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Public commenter urges technology-neutral, market-based approach to boost solar and wind
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Summary
During a public comment, a speaker criticized Senate Republicans for favoring fossil fuel interests, called 50 years of climate gridlock and said market-based, technology-neutral policies and existing renewable funding are needed to scale solar and wind.
Commenter, a public commenter, said during the meeting's public comment period that Senate Republicans have been favoring "big oil" interests at consumers' expense and urged a return to a technology-neutral, market-based approach to expand solar and wind energy. "The fact is the Republicans have been doing favors for their big oil buddies at the consumer's expense, and that is why a major reason why energy bills are going through the roof," the commenter said.
The commenter said the country endured "50 years worth of gridlock on climate," with "no pricing, no regulatory reform, no nothing," and described an alternative developed in the Senate Finance Committee as market-based and "technology neutrality." The speaker said that in recent years "hundreds of billions of dollars" were committed to increase renewable choices and argued those investments must be used to accelerate deployment now.
The speaker criticized recent actions by Senate Republicans, saying they sided with natural gas interests rather than preserving choice. "When the natural gas folks ' ' basically said, we'll take electrons if they're from Mars ... the Senate Republicans said, we're not for choices," the commenter said. The remark was framed as a concern that limiting options would not allow demand to be met and would slow adoption of lower-carbon technologies.
The commenter argued that, according to industry and other observers, the cheapest alternatives now are solar and wind and that those resources are needed "today in order to drive markets." The speaker asked for ideas from "Mr. Gramlich" about how to "resurrect a choice based system rather than one that just hands out the goodies to the big oil companies." The transcript does not indicate any formal response from meeting participants or that the body took action on the remarks.
The remarks occurred during public comment and do not reflect a formal position or vote by the meeting body. No motions, referrals, or direction to staff were recorded in the transcript related to these comments.
