Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chair, my amendment is just plain common sense. It addresses the importance of all types of research and development funding at the Department of Energy, specifically the energy research conducted at the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

I believe we need a plan that is closer to parity between renewable energy and fossil fuels and research on ways to reduce the environmental and climate impact of the use of fossil fuels.

In the underlying bill, $2.994 billion is appropriated for energy efficiency and renewable energy, while only $857.9 million is appropriated for fossil energy and carbon mitigation. I am advocating with this amendment that we should be closer to parity between the amount of money appropriated for fossil energy and carbon mitigation research and DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. My amendment increases the fossil energy and carbon mitigation account by $600 million, along with a reduction of $1.1 billion from the renewables account.

This year alone, we have seen that these concepts that we are going to get rid of fossil fuels are just not realistic, Mr. Chairman. We saw a plant open up, or at least the plans for it, a Panasonic plant in Kansas, that was going to do electric vehicle batteries. The problem was, in order to get the plant, they needed more electricity. The electric utility in Kansas, Evergy, decided that one of the coal-fired power plants that they thought they were going to do away with, close down, they needed to keep it open because they couldn't build electric vehicle batteries without the fossil fuel, coal-powered plant.

This is not the only place that we see that. In India, there are about 300 million people who don't have electricity, a little bit less than the population of the United States. They don't have a steady source of electricity. If you are a leader in India, Mr. Chairman, I would submit, and you have coal, which they do, you are probably going to build some coal-fired power plants because their people deserve and want the same kind of electricity that we have in our country, at least for now, so they are going to build coal-fired power plants.

China has been building coal-fired power plants left and right. Some of the numbers indicate that the energy production of those plants is equal to about two new plants every week last year. They are also funding more coal-fired power plants in sub-Saharan Africa.

Here is what we have. While we want to clean up the environment, the world is going to continue to use fossil fuels, particularly coal, not just in the United States. People say we can be completely pure, but that is myopic. We can't be because when we look at the air supply in the world, according to a NASA study a few years back, it takes about 10 days for air to travel from the middle of the Gobi Desert in China to the eastern shore of Virginia.

When all of these other places are using fossil fuels, isn't it smart on our part, if we want a clean environment, Mr. Chairman, that we find better ways to use that coal-fired power, that we find better ways to use gas power? We are going to continue to use it whether we think we are or not, and the rest of the world is going to continue to use it.

With the money we spend here, we can export that research and get some of the money back maybe, but more importantly, we can clean up the air for the entire world instead of thinking that we are living in some kind of bubble in the United States and that if we get rid of coal- fired power plants and fossil fuel plants, everything is going to be hunky-dory.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chairman, I say to my distinguished colleague and my friend that we disagree, and here is why. We have to get to a point where we are at parity. Every time we look at it, the money for renewables is huge, and the money for fossil fuel research, where we can make things better for the whole world, is minuscule in comparison. I am trying to level it out, and I would hope that that would be the long-term goal of our appropriators, to level it out. That is why I brought this amendment.

I, too, am for all of the above. That is why I didn't zero out the account. However, I think we have to pay attention to what is happening in the world and not be myopic when it comes to recognizing that if we are going to continue to use fossil fuels, we ought to do it cleaner and do it better. We ought to put more money into U.S. research on fossil fuels, everything from using fossil fuels to come up with rare earth to making it cleaner when we burn it for electricity to build electric vehicle battery plants.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source