[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 153 (Thursday, September 18, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4433-H4437]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GUARANTEEING RELIABILITY THROUGH THE INTERCONNECTION OF DISPATCHABLE
POWER ACT
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 707, I call up
the bill (H.R. 1047) to require the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission to reform the interconnection queue process for the
prioritization and approval of certain projects, and for other
purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Moran). Pursuant to House Resolution
707, in lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended
by the Committee on Energy and Commerce printed in the bill, an
amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules
Committee Print 119-9 is adopted, and the bill, as amended, is
considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Guaranteeing Reliability
through the Interconnection of Dispatchable Power Act'' or
the ``GRID Power Act''.
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Bulk-power system.--The term ``bulk-power system'' has
the meaning given the term in section 215(a) of the Federal
Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824o(a)).
(2) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission.
(3) Dispatchable power.--The term ``dispatchable power''
means an electric energy generation resource capable of
providing known and forecastable electric supply in time
intervals necessary to ensure grid reliability.
(4) Grid reliability.--The term ``grid reliability'' means
the ability of the electric grid to deliver an adequate,
secure, and stable flow of electricity in the quantity and
with the quality demanded by users, taking into account the
ability of the bulk-power system to withstand sudden
disturbances.
(5) Grid resilience.--The term ``grid resilience'' means
the ability of the electric grid to adapt to changing
physical conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from
significant disturbances, including natural disasters, cyber-
attacks, and other unforeseen events.
(6) Independent system operator.--The term ``Independent
System Operator'' has the meaning given the term in section 3
of the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 796).
(7) Regional transmission organization.--The term
``Regional Transmission Organization'' has the meaning given
the term in section 3 of the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C.
796).
(8) Resource adequacy.--The term ``resource adequacy''
means the ability of the electric system to meet the
aggregate electrical demand and energy requirements of end-
use customers at all times, accounting for scheduled and
reasonably expected unscheduled outages of bulk-power system
components.
(9) Transmission provider.--The term ``transmission
provider'' means--
(A) a public utility (as defined in section 201(e) of the
Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824(e))) that owns, operates, or
controls 1 or more transmission facilities;
(B) an Independent System Operator; and
(C) a Regional Transmission Organization.
SEC. 3. RULEMAKING TO IMPROVE INTERCONNECTION QUEUE
FLEXIBILITY.
(a) In General.--Not later than 90 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Commission shall initiate a
rulemaking--
(1) to address the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of
existing procedures for processing interconnection requests
to ensure that new dispatchable power projects that improve
grid reliability and resource adequacy can interconnect to
the electric grid quickly, cost-effectively, and reliably;
and
(2) to amend the pro forma Large Generator Interconnection
Procedures and, as appropriate, the pro forma Large Generator
Interconnection Agreement, promulgated pursuant to section
35.28(f) of title 18, Code of Federal Regulations (or
successor regulations)--
(A) to authorize transmission providers to submit proposals
to the Commission to adjust the interconnection queue of the
transmission provider to prioritize new dispatchable power
projects that will improve grid reliability and resource
adequacy by assigning those projects higher positions in the
interconnection queue; and
(B) to require transmission providers--
(i) to provide in any proposal described in subparagraph
(A)--
(I) a demonstration of need for prioritization of the
relevant projects; and
(II) a description of how the prioritization of those
projects will improve grid reliability or grid resilience;
(ii) to provide a process for public comment and
stakeholder engagement before a proposal
[[Page H4434]]
described in subparagraph (A) is submitted to the Commission;
and
(iii) to provide regular reporting to the Commission on the
state of grid reliability and grid resilience, including
reporting on any actions taken pursuant to this Act.
(b) Commission Approval.--To ensure timely responses to
grid reliability concerns, not later than 60 days after a
proposal is submitted pursuant to subsection (a)(2), the
Commission shall--
(1) review the proposal; and
(2) approve or deny the proposal.
(c) Deadline for Final Rule.--Not later than 180 days after
the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall
promulgate final regulations to complete the rulemaking
initiated under subsection (a).
(d) Periodic Review.--Not less frequently than once every 5
years, the Commission shall review and, if necessary, update
the regulations promulgated under this section to ensure that
those regulations remain effective and relevant to evolving
grid reliability and grid resilience challenges.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for
1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority
member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective
designees.
The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie) and the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky.
General Leave
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and
insert extraneous material on H.R. 1047.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Kentucky?
There was no objection.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1047, the GRID Power Act,
sponsored by my colleague, Representative Troy Balderson of Ohio's 12th
District.
This legislation would ensure that grid operators have the tools they
need to secure the reliability of the electricity grid in the event
there is a capacity shortfall.
Across two-thirds of the country, grid operators are charged with
ensuring that the lights stay on when you flip a switch. Reliability
isn't a luxury. It is a critical necessity to our way of life and one
of the reasons our economy is the greatest in the world.
Unfortunately, decisions made by the last administration favoring
intermittent, unreliable sources, often at the expense of on-demand,
dispatchable resources like fossil fuels, have made the grid operators'
jobs nearly impossible.
We know that baseload and dispatchable power resources provide the
essential reliability services necessary to maintain the stability of
the electric system at an affordable price. This legislation provides a
pathway for grid operators to bring these resources online quickly if
there is a demonstrated need.
Importantly, this bill does not alter the existing interconnection
process and will work in tandem with reforms made in FERC order number
2023 to alleviate some of the backlogs we have witnessed over the past
several years.
If we fail to build the dispatchable resources needed to power next-
generation industries, we will cede American leadership on the world
stage to Communist regimes such as China and raise costs on consumers
along the way.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the legislation as it
will make our grid more reliable and lower America's electricity bills.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill.
After their big, ugly bill made energy more expensive for American
families already struggling to make ends meet, Republicans are
attempting to finish the job by further continuing their nonsensical
attack on clean energy.
This bill would aim to make it harder to hook clean power up to the
electric grid and would remove safeguards intended to ensure that the
entities in charge of our power grid can't discriminate against clean
energy.
While the regulatory processes that power grid operators use to hook
power plants up to the grid does not make for riveting television time,
it is still very important, especially at a time when power demand is
rising and we must get more clean energy onto the electric grid.
If you listen to Republicans, they will tell you that the main point
of this bill is to allow grid operators to prioritize resources they
can get on the grid as quickly as possible, yet they are conveniently
ignoring the fact that grid operators can already do that.
This isn't some hypothetical power. Grid operators from the mid-
Atlantic, the Midwest, and the Great Plains have this year all made
tweaks to the processes they use to hook power plants up to the grid.
In reality, the point of this bill, in my opinion, is to prioritize
fossil fuel plants by allowing them to jump to the front of the line
ahead of wind, solar, and battery storage.
This is really preposterous when you consider that 94 percent of
proposed power generation waiting to be interconnected is zero-carbon
clean energy.
Republicans want grid operators to be able to discriminate against
renewable power, continuing Trump's war against clean, cheap energy,
and Republicans are trying to kill off the only realistic source of
electricity growth and of our Nation. That is clean energy. There is
nothing here more complicated than that. That is what they are trying
to do, kill clean energy.
It is a real shame because we do need to find ways to add more energy
to the grid. Prices have skyrocketed in my home State of New Jersey,
largely because of decisions that the PJM, our grid operator, made 5 to
10 years ago that created a clogged queue for power plants waiting to
hook up to the grid.
It has been a disaster.
While recent rules from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have
helped, we have to do more. Instead of focusing on picking winners and
losers in the interconnection queue, we should focus instead on
speeding up the processing of the entire queue so power plants can get
online as quickly as possible because we need more power from all
sources.
We should focus on making it easier to build the necessary grid
infrastructure upgrades so power can get online. We should do it all in
a way that is fair to American families paying the bills.
This bill does none of that. It simply gives a fast pass to Big Oil
and Gas, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Balderson), my good friend and sponsor of this
legislation, who is a leader on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Mr. BALDERSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, the GRID Power Act.
This legislation is critical to ensure our Nation has the
dispatchable baseload power needed to meet historic demand growth and
guarantee that the lights turn on when our constituents flip the
switch.
PJM, the largest grid operator in the Nation and sole grid operator
for my home State of Ohio, has announced that they expect to lose about
40 gigawatts of generation by 2030. That is 21 percent of PJM's total
capacity, and new power generation is not coming online quickly enough
to offset the risk posed by retiring resources.
{time} 1410
Between 2022 and 2023 alone, PJM saw over 11,000 megawatts of
generation deactivated while only adding 4,000 megawatts of new
generation to the grid. It doesn't take an expert to see that retiring
power plants outpacing new generation is a problem.
This is especially concerning for my district and central Ohio, which
has become a national hub for data center construction. These new
facilities are at the heart of powering the AI revolution, but we must
now figure out how we can power them while ensuring our constituents
have access to reliable and affordable energy.
We saw how close we were to power scarcity in Ohio over the summer,
as utilities warned Ohio residents to reduce energy power during peak
demand to help prevent rolling power outages. Ohio families should not
have to face a power emergency for running their air conditioning.
We have the natural resources needed. We have the ability to build
more
[[Page H4435]]
power generation. This is clearly a public policy failure, and we can
fix it by addressing the broken interconnection process.
Interconnection queues are lists maintained by transmission system
operators--such as independent system operators, regional transmission
organizations, or transmission providers--that track pending requests
for new generation facilities to connect to the grid.
Right now, our Nation's interconnection queues are buckling under
their own weight. The growing backlog of projects is adding years to an
already slow process and prevents shovel-ready projects from being
built and connected.
According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, almost 2,600
gigawatts of generation projects are sitting in interconnection queues
across the country. That is more than double the amount of the existing
generation currently on the grid. The median wait time for projects has
now stretched to 5 years.
With demand growth accelerating and retirements mounting in Ohio and
across the country, we cannot afford to wait 5 years or more, and we
certainly cannot afford to keep delaying critical projects.
The GRID Power Act addresses this by requiring FERC to develop rules
that allow grid operators to fast-track critical generation needed to
ensure reliability and meet demand, bypassing the years-long wait in
the interconnection queue.
The bill also promotes transparency by requiring that grid operators
provide opportunities for public comment and stakeholder engagement
before submitting proposals to FERC. Operators must also provide
regular reports to FERC on the state of grid reliability and actions
taken under this bill.
Finally, FERC must review and, if necessary, update its regulations
to ensure they remain effective in addressing evolving challenges to
grid reliability and resiliency.
Let me be clear: This bill is fuel-neutral. Nowhere in the text does
it single out fossil fuels or renewables. Instead, it establishes a
process to fast-track projects based on their ability to enhance the
reliability and resiliency of the electric grid.
As we face a looming electricity shortfall, we must recognize that
weather-dependent, intermittent resources alone cannot meet the
challenge. Grid operators across the Nation have been clear over the
last several years that we need more dispatchable power to come online
to protect us from rolling blackouts.
If we want to keep American businesses running and ensure
uninterrupted power for our constituents, we must fix the broken
interconnection queue.
I urge all of my colleagues to support this commonsense bill that
equips our grid operators with the tools they need to do their job. I
would like to end by thanking Chairman Guthrie, Subcommittee Chairman
Latta, and the Energy and Commerce Committee staff for all their hard
work in getting this bill to the floor.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor), the ranking member of our Energy
Subcommittee.
Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for
yielding the time.
I rise in opposition to H.R. 1047. It is a bill that will give
polluting gas plants an unfair and costly shortcut to the electric grid
while doing nothing to protect working families from rising energy
costs.
This is an unfortunate theme this Congress. Despite the promises of
the President and my Republican colleagues in Congress, they haven't
brought any bill that will help address the affordability squeeze.
Right now, as we debate this package of energy bills, there is a big
discussion going on about the Republican budget that is coming to the
floor likely tomorrow, and Democrats are here to say we are going to
fight to protect Americans' pocketbooks. We want lower costs.
We know the impact of the big, ugly bill was to raise healthcare
costs and to raise energy bills. It is really time that the average
working American get a break for a change. We want to cancel the cuts
of the ACA. The Affordable Care Act tax credits are a pathway to
affordability and lifesaving care, and it appears that the Republicans
are going to refuse to reinstate those tax credits. We want to fight to
lower costs, to protect Medicaid, to save healthcare. This is the
larger context of this debate on energy bills, as well.
This bill is a good example. You can peer into Congress and say,
okay, who is fighting for me. This GRID Power Act is unnecessary. What
has been happening is that cleaner, cheaper sources of energy are
waiting to come onto the grid, and the Trump administration and
Republicans in Congress now are throwing up as many barriers as
possible because they are on the side of the polluters.
You can see, we had a coal bill. This is a gas bill. What about the
cleaner, cheaper energy that is waiting right now to come onto the
queue? They are throwing barriers up to getting those cost savings to
hardworking families. This does nothing to ensure a reliable grid,
which is so vitally important at a time of more extreme events.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has the power already to
approve changes to the interconnection queue process. That is a funny
term for how we bring sources of energy onto the grid, this disjointed
grid across the country. FERC can prioritize what power sources come
onto the grid when it deems necessary. You don't need to give an unfair
costly shortcut to gas plants.
These kind of decisions on how we are going to power our lives and
connect resources to the grid, these are very complex decisions, and
you want robust analysis. You want an independent FERC fully staffed
with experts to make these decisions in partnership with local grid
operators, clearly, because FERC already has the authority to do a lot
of this as long as it is supported by evidence.
This Republican bill says: Forget the evidence. We are just going to
give this fast-pass to gas companies. It allows them to cut in line,
and that is unfair. What they should be doing is speeding the cleaner,
cheaper resources to the grid, giving them a fair shot to do it.
We had a committee meeting in the Energy Subcommittee this week, and
we had the acting general counsel from the Department of Energy appear
before us. Just to show you the fast-pass that polluters and gas
companies are getting, we asked him about the Energy Secretary's trip
overseas to try to sell more natural gas from Americans. I asked him:
Well, have you done any analysis on this to show that that is not going
to raise costs on American ratepayers and consumers?
He said: No, not that I know of.
If you keep pushing exports of our energy resources, what happens to
the costs for hardworking families here, and what happens to domestic
businesses as those resources go elsewhere, as well?
One of FERC's responsibilities is to keep prices affordable. That is
made possible by competition. You want this resource to be as resource
neutral as much as possible. If you don't believe in neutrality, what
you are going to do? You are going to stifle American innovation and
entrepreneurship.
{time} 1420
When you talk about reliability, it isn't a description of an
individual generator, but rather it is an attribute that applies to the
entire grid across the country. It is not a given that additional
dispatchable resources aid reliability themselves. You have to rely on
a mix of generation, different fuels, and wires to make sure everyone
can get the power they need all the time.
When you put your finger on the scale of a certain power source and
then put barriers to others, especially cleaner, cheaper sources, that
is just a recipe for higher costs for businesses and consumers alike.
When this bill came before our committee, I had an answer to a lot of
this dysfunction about how we expedite resources to the grid. My
amendment said that for any projects that are prioritized in the
interconnection queue by this bill, if you are going to expedite them,
then we want to see proof that they are coming online within 4 years.
My Republican colleagues didn't want to shine the light on the gas
plants that can't come online in 4 years, and they all voted down my
amendment.
If they are genuinely concerned about meeting demand growth in the
[[Page H4436]]
next 4 years and genuinely believe that gas is going to do that, they
could have agreed to this amendment, but everyone voted it down.
Here is the dirty little secret that everyone in the energy industry
knows right now, but Republicans are glossing over: There is a critical
shortage of gas turbines. That means the cost of gas plants is already
facing inflationary pressures. Those inflationary pressures, who are
they passed on to? They are passed on to consumers back home, to
hardworking American families. If you haven't ordered your gas turbine
now, you are not getting it this decade.
The only way we are going to meet growing electricity demand in the
next few years is through cleaner, cheaper power that is waiting to
come onto the grid--wind, batteries, distributed energy sources, demand
response, grid-enhancing technologies, and other solutions.
This is an incoherent energy policy from the Trump administration.
You say you want more power. We need more power. We have AI data
centers, but let's kill the offshore wind projects. Let's create
barriers to getting sources of energy onto the grid that are ready to
come onto the grid, and let's make life more expensive for hardworking
people because we are going to say, no, only gas plants get that fast
pass, but we don't have the turbines and the infrastructure to get them
on the grid.
That is incoherent. That means that it is going to be costly, and
that is the last thing that our neighbors need back home. They want
people working together on solutions.
Ripping healthcare away, making healthcare coverage more expensive,
and making electric bills more expensive, all of these policies are
unpopular. I wish we could get back to working together on real
solutions for the American people. I believe they need relief from the
cost of living, and we should be working together to get there.
Mr. Speaker, let's reject this bill and get back to working on those
solutions together.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman), who is a good friend of mine and
a leader in Congress in energy policies and national security policies
and a member of the Committee on Armed Services.
Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R.
1047, the GRID Power Act.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Balderson for leading on this
bill and Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie and his staff for
their incredible work on this. I thank the chairman for all of his
efforts to make sure that we have the energy grid that we need for the
future.
Mr. Speaker, we know where the demands are coming from. We know that
we have to have the additional high-performance data capability if we
are going to lead in artificial intelligence. We know we are in a race
with China. We know that, for the future of this Nation, for the future
of our children, we want to make sure that we are on the right path. We
know that we will use AI for the right purposes. I don't think anybody
believes that China is going to use AI for the right purposes.
Across the First Congressional District in the Commonwealth of
Virginia, I hear from my constituents about the rising costs of energy,
whether it is at the gas pump or their power bills.
I am proud to cosponsor this bill, H.R. 1047, because policies like
this ensure a supply of reliable, affordable electricity generation. In
turn, we want to do everything we can to lower costs for American
households while providing necessary energy.
We have challenges now. The demand is going to increase precipitously
in the years to come. How do we make sure we meet that demand? How do
we make sure we have not just the generation sources in place but also
the transmission systems that work together to make sure that we are
working against any sort of large-scale failure scenarios that make a
problem for us in the long term? We have to address those problems now.
To achieve this, we have to give our regional transmission
organizations and our independent systems operators the necessary
authority to prioritize projects that increase interconnectivity, to
make sure these systems interconnect so that if there is a problem
somewhere, we can bring power back in.
That is what makes our grid today so incredibly important. If there
is a breakdown in transmission somewhere, we can find other ways to
bring power to people's homes. If there is a breakdown there with
generation, we can find other ways to bring power to people's homes,
bring power to people's businesses. That is why maintaining and
increasing that reliability in the future is key.
Resiliency in that grid is key, too. How do we do that? We make sure
that we do even more to empower the decisionmakers to have maximum
flexibility to make sure that they can put new improvements to our grid
in place to make sure that every bit of power generation capacity and
every bit of transmission capacity is ensured so that it gets power to
the consumer, to our families, and to our businesses. They rely on
that.
We know the interruption that it has. If you have power that goes out
at your home or power that goes out at your business, that is a major
inconvenience and, in some instances, a major interruption in your
business. It can be a major safety factor, too, for families that rely
on that power for things that are critical to people's well-being at
their homes.
We have to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this
happen. By expediting the resources necessary to advance this
reliability, increase the reliability, and increase the resiliency in
the grid, we know that this legislation will help achieve that.
We know that this will help us unleash American energy production in
vast, new, improved ways. Again, modernize the grid and increase
reliability. Those things are key.
We want to make sure that we are doing that because that brings down
the cost of living and brings down the cost of power. When things are
more reliable, we have more opportunities to provide power in many
different ways. That brings down costs. This bill will allow us to do
that.
It also helps us restore American energy dominance, where we are
using all of the above. We want to use every asset at our avail, both
our energy itself, with what we produce there on the grid, and the
transmission within the grid.
We know that this is key for our working families and our small
businesses. That is the foundation of strong communities, and it starts
with making sure that we have a grid that has maximum reliability and
maximum resilience. This bill achieves that.
In closing, I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. Speaker, again, I thank Chairman Guthrie for his leadership and
Representative Balderson for introducing this bill.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over
a number of issues, including energy, but we also have jurisdiction
over the FCC. Beyond that, this House, in my opinion, and the Members
of this House have an obligation to guarantee free speech in our
democracy at all times.
Yesterday, FCC Chairman Carr used his position to launch a swift and
decisive campaign to remove Jimmy Kimmel from the Nation's airwaves.
Let's not kid ourselves about what happened. President Trump has been
openly trying to get Jimmy Kimmel fired since his first term. Press
reports detail White House staff calls to Disney as far back as 2018 to
complain about Kimmel's jokes, but now, President Trump has a willing
partner at the FCC with Chairman Carr.
An agency that once prized its independence is now overtly being used
as the personal speech police of the President of the United States, a
cudgel against dissent.
{time} 1430
Mr. Speaker, Chairman Carr issued a public threat to Disney, ABC. He
said: ``We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies
can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or
there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.''
Given that the FCC licenses all ABC stations, both stations owned and
operated by Disney and third-party-owned
[[Page H4437]]
ABC affiliates, this threat carried real weight. Licenses can be
revoked by the agency, wrecking a company.
The threat sparked Nexstar and Sinclair, two affiliate owners, to
preempt Kimmel's show from the ABC programming stream and leaving
Disney with no other choice but to suspend Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely.
It is no surprise that these affiliate companies also seek regulatory
favor from the FCC.
Mr. Speaker, there was a time when my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle would be outraged by this government overreach. They would
not condone this assault on free speech. There was a time when
companies, particularly American broadcasters, would hold the line and
assert their constitutional rights for all of us.
Apparently, that time is over. It is a dark day indeed. We need to be
clear about two things: One, all Jimmy Kimmel did was speak. Two, it is
not freedom when a private company decides to shut down speech to avoid
punishment from the government.
That needs to end now, and that means that Chairman Carr should
resign. I urge my colleagues to keep in mind that the First Amendment
is the most important amendment and probably the most important part of
our Constitution to guarantee free speech.
Not only does this need to end now, but we have to continue to speak
out when we see violations of free speech, both by the President, by
the FCC, or by anyone else, frankly, who we have jurisdiction over. I
feel very strongly about this, but I do want to go back to the energy
issue in the bill that is before us today.
Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle claim they are
for all of the above. I have heard that over and over again from the
Republicans. They are for all of the above with regard to energy
consumption.
The bills today show that is simply not true. It is not accurate when
they say that. I have to thank Secretary of Energy Chris Wright for
being honest about this. At a Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing
in June, he was very blunt. He said: ``These companies can find ways to
change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there is going
to be additional work for the FCC ahead.''
Mr. Speaker, there we have it. The Trump administration is staunchly
against all of the above. That makes sense because their actions at
least match their rhetoric. They are doing everything they can to put
their thumb on the scale for dirty energy and cancel every clean energy
project they possibly can, no matter how helpful it might be to keep
electricity bills down or keep the lights on.
We have a duty to ensure that our power grid can keep the lights on.
Even if Republicans don't like to admit it, that means adding clean
energy to the grid. It is the quickest source of energy to add to the
grid, given the current multiyear gas turbine shortage.
Grid reliability regulators have been clear that renewable energy and
batteries were critical in allowing the grid to endure multiple heat
waves this summer. That is why Texas added more solar and wind energy
to their power grid than any other State in the country in the wake of
the blackouts during Winter Storm Uri 4 years ago. Solar and wind helps
keep the lights on.
Unfortunately, Republicans seem uninterested in acknowledging the
basic reality that solar and wind, partnered with batteries, can be an
essential part of a reliable power grid. Instead, they have done
everything they can to increase the costs for these technologies and
make it harder to add clean energy to the grid.
Mr. Speaker, between this bill and the big, ugly bill, every time
Americans open their power bill or see their lights flicker,
Republicans are responsible. I think the American people will hold them
accountable.
For all these reasons, I oppose this bill, as I oppose the other two
energy bills today. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Balderson for
sponsoring the GRID Power Act.
Mr. Speaker, this is part of the strategy we all have to do to
produce more power so we can have cheaper power. Demand is rising. We
need supply to rise. We need supply of dispatchable power to rise.
I do believe in the all of the above. I also believe it is also the
best of the above. Dispatchable power is important, and I encourage a
``yes'' vote.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 707, the
previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was
read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
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