It takes energy to move commerce

OPINION:

Former Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., used to say: “If it moves, it’s energy, and if it doesn’t, it’s commerce.” Chairman Dingell was right; but my corollary would be that it takes energy to move commerce.

Time and time again, we’ve seen that producing affordable and reliable energy leads to greater innovation, a strong economy, and family-sustaining jobs.

As chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, I’m committed to ensuring we harness our nation’s resources to generate significant increases in baseload, dispatchable power to lower prices, secure our grid, and restore our nation’s energy dominance.

To accomplish these goals, we will need to adopt sound and thoughtful policies that encourage investment and promote innovation across our energy industry.

For the past four years under the Biden-Harris Administration, we saw energy policies that shut down new oil and natural gas exploration, created taxpayer-funded bailouts to wind and solar projects that failed to meet our energy demand, and depleted the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that made our nation less safe.

The increasing strain on our electric grid has the potential to cripple American communities, and the failure to provide reliable power specifically through coal, natural gas, hydropower, and nuclear energy threatens to jeopardize the growth and abundance that our economy can provide if we’re willing to meet the moment.

Across the Atlantic, we’ve seen the consequences of turning away from natural gas and nuclear energy. Europe’s energy crisis was avoidable and even predictable.

But with that knowledge, it’s important that we work quickly to bring more dispatchable power online to ensure that rolling blackouts and brownouts do not become a common occurrence across the country as they already have in states like California.

Our committee has already passed legislation to address our nation’s energy demands. Last month, President Trump signed a Congressional Review Act resolution to end the Waste Emissions Charge (WEC) put in place by President Joe Biden in November. The WEC was a tax on natural gas that would have imposed heavy burdens on operators across the energy supply chain, increasing our dependence on foreign energy sources and raising prices for American families.

Attempting to levy this tax at a time when we are already seeing the premature retirement of energy resources and greater demands being put on our electric grid was irresponsible, and I’m proud that our committee was able to work with President Trump to ensure this tax did not take effect. But this is not enough.

To keep our nation at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, we must bring massive amounts of new energy online over the next decade. Developing and deploying AI at scale will require doubling or even tripling our electricity load growth by 2028.

An AI data center is effectively converting energy into intelligence and at a scale we’ve never before experienced. This calls for transformative approaches to producing affordable and reliable electricity.

The Committee on Energy and Commerce has already held numerous hearings on increasing energy availability, supporting our grid, and examining implications for the AI economy. What we have repeatedly heard from grid operators is that the U.S. grid is out of balance and we are in desperate need of more on-demand, dispatchable generation.

A dynamic, innovative, and prolific energy industry has driven generations of growth and prosperity for our country. From oil and gas in Texas and Ohio to nuclear power in Georgia and South Carolina to coal in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, our country has been blessed with abundant natural resources and the world-changing technology needed to harness those resources.

In the weeks ahead, my committee will continue to move legislation that supports our grid, helps to supply the energy needed to win the race for AI, and restores our nation to energy dominance. The American people have given us an opportunity to refocus our energy policy in a way that lifts our communities instead of holding them back. I am proud to be at the forefront of an effort that unites so much of this country, and I am confident that by unleashing American energy, we can unleash the American dream.

• Rep. Brett Guthrie represents Kentucky’s 2nd congressional district. Following his military service in the Army, Guthrie joined a Bowling Green, Kent., based manufacturing business that was started by his father and represented the 32nd district in the Kentucky Senate. Guthrie was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 and serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.