Ron Wyden Blames GOP For Sending Energy Prices 'Through The Roof' By 'Doing Favors' For 'Big Oil'

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During a Senate Energy Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) spoke about Republican energy policies.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Chairman, this is an important panel, and let me begin by saying I don't believe we got in this predicament by osmosis.

00:09The fact is the Republicans have been doing favors for their big oil buddies at the consumer's expense,

00:17and that is why, a major reason why, energy bills are going through the roof.

00:22And I'm just going to take a minute to look backward and then talk about where we ought to be going.

00:28We had 50 years' worth of gridlock on climate.

00:33No pricing, no regulatory reform, no nothing.

00:37In the Senate Finance Committee, we put together an alternative, and it was based on markets.

00:44It was based on technology neutrality.

00:48Underline those words, technology neutrality.

00:52Everybody's part of the market.

00:54You get choices.

00:55And the more you reduce carbon, the bigger your tax savings.

01:01And in a couple of years, we got hundreds of billions of dollars committed to making sure that we had those renewable choices.

01:11Now, along come the Senate Republicans, particularly in the last couple of weeks.

01:16And when the natural gas folks, these are not the environmentalists, these are the natural gas folks,

01:24basically said, we'll take electrons if they're from Mars.

01:29We've got to have electrons.

01:31We'll take them from anywhere.

01:33Not just because of AI, but because of growth, because of innovation.

01:37And regrettably, the Senate Republicans said, we're not for choices.

01:44We're not for options.

01:46We're not for alternatives.

01:48And, of course, that doesn't let us meet the challenge of demand.

01:54So my view is, and what I'm going to keep pushing for as a senior Democrat in the Finance Committee,

02:00is working with anybody across the political spectrum to get us more choices.

02:06And particularly, as my colleague from New Mexico said, the gas industry, not the League of Conservation Voters or the Sierra Club,

02:14will tell you that the cheapest alternatives now are solar and wind.

02:18And they need them today, not tomorrow.

02:20They need them today in order to drive markets.

02:24So apropos of your good work, Mr. Gramlich, I'd be interested in what your ideas are to kind of resurrect a choice-based system

02:36rather than one that just hands out the goodies to the big oil companies.

02:41And, by the way, people tell me, you all are welcome to add this,

02:46fossil fuels cannot meet our demand today.

02:49If we're going to meet demand, we need solar and wind.

02:52We need these alternatives.

02:55And after 50 years of gridlock on this issue, we broke up the inertia,

03:03we broke up the lack of progress, and we were making a lot of progress.

03:07And I want to see us get back to something that has as many of those choices,

03:11the technological neutrality principles that we wrote in the Finance Committee,

03:15because I think that is America's energy future.

03:18By the way, nobody knows what the big alternatives are going to be 30 years from now.

03:25We need a science-driven kind of approach.

03:28And when we talked to Joe Manchin about putting this together, which he backed,

03:31he said, we need more science, and we'll get that with the technology-driven kind of system.

03:36So tell us about what you'd be working on in terms of more choices for the days ahead.

03:41Well, Senator Wyden, thank you for your leadership on the technology-neutral tax credit.

03:47I think that's a perfect example of something that provides the support to any and all technologies

03:53that meet the performance standards that Congress can set out.

03:57And so I thought that was a great idea.

04:00Glad to see it enacted.

04:02It's sad to see the early phase-out.

04:06I think at this point it's important for Treasury to implement at least what Congress passed recently.

04:13So you want to make sure that there's no more stalling around,

04:16because as you know, we got a modest bit of the current system into the final bill,

04:24and now it looks like a bunch of people in the House are trying to roll that back.

04:27You tell the administration, suck it up here, and stand in there for choices and alternatives.

04:34Is that one of your messages?

04:36Certainty is critical for investment, and uncertain IRS regulations kill certainty.

04:43You can't invest if you don't know what the rules are.

04:45What else would you do?

04:47More choices.

04:47Well, I think, you know, generally, as I was saying before,

04:53the transmission grid really is in the purview of this committee and Congress and FERC,

04:58and that is the great integrator of all resources that enables choice of whatever a state may choose.

05:04Good.

05:05My time is up.

05:06That was the one thing that we weren't able to get in the 2022 election.

05:11And had we been able to negotiate a compromise with more choices,

05:16I would have put transmission number one as our challenge for the future.

05:22And we're going to try to get those choices back,

05:24and we're interested in working with you on transmission.

05:26Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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