OPINION:
Over the past half-decade, Americans have seen rising energy prices, often forcing them to make tough decisions about what other goods and services they can afford. This should not be the norm. Hard-working families deserve access to abundant and reliable energy, giving them flexibility to invest their hard-earned savings in whatever they deem most important.
That goal is achievable, but not through unworkable electricity rate caps, green energy mandates, or data center moratoriums like we’ve seen proposed by blue-state governors.
In order to lower prices while securing our grid, I’ve released the POWER Act, draft legislation to provide the commonsense permitting reforms needed to bring baseload energy onto our grid while promoting innovation.
Right now, America’s permitting system is broken. Slow, burdensome and unpredictable review processes have produced an unreliable grid and higher costs for hard-working families. Our nation’s manufacturers have been forced to contend with longer construction timelines and higher project costs that put the United States at a competitive disadvantage.
In Democrat-run states, Renewable Portfolio Standards, which are effectively green energy mandates, undermine the reliability of the grid and raise costs for consumers. Meanwhile, federal and state regulations are forcing reliable power to shut down before replacements are ready, creating a reliability crisis. Layering on top of these challenges, supply chain constraints and equipment backlogs are also slowing the building of industrial projects America needs to compete.
The POWER Act addresses these issues by combining the commonsense permitting reforms that America needs into a single piece of legislation that cuts through red tape speeds up the construction of pipelines, power generation, and electric transmission.
This legislation contains three main pillars: producing energy, moving energy, and powering industry to build and grow.
Producing energy domestically is key to securing American energy dominance. From the outset of this Congress, our committee has focused on finding ways to generate the reliable and affordable power our communities need, through related hearings and legislation.
Last winter, we saw the consequences of relying on intermittent sources like wind and solar, when New England states were forced to burn trash to keep the lights on when other renewable sources failed to provide enough electricity.
The Power Plant Reliability Act would help to address this issue by empowering FERC to keep reliable power plants running for up to five years when retiring them would threaten the grid.
As we work to build our grid and meet America’s growing power demand, driven in part by the need to support data centers, the POWER Act includes the text of the Ratepayer Protection Act. This section builds on the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, under which Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI committed to covering their own data center energy costs, along with an additional group of signers such as utilities, regulators, and data center developers.
While developing the legislation, Committee members held hearings and meetings with numerous stakeholders, including the data center industry and Big Tech, state regulators, utilities, and community members. Through that work, it has become clear that across the entire industry there is one entity uniquely positioned to stand up for families, who are the ones paying electricity bills — and that is Congress.
Modernizing our nation’s infrastructure and building the pipelines needed to carry the oil and natural gas that provide baseload power are critical to lowering prices. That’s why this legislation includes the GRID Power Act, which would ensure that grid operators have the tools they need to secure the reliability of the electricity grid in the event there is a capacity shortfall by allowing them to prioritize what energy projects are being connected to the electric grid, allowing the best power sources to be used effectively.
Likewise, the Improving Interagency Coordination for Pipeline Reviews Act streamlines permitting for interstate natural gas pipelines at FERC, supporting the development of dispatchable natural gas to communities across the country.
The access to affordable and reliable power will be key as we work to increase domestic manufacturing and power innovative new technologies. For too long, burdensome regulations have stood in the way of projects that would help to deliver the energy we need.
That’s why the POWER Act includes steps to speed up the permitting process safely and effectively. The bill does this, in part, by streamlining the New Source Review permitting process for companies to upgrade facilities and install modern pollution controls without delays that lead to higher costs. Far too often, duplicative reviews slow down development while providing no tangible benefits to families. The RED Tape Act ends double reviews of projects by the Environmental Protection Agency if already vetted under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Together, these individual measures provide the basis for the permitting reform required to provide dispatchable, baseload power to American families. Permits that take years to acquire slow down development and raise prices on families and businesses. The POWER Act cuts through that red tape, helping to deliver the energy we need today.
• Rep. Brett Guthrie represents Kentucky’s 2nd Congressional District. Following his military service in the Army, Guthrie joined a Bowling Green-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.
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