House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee Chair Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Subcommittee Chair Bill Johnson (R-OH), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) sent an oversight letter today to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan demanding answers relating to EPA’s regulatory actions that are increasing risks to America's grid reliability and may lead to life-threatening blackouts.
This letter is a follow up to a previous letter sent last Congress, addressing these same concerns, to which the EPA did not provide sufficient answers. Committee Republicans, now with full oversight and investigative authorities of the Majority, are once again demanding EPA respond to their questions so the Committee can fully examine these dangerous grid security trends.
Excerpts and highlights from the letter:
“This past July, 26 Members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote to you seeking information concerning the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) electric generating unit (EGU) strategy. The strategy is designed to drive the Biden administration’s climate agenda by setting onerous regulations on electric power generating units, particularly coal-fired and gas-fired EGU’s. Our records indicate you have provided no substantive response to the information requested in the letter.
“Since that request, the electric reliability crisis has worsened. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) long-term reliability assessment released this past December shows escalating reliability risks across large regions of the nation. The nation’s largest grid operator, the PJM Interconnection, released a report in February noting that the current pace of retirements of dispatchable EGU’s, mainly coal- and gas-fired generation, may outpace the addition of new resources onto the bulk power system. The PJM report cites three specific EPA policies that are leading contributors to this challenge, Coal Combustion Residuals regulation, Effluent Limitations Guidelines, and the Good Neighbor Rule (also known as the Interstate Transport Rule).
“Every American depends on reliable, affordable electric service, and government policies must be aligned towards that goal. However, as these reports indicate, EPA regulations and plans are doing just the opposite; they are directly contributing to the electric reliability crisis we have experienced across the country the past few years.
“To understand the implications of EPA’s actions, the Committee seeks to examine the impacts of EPA’s EGU strategy. Accordingly, and pursuant to Rule X and XI of the U.S. House of Representatives, please answer all the questions posed in the attached letter dated July 12, 2022, updated to include all actions up until present, as well as respond to the below requests all no later than May 1, 2023.
- Provide all comments EPA has submitted to any Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) docket since January 1, 2018.
- Provide all comments EPA has submitted to any Department of Energy (DOE) docket since January 1, 2018.
- Provide all letters EPA has written to the FERC or DOE since January 1, 2018.
- Provide all EPA assessments, including internal assessments, of the impact of its EGU related regulatory agenda on the generation mix.”
Original source can be found here