Pete Ricketts Rails Against Biden's 'War On American Energy'

4 months ago

During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) spoke about the Biden Administration's energy policies.

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Transcript

00:00 Senator from Nebraska. Thank you, Madam President.

00:04 Madam President, I rise today to join my colleagues in opposing the Biden administration's anti-energy policies.

00:12 From the EV mandate to the so-called Clean Power Plan 2.0,

00:17 the Biden administration's war on American energy threatens the livelihoods of millions of Americans and American families.

00:26 Let's start with the EPA's delusional and reckless electric vehicle mandate.

00:32 It requires up to two-thirds of all cars and light trucks being sold in 2032 to be electric vehicles.

00:39 It's delusional because it will block low-income families from owning a car.

00:47 Owning a car is a pathway out of poverty for many Americans, including many people in my state.

00:53 And Biden's EV mandate will drive up the costs of those used vehicles.

00:59 It's delusional because the Biden administration has no plan for how we're going to generate the power needed

01:05 to be able to charge these cars or the transmission lines needed to transmit the energy from where it's being produced to where it's going to be needed.

01:14 And it's also delusional because this EV mandate will make us more dependent on the Chinese Communist Party,

01:20 who controls about 60 to 80 percent of all the critical minerals that are necessary to be able to make the batteries for EVs.

01:27 And they're leading us in this EV battery technology.

01:31 This is how crazy stupid this administration is.

01:35 They want to mandate EVs on the one hand, but they also want to attack any project that may allow us to be able to mine the minerals that we need to be able to create the batteries for EVs.

01:48 For example, EVs can use up to four times the amount of copper that a regular car uses.

01:54 At the same time, though, the Biden administration has blocked a road that would go to the Ambler Mining District in Alaska.

02:02 Ambler Mining District is one of the places that we have a lot of copper. It's a major copper deposit.

02:08 We need this copper, yet the Biden administration is blocking us from being able to get to it.

02:13 It makes no sense.

02:15 Another thing that makes no sense is an EV mandate that dramatically requires increasing our energy production and transmission on the one hand,

02:24 and then on the other hand, the Clean Power Plan 2.0, which is going to attack our energy production.

02:31 It's a classic example of bureaucrats gone wild.

02:34 It forces coal or gas generating plants, electric plants, to reduce up to 90 percent of their carbon emissions by the year 2039.

02:43 First, the Clean Power Plan 2.0 is illegal.

02:47 It explicitly is countering the Supreme Court's decision in West Virginia versus the EPA.

02:52 Second, the rule will stifle our industry, not only in Nebraska, but nationwide.

02:58 In Nebraska, 49 percent of our electricity comes from coal-fired plants.

03:04 It's the baseload generation that we have.

03:07 Nebraska actually ranks pretty high when it comes to renewable energy, at over 31 percent of our electricity coming from renewable energy,

03:14 but we still need that baseload.

03:16 Nebraska in 2022 also ranked number three nationwide for the most amount of industrial electricity customers of any state,

03:25 just ranked behind Texas and California with regard to those industrial consumers of electricity.

03:31 Fossil fuel plants generate about 60 percent of U.S. electricity nationwide,

03:37 and coal contributes about 16.2 percent of all the electricity in this country.

03:43 Under this rule, more than 78 percent of coal-powered plants would have to retire between the years 2028 and 2040,

03:51 and coal remains that primary source of electricity in 18 of our states.

03:56 Currently, a quarter of the existing 200 plants are scheduled to retire within the next five years.

04:02 We don't have enough new plants coming online to be able to replace the power that is coming offline.

04:08 This plan will close down the reliable and affordable fossil fuel plants, and American consumers will end up paying the price.

04:16 Again, for us in Nebraska, when you're driving up these costs, you're hurting our families,

04:20 and of course our businesses that create the jobs that allow families to be able to send their kids to school,

04:26 go on the family vacation, or so forth.

04:29 The EPA does not have the authority, the legal authority, to force a complete shift in energy production through bureaucratic fiat.

04:38 But the Biden administration doesn't care, and they're going ahead with it anyway.

04:42 The Biden administration's anti-energy agenda doesn't just stop there.

04:47 President Biden's imposed moratorium on new oil and gas leases is also an attack on our energy system.

04:54 The administration has slow-walked these permits for new construction and added new layers of bureaucracy that hinder job-creating energy projects.

05:05 Instead of supporting high-skill, high-wage jobs, this administration has prioritized the interests of coastal elites and radical environmentalists.

05:15 They would rather see fossil fuel plants closed and thousands of workers lose their jobs than stand up to these activists.

05:22 This appeasement of the far-left, radical environmentalist wing of the Democrat Party is wrong.

05:28 It must stop. We must reverse course.

05:31 We must have some common sense.

05:34 I'm here today to join my colleagues in standing up for American energy, for American workers, and for our way of life.

05:43 Together, we're going to do all we can to overturn this anti-energy agenda through Congressional Review Act legislation and other means.

05:53 We're going to support an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

05:57 We're going to continue to fight to make sure our workers remain employed, our communities remain prosperous, and our nation remains energy independent.

06:07 With that, thank you. Madam President, I yield my time.

Pete Ricketts Rails Against Biden's 'War On American Energy'

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