Mr. Speaker, people really deserve better. They deserve better over the holidays, and they deserve better from this Congress. I urge my colleagues to vote against the bill.

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