During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) spoke about the Republican reconciliation bill's energy policies.
00:00Thank you very much. Mr. Peters, you have six minutes. Thank you very much. The gentleman from California, you recognize. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the witnesses. Thanks for allowing me to participate. This is something I care a lot about. And not unlike a lot of these things, I think there's a lot of talking past each other. Let me just start by talking a little bit about what's really happening in China.
00:20Today, the current energy mix there is 38% coal, 26% solar, 16% wind, 13% hydro, 3% gas, less than 50% oil and gas. And what they're doing is they are developing now 94 gigawatts of coal. That's true.
00:39But 80 gigawatts in 2024 went in of wind and 227 gigawatts they installed in 2024 of solar with 720 gigawatts in development. This is a country that's really talking about all of the above. And this is why I'm interested in permanent reform. Unfortunately, I should also mention interregional transmission. Since 2014, North America has completed seven gigawatts of interregional transmission.
01:05The comparable number in South America is 22. In Europe, 44. And in China, 260 gigawatts of interregional transmission. We are not competing against China. And I know, Mr. Campbell, you raised that issue. We need more energy. And I couldn't agree more.
01:20We took a big step backwards with the big bill that the Republicans passed, which, because of the loss of the incentives we had in there, could cost us as much as 302 gigawatts of energy. We are stepping, we took a big step backwards.
01:35And I know that's the Republicans' right to do it. But I think that's, that's not what we want to do. And the reason I'm interested, and I would say, back to talking to Mr. Mr. Hergott, this battle is not over one energy source or another. This is about all energy sources that we need to get permitted.
01:51And I'm not speaking today against natural gas. I'm saying, we're going to need it all. And, but it has affected the things I care about as an environmentalist, including public transportation, which gets litigated a lot, including renewable energy and including forests, which are, which actually, forest projects are the subject of more environmental litigation than anything here.
02:10Fortunately, Mr. Westerman and I have a bill to deal with that, that involves serious reform. I'm very proud of it, hope it will get passed.
02:18But I have to say, Mr. Professor Mergen, I'm not sure I would call you as the witness on whether NEPA is a problem.
02:25Because I am, I'm a lawyer. I'm also a government employee. Don't tell these folks we're government employees here.
02:32I have nothing against them. But the people I want to hear from and people I do hear from are the people trying to develop clean energy projects.
02:38And they complain consistently that permitting is, is a problem. And that no one suggests that NEPA is the entire problem.
02:45I think that's a straw man. We, we think that NEPA is a big part of the problem.
02:49The reason I think it's vexing for people is because it is purely procedural. It doesn't offer the substance of protection of the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act or the Endangered Species Act.
02:58It's a purely procedural thing. And to some extent, at least, it is getting in the way.
03:04And it's not just the effect of NEPA or the time it takes to prepare, to prepare a document, or the time it takes to litigate that.
03:13It's the fear of going in. It's the investors being dissuaded by the risk that's imposed by that process.
03:20And this was a problem before Doge. I mean, I think that there's limitations on the notion that it's the number of employees driving this process.
03:26I think there are problems with the process itself.
03:29And I think that this was, this was enacted in good faith in 1969, 1970 to deal with those problems.
03:37But today, the problem with climate change is we have to act fast, and we are not acting fast.
03:44Speed is a problem for us.
03:46And unlike in the 70s, when we were playing defense, now as climate advocates, we have to play offense.
03:52We're trying to build offshore wind. We're trying to build direct air capture.
03:56We're trying to build utility-scale solar.
03:58We're trying to build a lot of stuff to push back on this crisis.
04:01We're told it's a 10-year crisis, and we act like it's not a crisis.
04:07And I'm talking about this side of the aisle.
04:08So I want to get, I want to get permitting right for those reasons.
04:13I would say that Dusty Johnson from South Carolina and I introduced last week an e-permitting bill
04:19that we think will provide a lot of, that we think the American Petroleum Institute likes,
04:24Natural Resources Defense Council likes,
04:26and provide a central point of input for materials that all the agencies can get at,
04:30but also better opportunities for communities to expeditiously participate
04:35in a way that's really much more directed.
04:38And I think that that's all to the good.
04:41I want to say, though, one thing is that the other step back we're taking now
04:45is that Republicans have to agree to enforce the law.
04:48And Mr. Hergott, I was really rooting for you. I loved your testimony.
04:52But the notion that you could come in here and say
04:55that all these permitting issues are a challenge for us
04:59and that people are putting their risk capital on the line
05:02and then at the end say
05:04when we hear that the president is messing with issued permits on offshore wind
05:09say that commenting on that is not your job
05:11that really, I think, undercuts your credibility.
05:14And I think the problem I have with the folks on the other side of the aisle
05:17is they want to make a deal with me on permitting reform.
05:20I have to have the assurance from them
05:21that they're going to have the president,
05:23we're all going to have our president, if we want to look at it that way,
05:26the president of our party, enforce the deal that we did.
05:29And you see exactly the opposite happening here.
05:32You see a permit executive order on permitting, just boiling gas.
05:36That's not going to bring us together.
05:39We see a president, after all the process, saying,
05:43well, no, the Secretary of the Interior's got to sign off on individual projects.
05:47You know, we were going to have 60,000 to 200,000 energy projects.
05:51We were going to have that under the iron.
05:52There is no way that's going to help the process move any faster.
05:56And then we had, we thought that the people who supported clean energy
06:00on this side of the deal, on the other side of the aisle,
06:03as part of the IRA, had reached an agreement.
06:05And then we heard there was a side deal with Mr. Norman in the Freedom Caucus.
06:09That can't happen.
06:10And I'm just saying, let's all agree now that whatever deal we make,
06:14and I hope we can make a deal, Mr. Chairman,
06:16that we'll all stand behind, that we demand that the executive branch
06:21back us up if we make a deal.
06:23And I think we can make progress under those circumstances.
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