California's Government-Mandated Power Outages Fuel Need for All-Above Energy Approach

Press Release

Many Americans are no strangers to the summer heat, particularly in August. As communities across the nation experience record-high temperatures, many families are working to stay cool without running up their utility costs, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, in California, citizens are also dealing with rolling power outages, leaving them without electricity and air conditioning because their state's government-mandated power outages.

California has prioritized unrealistic climate goals at the cost of the everyday wellbeing of its residents. By refusing to use anything other than renewable energy sources and completely ignoring other environmentally-friendly options like nuclear and natural gas, California has caused electricity costs for California residents to skyrocket and at least four recent government-mandated power outages. Because the demand for electricity rises just as the supply from solar diminishes in the evening, the state's absence of other energy sources has had a real impact on Californians as they struggle to keep their lights on.

Renewable energy sources are important, but we must be able to balance reducing emissions with everyday reliability of our utilities for American consumers. The way to power our communities is through an all-above energy approach. We must take advantage of all the tools in our toolkit -- including renewables, in addition to nuclear power, which is a zero-emission clean energy source that can deliver reliable electricity 24 hours a day. America's energy independence requires innovation and collaboration, not foolishly shying away from clean, safe sources of energy for political reasons.

Democrats are unfortunately using California as their prototype for a nationwide Green New Deal utopia, even though it took shutting down our economy entirely during COVID-19 to temporarily reach the United Nations' target of cutting emissions by 7.6 percent each year. Republicans and Democrats both want to reduce emissions, secure our electric grid, and ensure American leadership on the world stage for future generations. These are bipartisan priorities. Republicans have been at the table, ready to work with Democrats and offering practical solutions to update our energy infrastructure. However, Democrats have continued to instead work on their partisan, costly wishlists that have no chance at becoming law this year.

American families need a reliable electric grid to power their homes, and this Green New Deal mindset simply does not factor in the everyday lives of the American people. As E&C Republican Leader Greg Walden said earlier this year, "if you take down the electric grid, you take down everything." California continues to prove that factoring out all human costs at the expense of extreme climate goals is not a viable solution. We hope Speaker Pelosi hears this message from her home state and joins us in our pursuit of bipartisan solutions to bring results to American communities.

Source