-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PADILLA. Madam President and colleagues, I am here to share some good news. This past weekend, California State lawmakers passed a package of legislation to lower the cost of living for working families.

I say this is good news because every day, Americans continue to wake up to higher and higher prices in so many ways. We all feel it at the grocery store. Many of us felt it these past few weeks as we were back- to-school shopping. We, I think, are about to see it in our healthcare costs pretty soon. We are certainly feeling it in our monthly energy bills.

I can give a lot of examples, but I want to focus today on our energy bills and what California is doing and what we seem to be doing here in Congress.

I think it is timely because despite the fact that then-candidate Donald Trump promised to ``slash prices by half within 12 months,'' the reality is that, today, not only are we not seeing energy prices go down, we are actually seeing them go up. That is right. They are actually rising twice as fast as inflation. So much for keeping your promises.

Many Americans are struggling to keep up with these bills so much that they are now turning to payment plans just to keep the lights on. So in California this last weekend, lawmakers did something about it, and I think it is notable. Together, Governor Newsom and the legislature took several steps to strengthen our energy portfolio and lower prices for consumers.

I want to point out just some of the highlights of these significant but meaningful steps. This includes working to increase the supply of energy that Californians count on, and it includes working with counterparts more formally now in States like Oregon and Washington to create a regional electrical grid across the Western United States.

But even for the progress that we are making at the State level and at the regional level, what is so frustrating is that at the national level, Republicans continue to pursue policies that are increasing our energy costs.

This administration is shamelessly working to block one of our best defenses against rising energy bills: renewable energy. And I say so because renewable energy is absolutely affordable; renewable energy is abundant; and whether you want to admit it or not, renewable energy sources are our future.

I know I have heard a lot of my Republican colleagues for years say that, well, renewable energy is simply too expensive. But the reality is that, today, solar is half the cost of coal and significantly cheaper than natural gas. Wind power, too, is also cheaper than both coal and gas.

Having heard the counterarguments, again, for years, I know others will say: Well, we shouldn't be subsidizing renewable energy sources, as if the fossil fuel industry hasn't been propped up by subsidies over the years. And even more recently, I suggest look no further than Trump's ``Big Beautiful Bill''--plenty of subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. And, finally, I have heard naysayers say that, well, we can't depend on renewable energy because it is just not reliable. What happens when the Sun is not shining? What happens when the wind is not blowing? We have a genuine concern about intermittency. So do we.

But guess what. California--yes, the same California that has grown to be the fourth largest economy in the world--is showing how we can overcome those concerns and solve those problems. See, over the last few years alone, California has brought renewable energy capacity onto the grid in record numbers. In 2023, clean energy made up two-thirds of our retail electricity. And it is not just bringing more renewable energy onto the grid; we have simultaneously made the grid more reliable. That is in part because, since 2019, battery storage capacity in California has grown by nearly 2,000 percent. So we are harnessing the power of solar and wind and hydroelectric power and nuclear, geothermal--even hydrogen power--to our State.

It is exactly because of those investments that even in a year like 2024, just last year, when we experienced record heat waves, we also saw record renewable energy generation and we kept the lights on.

Now, we are not naive. We know that with a growing population and a growing economy, including but not limited to the future of an AI boom, demand will continue to grow. But we are committed to the kind of inclusive portfolio of energy options that has made our grid more reliable.

But despite that progress, despite that success story, Donald Trump and many of our Republican colleagues have continued to wage war on clean energy. This administration and Department of Energy Secretary Wright say they support an all-of-the-above strategy--this was actually a very intentional conversation we had at Secretary Wright's confirmation hearing in committee months and months ago--but the facts show otherwise.

What we have seen over the last several months is the Trump administration cut historic tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act that were lowering costs and supercharging our clean energy transition.

This administration has canceled offshore wind projects, including one that was nearly complete off the coast of Rhode Island, and they are clawing back funding from job-creating solar projects that are lowering energy bills. This makes no sense. According to Climate Power, since Donald Trump was elected to his second term, over 120 clean energy projects across the country have either been canceled, delayed, or they are laying off staff. That is certainly not good for the economy and not good for job creation. It is not good for the grid. Taking nearly 14,000 megawatts off the grid--that is the equivalent of removing power to supply 8.4 million homes in America. No wonder prices are rising. It is simple supply and demand. But at the same time, Donald Trump is paying to extend the life of older fossil fuel plants, which will only raise costs. When they are older, they tend to be dirtier. When they are older, they are more expensive to maintain. And all of this while ceding our global leadership in renewable energy production and innovation to China. Now, that is not just bad for consumers; it is not just bad for reliability; it is literally putting lives at risk.

Every year that we burn more fossil fuel than we need to, our climate crisis worsens. That means more frequent and more devastating extreme weather--not just in California but across the country. In California, it has led to a worsening drought, relentless atmospheric rivers, and-- yes, all too often--life-threatening wildfires, just as we experienced in the Los Angeles region this past January.

It is no surprise that Donald Trump loves to attack California's leaders on wildfire policy and our climate leadership. We also know he loves to play politics with disaster funding. That record is clear. He continues to dig us deeper and deeper into an energy policy that actually increases the risk of the next great disaster, and Californians will be left to clean up the mess.

So here in the Senate, I have worked hard to try to address that. We passed the FIRE Act a couple of years ago to help FEMA better prepare for and respond to wildfires. We secured the transfer of seven C-130 Hercules aircraft to strengthen our arsenal and to fight against deadly wildfires, adding to CAL FIRE's largest aerial firefighting fleet in the world. I continue to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to build support for the Fix Our Forests Act to improve forest management practices, protect urban areas from devastation, and harness our technology and our expertise.

I am proud of that work we have been doing, but the backdrop of all of that is still an indisputable fact that reliance on fossil fuels comes at a cost, and Americans--not just Californians but Americans-- are paying for it in the form of higher energy bills and in lives destroyed after these major disasters.

So no matter how many times Donald Trump says it, we can never and will never ``drill, baby, drill'' our way to cheaper energy costs. Our solution has to be a more inclusive approach to our energy portfolios, and we also need to streamline projects and speed up the timeline it takes to get them approved, to get them completed, and to get them online. We need to make our grid more efficient by supporting the buildup of our transmission system and the regionalization of our grid. Regional cooperation means improved efficiency and improved reliability. That is how we meet our growing demand--more options, not less; more cooperation, not less; and more sources of energy, not less.

Trump might continue to lie to the American people about renewable energy, but Americans know that this energy crisis doesn't have to continue forever, and California is proud to show the way forward.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source