'It's Astounding!': Scott Perry Blasts Dems Over Renewable Energy Subsidies

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During a House Oversight Committee hearing in July, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) spoke about subsidies for renewable energy projects.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, for five

00:06minutes. Well thank you Mr. Chairman and thanks to the panel for being here. I have

00:10the distinct honor of representing the district that much of lies in the shadow

00:16of the towers, the cooling towers of Three Mile Island. I'm also happy to

00:21report that it is a vibrant, healthy, and productive community in the shadow of

00:28Three Mile Island and most of the residents are absolutely thrilled that

00:33the jobs will be coming back, that the lights will be coming on, and that the

00:36power of Three Mile Island will be produced. And I for one hope that they

00:40will install a second reactor, one of the ones that we're talking about here today,

00:45on that site that is so well situated for such a facility. Now I can't I can't go

00:54on without just noting that my friends on the other side of the aisle seem to be

01:00concerned about the profits that are made by power companies that engage in

01:05constructing and operating nuclear nuclear facilities. Well it seems to me over the

01:11course of at least the last ten years my colleagues on that side of the aisle have

01:17promoted and enacted policies that have increased the bills of my constituents, my bosses, my

01:26neighbors, the people I live around, I don't know, maybe tenfold. It's astounding. They don't seem to care

01:33how much citizens pay for electricity and how much renewable, we'll be kind, we'll call them renewable

01:42energy operators make on government subsidies and mandates because their

01:47products simply can't compete in the market. They seem to have no problem with

01:52that. But I just think it's important that we at least attempt to set the record

01:57straight while we're in one of these hearings and have the counter discussion to

02:01just assuming that profit is bad, that everybody that runs a nuclear facility is

02:07dangerous, careless, and doesn't care about the citizens that they serve. And only

02:14people interested in renewables are willing to give up all their profits, which

02:20they're not, and provide low-cost energy to the masses, which they're not that

02:26either. As a matter of fact it's the highest cost energy and it's also very much

02:31more dangerous than nuclear energy. But that having been said, because I'm going on,

02:35Mr. Epstein, the Advance Act required that the NRC now switch to general

02:43environmental impact statements. One of the things that drives what kind of

02:50energy produced is how investments, when individuals, when concerns invest their

02:59money in something, they want to know that they're going to get a return on it and I

03:02hope they get a profit too because they're investing in something and putting

03:06their money at risk. That's how things work in America. But putting your money at

03:11risk for 15 or 20 years without any, without any surety that there's going to be a

03:18positive outcome is a detractor from that investment. And essentially the

03:24regulations that are in place now are deterrent to the advancement of nuclear

03:32energy and general production itself. So if you could just briefly explain how not

03:40doing the same thing over and over and over again for the same kind of design is

03:44going to be helpful to the industry, save the industry money, and in turn save my bosses,

03:50citizens of America, my constituents money.

03:54For sure. So I think it's really important that you raise the issue of profit, because we absolutely

04:01want nuclear energy companies to be able to make a profit by competing to provide the lowest cost,

04:07most reliable energy. Just like we want phone manufacturers to be able to make a profit,

04:11providing the most cost-effective phones, AI people, providing the most cost-effective AI, etc.

04:18The problems arise, there are two kinds of problems that arise. One is when you

04:22restrict the ability of profit-making entities to compete by not allowing them to do their jobs,

04:27which things like having a new environmental impact statement for every nuclear plant,

04:30even if it's the exact same thing, that just dramatically increases costs. The other thing that

04:35you raised is when you subsidize inferior forms of energy, that also raises costs. We always pay more

04:41total, but in particular with solar and wind, it's particularly egregious, because what it does

04:46is it puts more intermittent, unreliable solar and wind on the grid that doesn't replace the reliable

04:52energy. It adds to the cost of reliable energy. It allows them to win all of the market bids,

04:58so they take the money away from the reliable power plants. Reliable power plants get defunded,

05:02can't make a profit. This is why we have a shortage of gas turbines, one of the reasons why nuclear is in

05:07bad shape, but we cannot build dispatchable capacity profitably, because we've screwed up

05:11the markets with subsidies. So the big, beautiful bill, by far the best thing about it, in my opinion,

05:16was dramatic cuts to these grid-destroying, price-increasing solar and wind subsidies.

05:21Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I give them.

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