At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) spoke about the Energy Department budget.
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00:00The proposed Trump skinny budget, if you will. I'm just going to have a couple of preliminary comments, and then I'm going to turn to the vice chair of the entire committee and the ranking member of the subcommittee to make remarks.
00:22Look, we all know about the portfolio of the Department of Energy. It's a smorgasbord, everything from nuclear weapon stockpiles to research to supercomputing to artificial intelligence.
00:44There are two things, Mr. Secretary, I want to point out in my opening statement that got my attention.
00:57The spending at your department, this is not your fault, but it's unsustainable.
01:05It's simply unsustainable.
01:08If you take a look and compare the current budget of the Department of Energy, just go back a few years to fiscal year 2021.
01:24In fiscal year 2021, the department's budget was roughly $61 billion.
01:30Today, it's roughly $160 billion.
01:39That's a what, 161% increase?
01:47That's pretty dramatic.
01:50And I know your proposed skinny budget is addressing some of that.
01:55I hope we can address the spending with a scalpel, not a meat axe, but we're going to have to address it.
02:04I'll also point out, let's see that other chart.
02:07The inspector general, you've probably read the report, Chris, but the report came out in November of 2024.
02:16The inspector general identified $1 billion in what it called wasteful spending, unsupportive spending, or fraudulent spending.
02:30That's a lot of taxpayer money.
02:34So I'm looking forward to this today.
02:36I'm pretty much an all-of-the-above energy type guy.
02:42I will support any form of energy that's affordable, that's efficient, that's accessible.
02:55That includes renewables.
02:58In my judgment, President Biden's administration concentrated too exclusively, almost exclusively, I should say, on renewables.
03:10We've spent a lot of money.
03:14I don't see that we've gotten results.
03:17The average electricity bill in America for the average American family over the past four years is up 28%.
03:25That's the first thing they care about.
03:29We've got to address it.
03:32And I hope we can, today, Mr. Secretary, talk very specifically about what programs are working and what programs aren't.
03:43Because what has happened in the past, since I've been on this committee, is we get together as a subcommittee.
03:52We get our top-line numbers.
03:56Our staffs go off, the Democratic staffs and the Republican staffs, go off and negotiate.
04:05And at least on my side of the aisle, the staff comes back and said, good news, spending's only going to go up 6%.
04:12Well, those days are gone, as far as I'm concerned.
04:20That's just not acceptable to me.
04:22Not when you've had a 161% increase.
04:28And with that, I'll turn to the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee and the ranking member of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee,
04:39my good friend, Senator Patty Murray.
04:41Thank you very much, Senator Kennedy.
04:43Looking forward to working with you on this.
04:45Same here.
04:46I am pleased to serve as the ranking member of this important subcommittee.