Op-Ed: Julie Fedorchak: A new era of U.S. energy dominance begins
We can’t be a beacon of strength for the world — and we certainly can’t be a leader of new energy technologies — if we are sitting in the dark without power, incoming Rep. Julie Fedorchak warns.
Few people in America understand how vulnerable our power grid is today. Two-thirds of America is at risk of not having enough power to meet demand. They could be sitting in a dark room wondering what to do next, at the mercy of a long line of leaders who didn’t do their jobs.
We all can agree that in a nation blessed with energy resources of all types that we should never be without power. Fortunately, my state of North Dakota is well positioned to cover our needs thanks to our diverse and innovative energy industry and leaders who have fought hard to advance and protect it. But America as a whole is on the edge. Truly, our nation is committing energy suicide.
The problem is that much of our energy policy is driven by advocates — not by scientists or by engineers. This is threatening our economy, our families, and our national security.
For my state, the stakes are high. More than half of our state revenues and nearly 60,000 jobs hang in the balance of our national energy policies. The forces coming against our coal, oil, and natural gas industries are attacking at every angle: insurance, financing, and mountains of federal regulations.
The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unleashed a deluge of rules that pose a huge threat to the reliability and affordability of the power our families, businesses and communities depend on for our lives and livelihoods.
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule, for example, directly targets North Dakota’s lignite coal industry, establishing new performance standards that are not achievable while producing, by the EPA’s own data, no health benefits to the public. This regulation alone is a direct assault on our state’s coal industry and jeopardizes the lignite-fired power plants that are a vital source of reliable and affordable power for 2 million customers in the Midwest.
The EPA also finalized a rule governing greenhouse gas emissions that requires all existing coal and any new gas-powered generation in this nation to have operational carbon capture and storage systems (CCS) by 2032. With the reliability threats that exist today on our nation’s grid and the massive increase in projected power demand for U.S. manufacturing and data processing, we must maintain our existing generating facilities and add a lot of new generation — as fast as possible. This EPA rule makes both of those prospects very unlikely.
It also proves that the EPA is completely disconnected from the science, engineering, physics, and math that govern the operation of our modern electric grid. North Dakota is working to prove out the CCS technology, but it isn’t commercially viable at scale yet. Requiring its use on the very facilities we need to keep our system stable promises to slow down investment when we need it the most. The rules also do virtually nothing to reduce the global CO2 emissions they are intended to address.
It’s time for the United States to be the world leader on this. We will reduce emissions simply by bringing manufacturing jobs to the US. And feeding the AI industry’s insatiable appetite for power with homegrown U.S. energy will have a massive long-term impact on controlling global GHG emissions. It’s common sense and it’s what Americans have elected us to do.
The Biden administration’s policies drive up energy costs for families who are already suffering from the burdens of inflation. And these policies threaten the reliability of the energy systems that provide the backbone for our economy, communities, and way of life.
On November 5, Americans said enough is enough.
We must start getting energy policy right in this country. Donald Trump understands this and confirmed his commitment to American energy security by making his EPA administrator pick one of his first announcements. As North Dakota’s sole representative in Congress, I cannot wait to be an ally for President Trump’s America First energy policies, and a leader in the House on energy.
A resounding victory for President Donald Trump, along with sweeping victories in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, empower us to usher in an era of energy dominance that our country has never seen and that our constituents so deeply deserve. We can’t be a beacon of strength for the world — and we certainly can’t be a leader of new energy technologies — if we are sitting in the dark without power.
Julie Fedorchak is the Congresswoman-Elect for North Dakota.
